my FIRST period

a little story I came through while surfing gurl.com . Just a little humour story. Can skip if you want.

-a true story by Karell Roxas-

The maxi pad was folded into itself in thirds. My mom unfolded it to show me how to put one on. "You take the adhesive strip off," she said, "and then put this part onto your underwear." She was holding a clean pair of panties, inside out, and the maxi pad fit perfectly into it. "Here, now you try and practice."

I was 10 and my mom could have been speaking in Martian. I had no idea what I was doing, or why I was doing it. She had called me into the bathroom and said, rather mysteriously, "I think it's time I showed you something." I thought it would be something cool, like a hideous birthmark or an extra toe, but no.

I mean, I knew what a period was. I knew that all ladies had it--that they bled for a certain number of days--and that sometimes their stomach hurt. But I didn't know what that had to do with me.

Until one day, some time during the summer, I woke up and there was dark red blood all over my underwear. Did I hurt myself? I thought. Do I have a cut? What is going on here?

My mom was at work. My grandparents were home, but there was no way I could talk to them about this. I mean--come on--grandma's old, what if I showed it to her and she keeled over?

So I did the only thing I knew to do. I changed my underwear. I hoped that maybe the bleeding was temporary and it would go away if I just stopped thinking about it. I went about my day like normal. I ate some lunch, read some books, watched some tv.

Every time I went to the bathroom I changed my underwear. The bleeding wasn't stopping and I was worried that there might be something horribly wrong with me. If I'm losing all this blood, could I die? I wondered.

I hid the underwear in the bottom of the laundry bag. I didn't want my mom finding the underwear and know that I was dying. She would be worried. I must have changed my underwear at least 7 times that day.

And then, my mom came home from work. She looked at me and immediately knew something was up. "What's wrong?" she said. I started to cry. I didn't know how I was going to break it to her that I was bleeding to death.

"There's blood in my underwear and I have no idea why," I bawled at her. Her eyes lit up in this knowing way and her voice changed. She spoke softly, "Does your stomach hurt?" Now that I thought of it, yeah. It had been hurting all day.

She took me into the bathroom and sat me on the toilet, "You have your period," she said, "You're becoming a woman."

My period?? THAT'S what it was? How did I miss that? And whoa--what's all this becoming a woman stuff?

My mom kept talking, "Your body's going to start changing. When a woman gets her period, it means that her body is getting ready to bear children."

Children?

"This doesn't mean that you'll have children now," she said, "it just means that you'll be ready for it in the future."

I was so happy I wasn't dying that I didn't even care about the rest of the stuff. She handed me clean underwear with a pad already in it and told me to put it on. Then she showed me how to wash the blood off my underwear so it wouldn't stain.

"What did you do all day?" she asked. I took her to the laundry bag and showed her all the underwear I had hidden. She laughed and told me that I could have called her. I looked at her a little sheepish and didn't say anything.

My mom treated me nicely all the rest of that day. I laid down in her bed to watch tv, and she ordered my brother and sister to leave me alone and not bother me. I could get used to this period stuff...

THE END

- the first time I too freaked but I knew I wasn't going to die.