Congratulations!

If you are reading this, then that would mean that you saw the title and were curious as all heck why my daughter would be ovulating. Or rather, you could have just been curious about your own daughter’s first foray into womanhood. You could have given your daughter speeches till you both had gone red in the face about getting your period, but no large or small amount of preparation can ready you for when the time comes. I’m going to go into a small rant in the coming paragraphs, and I would love it if you’d join me on my take on this complicating, emotional journey of a first time parent of a young girl heading into womanhood.

Let’s start off by saying, “Preparing beforehand is not all it’s cracked-up to be.” I made sure my daughter saw the books, took the classes, and even stocked up ahead of time on all those “teen” sanitary napkins and liners. However, I wasn’t prepared for the moment she yelled for me from the upstairs bathroom. I run upstairs, more than prepared to hear that she had a stomach ache or that she was in need of toilet paper. Those things I can handle. Instead, I open the bathroom door and look at my daughter’s pale face and soiled underwear.

Oh, boy.

I know I saw blood. I also saw that my daughter looked scared and curious and very, very pale. I still couldn’t process that she was on her period. Either way, I told her ‘congratulations, you’re now a young woman,' showed her how to wash her panties and that we’d talk when she came downstairs. I looked incredibly cool, calm, and collected. Inside, I most definitely was not. Who in their right mind is prepared to tell their kid that they are now going to bleed a lot and not to worry that the amount of blood they shed would not cause them harm? NHS says “The average amount of blood lost during a period is 30 to 40 millilitres (ml), with 9 out of 10 women losing less than 80ml. Heavy menstrual bleeding is considered to be 60ml or more in each cycle.” Even then, for you to go into hemorrhagic shock, a person must lose at least 750 ml or more of blood.

So now that you know your child is on her period, you try to answer their questions and begin to memorize the stats. My daughter began asking me questions like ‘why don’t we die if we bleed so much and who said we needed to bleed every month?’ If you’re religious, then you probably answered by reiterating that this is a time that is a natural occurrence of God’s creation, or if you are a part of a different religion where a menstrual cycle is equated to being impure or unclean than you probably answered with a more extreme reaction. If you aren’t, then you probably answered like any other woman out there that has lived with severe cramps and bloating, and heavy periods—it’s the Crimson Curse.

But, by now you are wondering, what does this have to do with ovulating? My daughter received spouts of bleeding, and she did a lot of complaining. I did my fair share of rubbing her tummy and getting her hot packs for a few painful rounds of the menses, but then one day, she dropped a bigger bombshell on me. We went to go out to eat, and she tells me that now she’s getting large amounts of clear, stretchy mucous-like discharge. When your daughter first gets her period, you will notice that they might not always be regular and may fluctuate between light and heavier flows. This is normal. On Anatomy for Kids Dr. Shelley Metten says “It takes a little time for the brain and the ovaries to get their timing organized together.”

Until they do, ovulation cannot occur.

However, such is not the case for me. After about four months of her sporadic cycle, my daughter began showing more consistent signs and now this new discharge. As we waited for our group to be called to a table, I explained to my daughter in a quiet corner of the restaurant that she was now releasing eggs and could get pregnant if she became sexually active. This topic stirred up a whole new slough of weirdness because she became excited about the prospect of one day becoming a mother. I was more scared of the fact that she might go off and do naughty things just to experience that. Thoughts that made me sick to my stomach filtered through my mind like movie reels. I feared bile would rise and my knees would no longer support my weight as the clock ticked by ever so slowly on the nearby wall.

But, then I looked closely at my daughter’s face, and I realized that she was just as scared as me. She didn’t want to go off and get pregnant or share with her girlfriends that she was now a little woman. My daughter wanted her mom to guide her through this weird time in her life and support her as she navigated these confusing moments. The bond we shared together couldn’t be taught ahead of time, nor did it come from a book. I thought other parents out there with a little girl on the verge of becoming a little woman might like to know that it helps to prepare yourself, but the best you can do for your child is support and guide them. And that, ladies and gentlemen, we don’t learn from the books.

We learn it by experiencing it and doing it ourselves.