One beautiful day of the fourth standard, my mother came with my favourite food, and it was no special occasion, so I asked her why this? She said to me, will you promise me one thing. I immediately started wondering about the possibilities of the promise that my mom is going to take from me, the best I could think like an 11-year-old was “She must ask me to study hard”. To my surprise, she said, “Whenever you will have blood discharge from your vagina, you will come and inform me, or if you are in school, then you will tell your teacher”. I was amazed to hear blood from vagina thing because blood has always been a scary thing for me, so obviously, my next question was, Why will I have blood in my Vagina. She said I would answer this question when you keep your promise of telling me of your blood discharge. I was a momma’s girl back then, so I agreed to it.
After three years, I was learning a dance for my cousin brother’s wedding. Suddenly I felt the need to go to the washroom, and it took me by surprise that I had blood all over my underwear, I panicked, but it struck me that mom asked me to inform her of this situation, so I went and told her. She said now I am going to answer your question and teach you a few things.
At first, she gave me a pad; I asked do we have to eat it? She said no. She then brought brand new underwear and started to explain how to fix a pad to the underwear, and after doing that she instructed me to go to the washroom and wear it, I did. After that, she started to explain that this vaginal blood discharge is known as periods and every girl in the world has to face it, it has a beginning which you are facing and is known as menstruation. It also has an end which comes in the late 40s or early 50s which is known as menopause. She even explained that to be able to become a mother in future, every girl must be menstruating. She then said you would get it every month on the same date or two days up or down and it will last a minimum of 3 days and maximum depends upon your hormone; usually, it’s 5.
I took everything very calmly, but I had a question that why didn’t you tell me this earlier, she said: I did not want you to panic thinking about it. Also wanted to give you some tips when you are actually in the situation, so you understand it very well.
Still, my sister came and explained to me that it is nothing, after a month or two you will get ideally into the schedule, and it will be a part of your life like brushing teeth. She gave me an advice “Periods are a part of every women’s life, don’t ever feel ashamed of telling people that you are on your periods if such a situation comes. Never use periods as an excuse for skipping the work”.
So, I realize it was a gratifying method of explaining someone about periods. I’ve shared this experience with my 12-year-old niece.