I Got My Period! a Story About My First Experience with the Menstrual Cycle

I remember vividly the first time I got my period. I was fourteen years old, having recently finished eighth grade and preparing to start ninth grade (AKA my first year of high school). I had been waiting for my period, thinking it would come but it never did. All my friends got theirs before mine. I felt like it may never happen. Even though I knew it had to - it's called biology, right?

That summer, I was going on a mission trip with my church youth group to Cherokee, NC. We were going to help paint the church on the Cherokee reservation, among other things. I asked my mom to buy some pads, because I had a really bad feeling that my first period would come while I was gone. She reassured me, but bought a pack for me to bring anyway.

We were in the church van, driving down from Virginia to North Carolina, and we made a lunch stop at a fast food place. I took the opportunity to use the facilities, and was surprised to see blood in my underwear. "That can't be my period," I said to myself. "I don't even feel anything!" Stupidly, I didn't use a pad, or do anything about it at the time.

We got to the campground and as we were unpacking, I admitted to one of my roommates that I thought I got my period. She said she was on hers too. I asked if it was her first one, but she said no. I admitted to her that it was my first one. I felt embarrassed, but I realized that it was something we women eventually had to experience. The funny thing was that almost everyone in our cabin got their period that week!

Thanks to my period, I couldn't swim the entire week. I also experienced my first cramps - I remember sitting in church service, listening to the choir sing in Cherokee, and trying to ignore the pain in my abdomen. I hadn't realized what people meant by cramps until that morning. "And I wanted to get my period?" I laughed.

Even though it was a hassle (and still can be to this day, over a decade later), I had an epiphany that week. My body now had the ability to bear children. I was in awe when I came to that realization. I don't have children now, though I would eventually like to, but it was an interesting concept to me at fourteen years old.

The body is an amazing thing, what it can do. What it can handle. I think it's so neat that human life can be borne from another human life. The miracle of life, as they say.

But it doesn't mean I have to like my period.