Before we begin,
...you should know a little about me and why I'm here.
I'm Lizzy, and I' glad you're here.
The inspiration for this project came from my own life and my walk toward knowing more about my body. Specifically, my abnormal periods, lack of knowledge, and desire for answers led me to look to others to see if I was alone. Spoiler: I'm not. But let’s start at the beginning.
A week after I was born, my mother went back to the hospital. What they found was endometriosis from who knows how long ago. There was a football-sized clot in her abdomen, and by the time they removed it, it was the size of a volleyball. Doesn’t seem all that comfy. Due to this, she had a hysterectomy, removing her uterus and ovaries.
No uterus, no period. No sisters, no talking about it. Don't get me wrong, my mother didn’t hide things from me. We spoke freely about anything and everything. But since I simply wasn’t around women with menstrual cycles, it didn't come up.
Flash forward to seventh and eighth grade. I’ve heard middle school is the time when it is a hush-hush subject. Some girls have it, but no one knows. Tampons are hidden in hoodie sleeves, and saying a word about it to boys or--even worse, teachers!—was totally embarrassing!
Or so I’m told. My theory is, since I didn’t go through this period of needing to hide my period, I can feel unpressured and normal. As normal as random bleeding gets, I guess.
However, there may be a self-inflicted reason I got my period six years after my mother got hers. The body is all connected like a well-oiled machine. Well, I was doing some great harm to my maturing body by restricting food. I didn’t mean to, it just happened. The subject of eating disorders could get me going for ages, but I’ll keep it brief.
Body weight plays a large role in ovulation or lack thereof. If your body doesn’t have enough stored energy to produce a baby, it won’t let that happen. And if your nutrients are depleted, systems that aren’t geared strictly toward survival are the first to shut down.
In the first half of high school, this malnourishment was hidden by the fact that I was a gymnast. Gymnasts are known to have oligomenorrhea due to low body fat percentages. Because of this, no one batted an eye to my abnormality. Compare my freshman year pictures with my senior portrait.
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Olligomenhorrea [noun]:
the medical term for infrequent* menstruation
*infrequent = less than six times per year
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Gymnasts aren't the only ones who can hide behind their identity as an athlete. Any sport that has high physical demands and/or causes a woman to have a low BMI (standing for Body Mass Index, basically saying what percentage of your weight is fat) can easily restrain women's periods. As I mentioned earlier, eating disorders also play a role in this. And lucky, teenage me, both being an athlete and not eating sufficiently were factors in not menstruating.
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Thankfully, gymnastics did not impact me negatively because of it. I continued to compete in the sport I love until I graduated high school, and I am still involved as a coach.
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Fast-forward to today. Since I was 17, I’ve worked to stay at a healthy weight and regulate my disordered eating habits. However, am 21 years old and still dealing with long, irregular cycles.
Coming up on getting married, I decided to get checked out. After speaking with a trusted gynecologist, I got an ultrasound. Everything was normal. I got my blood drawn and five hormone labs tested. I was normal there, too.
So why is my cycle so irregular?
This is my mystery, the cause for my research. I feel left in the dark, not just about my current issues, but about my reproductive biology in general. Not only did I not know what was going on to cause irregularity, but I didn't know what was supposed to happen naturally. The hidden inner workings of my reproductive system were a complete mystery to me. Then I got thinking...
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Am I the only one?
Nope.
The most important thing I've learned during my research is that this lack of knowledge is widespread. While my cycle is abnormal, my understanding of it may not be. Young women around the world experience negative feelings such as shame, embarrassment, and feeling left in the dark. While different cultures view menses from different perspectives, there is plenty of research on how girls are taught about their bodies.
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If you feel this way, too, you're in good company. I am not the first person to raise awareness about this issue. There are informative podcasts, studies, and programs aiming to help women understand their--our--bodies.
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This project is all about what I didn't know, how I learned it, and why it is important for all women--not just those with oligomenorrhea--to be aware of their reproductive system.
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So, are you coming?
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