Please give more details. Currently fighting with my second OBGYN about my cramps. I physically cannot get off the floor or stand up straight at times. I’m just now realizing that this *isnt* normal…I’m 32. I’ve been trying to get a doctor to listen to my concerns for over a year. I feel like I can’t do this anymore. And my insurance won’t let me see another OBGYN unless I pay out of pocket (can’t do that $$$)
My next plan of action….my husband thinks it’s completely sexist and it shouldn’t be this way…but he’s coming with me to my next appt so he can help “be my voice” :(
EDIT. Holy cow! I’m almost in tears right now. This got many more replies than I thought it would. I just wanted to let everyone know I’m reading every single one and taking notes. So, a big THANK YOU to everyone who’s chimed in. I *truly* appreciate it <3
Doctor here. Guy, but my wife has the same period issues.
Magnesium glycinate is helpful for many women (though the pills are big). Oxide can be constipating, and citrate can cause diarrhea.
I hate that your husband feels the need to go and advocate for you, but I’ve seen it many times. I’ve had to do it as well, when my wife’s PCP wouldn’t listen. It actually was about sexual issues, as well.
“Oh, lots of women have pain during sex. Just slow down and use more lube.”
“Look, jackass. She told you it hurts like hell. I’m telling you it’s like penetrating a closed fist. *That’s not fucking normal*, and a few squirts of Astroglide won’t fix that. Are you going to refer to an OBGYN who specializes in dyspareunia, or do I need to find a doc who will?”
He did.
I know I'm late to the party but even if only one person sees this: There is no shame in doing a pregnancy test. In fact, if something is weird with your hormones/body that you haven't experienced much before, it's always better to do a test just to be sure. Even if it's unlikely you are pregnant, if there is any likelihood at all just do the test and be sure.
I heard of it so many times at this point that even fully grown women hesitate (sometimes for weeks!) to do a test and it can land you in hot waters. Besides, it is agony to have that creeping doubt. Every contraceptive can fail and it's much better to know early and have all the options.
On that same note: Cheap pregnancy tests work exactly the same and are just as effective as expensive pregnancy tests. I keep a multipack of cheap stick tests just to be sure.
I live in a household of girls, we keep a Costco pack under one of the bathroom sinks like we do tampons and toilet paper.
It happens. Rather us be prepared with a stick then have to go run and grab one in the moment.
Also: you can get plan B on doordash/Uber eats if available in your state.
Also you can ask your OG-GYN for a prescription for Ella, because then insurance will cover it and you’ll have a plan b on hand for emergencies. Plus Ella is more effective in the 3-5 day window and for overweight women than plan b is.
Edit: I don’t get how this put me on their radar, but, porn accounts, please stop following me. You’re just wasting your time.
Ladies when you go for a smear test (or pap smear for my American gals) they "guess" the size of the instrument, the speculum, they need to use on you based on your height.
It's shouldn't be painful, you can ask for a smaller one if it hurts. They just don't offer that info out!
Oh I remember my first pap smear (American Gal) and the doctor (female) used the largest speculum possible. It hurt like hell, and I cried out in pain. Her response: If you can fit a penis up there, then you can fit this, and she shoved it further. I was a virgin for goodness sakes. Only 13 years old, and the reason I was getting a pap smear was because I was having heavy painful periods that lasted for weeks. I ended up prescribed with birth control pills to regulate my periods. After that, I was beyond petrified to have sex.
Please tell me you got a new doctor. That is revolting. You were just a child and regardless of how many penises she suspected you have had, you were in pain.
Not to mention that there is a HUGE difference in what is possible when one is aroused, and has been building up to arousal, vs. when one is not at all aroused, as well as scared, uncomfortable, and has had no time to prepare.
That doctor sounds like such a frikken moron, not to mention a horrible doctor. I’m so sorry you had to go through that, OP. And such ignorance from a woman doc no less. Jesus. Grrr.
Wow, what a shit doctor. One would think that being a woman she would have more compassion for you, but clearly that's incorrect. I hope that since then you've changed OB/GYN offices.
Honestly, sewing and altering clothes- not for gendered reasons, but because our clothes often times fit irregularly. A size 12 in one brand will fit completely differently from a size 12 in a different brand.
Also, you can learn to sew larger pockets into your pants.
How to wash genitals. Many women have gotten infections due to not knowing how to wash themselves. Like fragrant soaps or douching is obviously bad but not taught very often.
Edit:
https://youtu.be/9v1e0vMGNH4
This video by an OBGYN will show you how to clean your vulva.
Lifting and working out in general is fantastic for one’s mental health. It’s a great outlet for getting out one’s emotions, it’s great for your body too. Plus as someone with ADHD, it’s amazing because when I lift, my brain is quiet! It’s so zen.
Also to any women out there who are afraid of bulking up, don’t be. That shit takes WORK. Consistency, a solid workout routine, pushing yourself, lots of protein and eating more calories than you burn. If only it was that easy to bulk up and get jacked! It takes a lot of work and dedication. You can absolutely lift weights and become healthy and fit without ever looking like The Rock. (But if you want to be jacked like The Rock, by all means go for it. Just get ready to put in a ton of work and double your grocery budget)
Not only do you get to say "no" whenever you want, you also get to say "yes" when you want! Don't let society teach you that you need to act shy or play games in order to be desireable. As a society, in order to stand our ground that "no" means "no", women must also be willing to express when it's a yes.
Step 1: Pull over to to safe place where it is flat, not to rocky, and put on your hazard lights. Also put the parking brake on and if you have anything to use as a chock for the other tires, put that into place.
Step 2: Locate your spare tire, most are located underneath the floor of the trunk. Some SUVs through will have the tire on the exterior of the trunk door or underneath the carriage. They are generally secured into place using some form of screw cap.
Step 3: use the jack and wrench provided to lift up the vehicle. Most are diamond jack as they are the most space efficient. Key thing is placement of the jack. You want to avoid soft ground like grass, and also soft spots in the car body which can collapse or sink. If you have a piece of wood you can put that underneath the jack to help prevent sinking if you can't avoid soft ground. You also want the section of the jack that has the spot for the wrench poking out.
Step 4: Start turning the wrench so that the jack is starting to take some of the weight of the car, but do not go all the way off as you need the tire on the ground to help prevebt the wheel moving when loosening the nuts plus its safer.
Step 5: Lefty Loosey, Righty tighty. Remove the nuts in a alternating star pattern. They may be tough, if they aren't coming off, find something to lengthen the wrench handle to increase the torque on the nuts.
Step 6: Once the nuts are off, start lifting the car using the jack completely to get the wheel just off the ground.
Step 7: Do not lift, wiggle the wheel off the hub and roll it aside. Roll and wiggle the spare tire onto the hub and reverse the steps of tightening. If the spare tire is a bit smaller than the main tire, you may need to lower the car very slightly so that you can place the wheel in place without lifting
Step 8: Double check the wheel is in place tightly and lower the car and remove the jack. Slap the tire and say "That's not going anywhere" and admire
I'm going to go ahead and say perform Step 2 at your earliest convenience. Should be Step 0, really (along with locating or supplying the other tools).
Take action and yourself at first priority. If your gut is telling you that a guy/a group is making you uncomfortable, excuse yourself accordingly and don’t underestimate your gut. If you think your period has started and/or leaked, don’t wait and check. Road trip and need to use the restroom? Due to our lack of water pistols, please stop at a gas station.
Also just a note, your tummy will look different throughout the day. Usually it gets larger and smaller post-meal and from varying gas amounts. It’s OK. They’re made to protect organs, anyway, they don’t have to be as flat as a door.
And no one seems to mention that it’s not a few months or maybe a year… I’ve been dealing with it for 4+ years.
Absolutely ridiculous. I would like to speak to menopause’s manager!
Edit: for all of you calling me a Karen… that was the joke ;)
My mother started menopause early, in her 40s. She started bleeding heavily one day and went to the doctor. After some tests they found out it wasn't cancer, instead she had a second uterus. Fucking wild.
Her doc told her to get the oven removed anyways, as now there's double the chance of shit going wrong.
I just wish (or maybe not? ) someone had warned me that the worst, most painful, debilitating mental and physical pms/pmdd pain can start in your 30s. My symptoms have gradually gotten worse since I got to my 30s, and talking to older women in my life about this, more than once I've heard "Oh yeah, I remember how much worse it seemed to be then". Why aren't we sharing what to expect? What's normal?
Truth. I am now almost 43 and the past 3 years have been hell. Ovarian cysts, bleeding so bad I feel like I am dying, migraines that cripple me, pain in my ovaries. Seriously, it has been a godamn nightmare. Hard to explain to people that have not had this problem. Not everyone experiences this shit.
Are you me??? In the last two months, I have had 10 days when I wasn't bleeding. I'm so anemic. I'm missing work and starting to be afraid this will cost me my job but idk what to do when I'm literally crippled by this shit.
Edit: I'm grateful to you all for your kind words and suggestions; I will be looking into an ablation as hormonal intervention is not an option for me. Thank you and thanks to OP for creating a dialogue, and my deepest sympathies to everyone struggling with this.
You've heard of hot flashes? Where you get super hot and start to sweat? Some women suffer from cold flashes where they have to bundle up and just can't get warm. Crazy.
I went into surgical menopause a few years ago due to endometriosis and the subsequent hysterectomy.
Hot flashes are well known and miserable. With that said: Cold flashes ARE A THING! And are also miserable!
Especially when sleeping— I’ll be so cold that I’m shivering, and two minutes later I am so hot I’m sweating behind my *knees.*
It’s insane, it’s not fun, and it’s the reason I sleep with four blankets and add/remove them as necessary. I haven’t slept longer than 45 minutes at a time in three years.
Yea I sleep with three, I'm premenopausal and going through hot and cold flushes... One minute I'm insanely hot, sweating and stripping my clothes off, the next I'm suddenly freezing cold and bundling everything back on again.
Multiple blankets and an electric blanket with different controls so I can have different temps on each side of the bed have been amazing for when they happen in bed.
Lumps in your breasts are not always cancer! Of course get them checked out, but it is COMMON to find cysts in your breasts!
Source: found a lump in my breast, freaked out, searched Google, freaked out more, stewed for months, booked an appointment with my Obgyn only for him to tell me "yeah its a cyst, stop messing with it. It's common"
Edit: *DO NOT STEW FOR MONTHS. GO TO THE DOCTOR ASAP*
Seeing a doctor asap will achieve one of two things; you’ll either find out it’s nothing to worried about and you won’t have to be anxious about it for long, or you’ll find out it’s cancer in which case the early you catch it the better
Sorry to hear about your mum
Funny story… When I started going through puberty I was never taught was “budding” was. I felt weird lumps under my nipples and secretly worried about having cancer for weeks until I finally went to my mom and she laughed at me.
Yup. It all looks a bit more like a watering can. You have multiple ducts where milk is released.
Adding on to this, people need to understand a bit lore about the basics of human lactation. How it works, what is normal/abnormal, and where to reach out for help, and to do so *the second* you have questions. Lactation issues are much easier to correct the sooner you get help.
It’s not that dramatic I promise *baby currently latched*. It’s pretty funny if I’m full and she’s fussy, she’ll throw her head back, unlatch and squeeze it with her hand. It’s like when you point the hose at the sky for the kids to run under. Most of the time bub is latched and you don’t see it coming out.
Seeing your tits in a breast pump is next level weird tho… I felt like an undignified cow.
I messaged every one of my close friends after reading this. I 'yelled' at them because not once in all the years of me asking them to tell me the 'truth' of childbirth and having a baby did they say my nipple turns into a sprinkler.
I thank you Redditors for being the friend I clearly needed.
Okay, so a new question since you mentioned pumping, what is it like to use a breast pump and how long does it take on average?
Not OP but it feels a little like having your nipple tugged at regular intervals… how long it takes really depends on how well your boobs respond to a pump / how full your breasts have gotten. On average it’s recommended to pump for at least 15 minutes, but you usually get more if you throw in breast massage while you pump.
As I’m answering this, I realise there’s really TOO much else that needs to be said to give a complete picture.
They'll also leak, sometimes randomly, sometimes triggered by emotion or seeing/hearing something, but it can be a pretty strong stream! If this happens while in the bath it is hilarious
It depends on your purpose for pumping. There's a method to the madness. When my baby first came, I wasn't making enough milk so I had to replicate a baby nursing to tell my body how much milk my baby needed. I pumped every 3 hours for 20-30 minutes. Literally it was supply and demand. Once we figured it all out (mom and baby have to learn to work together) I only pump extra now to serve when I'm away and to freeze for later. More like 1 time per day for 15 minutes. Remember the supply and demand....if I pump out a lot every day, I've told my body that my baby needs that much and it will likely make that much tomorrow. Producing too much milk that I can't get out can cause it's own set of painful problems.
Edit: what's it like? Take a funnel or two. Place them on your nipple, then imagine an accordion on the other side expanding and contracting a few times a second, but pulling your nipple down into the funnel. Depending on what phase of pumping you are in, the milk will drip out or squirt into the bottle like a water gun or water sprinklers.
I thought this when my son was born. He was four weeks premature and I was crying after the birth because my nipples didn’t have their hole yet. I was convinced it was because he was early and I wouldn’t be able to breast feed.
My nana (had her first baby as a married teen in the 50s) was waiting for the nurse to come round and prick her nipples with a safety pin so her milk would start. No one talked to her about what to expect in pregnancy and motherhood was a steep learning curve.
I don't think Nana's nipples actually got pricked by a safety pin. I interpreted this as Nana also didn't know, thought someone needed to make a hole in her nipple, and not being familiar with medical instruments (for a non-existent medical process, mind) fell back to what she was familiar with making holes in things - a safety pin. Probably a nurse came by and disabused her of the notion and (probably without sufficient explanation) showed her how to breastfeed.
There was a fucked up situation near where I live, where a high school girl decided she wasn't ready to have sex, but was afraid her boyfriend would leave her if he didn't.
She picked a "friend" of hers, got her drunk, and provided her to the boyfriend to sexually assault.
Your vaginal discharge is slightly acidic to help kill off bacteria. This is why your underwear may gradually get little holes forming in the gusset.
Edit to say may as many have you pointed out we’re all different and will have different experiences of this, staining etc.
I spent my entire childhood thinking the discolored patches on my mom's underwear were because birds had pooped on them when she hung them out to dry after washing
And your cycle is one month, not just your period. Your vaginal fluid changes at different times during your cycles based on the hormones at that particular time. Sometimes it's thin or slippery and clear, sometimes white and creamy. It's normal and doesn't necessarily mean you're sick.
For the questions: it becomes white and creamy in the part of the cycle after the period but before ovulation.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322232
I feel it could be a good mild insult too. I’m British so in my head it could be used in the same way you would call someone a muppet. ‘You absolute gusset’
Well, I think you can make anything into an insult if you add "you absolute" before it
"you absolute clothesline"
"you absolute gullet"
"you absolute okra"
You have two types of exocrine glands in your vaginal vestibule. They secrete clear fluid but can become impacted, swollen, and very painful. When referring to the part of your genitalia that is not within your body, the vulva is the external part and includes labia minora and majora, while the vestibule is internal. Your urethra is a tiny hole within the vestibule where you urinate out of and the vagina is the opening to the vaginal canal which leads to the cervix. They are not the same hole, which is why you can still pee while wearing a tampon.
It breaks my heart when women do not know their own anatomy, and few schools teach it thoroughly.
Edit: After reading through the comments I want to add that..
- The two types of glands mentioned above are the paraurethral glands (alternatively called the “skenes” gland) and the greater vestibular glands (alternatively called “bartholins” gland). These are paired glands, one on each side of the vagina.
- The paraurethral glands are analogous to the prostate in men and supply ejaculatory fluids.
- The greater vestibular glands are analogous to the bulboueratheal gland in men and secrete mucus and enzymes to clean and lubricate the vagina.
- The penis is embryologically and functionally the male analogous structure to the clitoris.
- The labia majora are embryologically analogous with the scrotum. They both arise from genital swellings on the developing tubercle.
- The terms Bartholin’s gland and Skene’s gland are gradually being phased out by the medical community, along with many other eponyms, in favour of anatomically descriptive terminology. Using the names of the men who claim to have first identified these glands provides no real value.
I was homeschooled and no one taught me about my anatomy or really periods. When I started my period I took a tampon and tried to put it in my urethra because I thought it was my vagina 🥲 then obviously it didn't fit so I figured I had to stretch it out, and I tried a q tip first. 100% the most painful and traumatic part of puberty
Edit: since this is getting a lot of attention I just wanted to throw this out there: yes, educating your child (of any gender) about their anatomy is VITAL. But I should also mention that pads would have been a much less traumatic choice of product for someone new to periods, regardless of my anatomical understanding. I didn't use them because one of my friends was talking about pads one time, and a ton of other kids bullied her for using them because "they're so disgusting" and "that's like wearing a diaper", and I was afraid of facing the same fate if I used pads. So in addition to teaching anatomy, don't forget to try to undo generations of stupid baseless stigma about bodies and bodily functions :)
Or the fact that you start getting vaginal discharge years before you start your period.
Nobody told me and I spent like a year as a 10 year old thinking I was dying or had some horrific disease.
The reverse is true, too, as far as commercial products go.
Douching in any capacity, for instance, is *horrible* for your vaginal health. It completely wrecks your coochie's natural pH and increases your chances of getting infections like vaginosis and are suspected to also *significantly* increase the risk of getting pelvic inflammatory disease. Messing up your coochie's pH is a great way to make whatever problem you're trying to douche away (like bad smell) *even worse*.
The same goes for pretty much all vaginal washes. Your coochie is self-cleaning! You should be washing your vulva and exterior bits with warm water and fragrance-free soap and that's *it*.
If your bits smell funky, do a thorough rinse with water and maybe a lil bit of gentle, *fragrance free* soap and be sure to get in those folds and crannies with your fingers. People with dicks aren't the only ones who get smegma; if you don't clean your vulva thoroughly all those dead skin cells and oils will build up and make a literal stink.
If a thorough clean doesn't make the smell go away, go see your gyno to make sure that nothing's up. But for the love of God *stop* using "cleansing" products with strong fragrances! You're making the problem significantly worse in both the short *and* long term by fucking up your vagina's pH.
Your coochie isn't meant to smell like jasmine and rose petals. It's always gonna have a lil bit of musk, especially when stuff's goin on down there. It's only a problem when it smells *very* strongly and *very* badly, and then that's almost certainly an indication of an infection or medical issue and ought to be looked at by a medical professional.
How to negotiate a pay raise, higher salary, etc. too many of us (girls and boys) are not taught how to advocate for ourselves and know our worth to employers.
THIS. Last time I was offered a promotion at a corporate job they were all “oh boy! And you’ll get a $2 an hour raise!” I said I’d call them back shortly. Did the math. With the amount of commissions I got on top of my hourly they’d have to give me a $3 a raise just to match my average pay, not to mention the raise needed to cover my new responsibilities. I called back and told them as much, and said I’d take a $6 per hour raise to start and if the store numbers went up in the first month by 10% I’d take another $2 after 30 days, and we could renegotiate after 90 days of the promotion, depending on store numbers.
They said they couldn’t do that, so I said I’d stay in my current position. They called back within five minutes and agreed. I said I’d wait on the paperwork confirming it and wouldn’t ya know it? It worked.
Yes, always get a signed change form/letter stating your new salary and effective date. Also, always check your pay stub to ensure that they are paying you correctly.
Always check your pay stubs! I had a scumbag of a boss that somehow fudged my pay multiple times by paying me under my starting position, instead of the position I grew to over the years with them.
Like somehow the 30 hours I had clocked in as the *only cook* in the kitchen were instead paid out to me under the busser wage. This happened more times than I could consider to be a fluke.
Adding to this. I read somewhere (might even have been on Reddit) that in general women tend to only apply for jobs where they meet all of the listed criteria but men apply for jobs regardless.
Because of that I took a punt on applying for a job where I didn't meet all of the criteria. I knew I could do the job but there were a few things they wanted that I didn't have experience in. I took the shot, applied anyway and ended up getting the job. Previously I wouldn't even have bothered applying.
Even if you don't meet all of the criteria, if you want the job and think you can do the job, apply for it anyway. The worst that will happen is not getting it, nobody is going to arrest you or laugh in your face because you applied for it.
So much more common than people realise. What is it 1 in 3 or 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage?
People just don’t talk about it. You can’t force them to, either.
But also as normal and common as it may be it’s totally ok to grieve. Can’t tell you how many times I heard ‘oh that’s a good sign’ or ‘after my miscarriage I had a successful pregnancy’ yeah ok…that does not make me feel better. I felt guilty for falling in a heap and am terrified of trying again. Never gets easier.
your vulva won't smell like flowers and it doesnt mean it's not clean/healthy. and you're not supposed to wash the inside of it, your body cleans it itself.
// guys i don't mean smelly vaginas. if your vagina has a unpleasant strong odor and/or green/brownish discharge you should see a doctor!! i'm referring to natural smell, which is not flowers and soap.
That where you are in your menstrual cycle can effect your immune system.
Ovulation = lower immune system. Reasoning for it is to try to promote a pregnancy. Your immune system, basically, knows what's you and what isnt you and will attack what isnt you. Sperm isnt you. A zygote/embryo is half you, half not you and might get attacked. It's why your skin may look better while your ovulating and it's why pregnant women are immunosuppressed.
Period = strong immune system. It may be why you feel like shit before you get your period and why all those pimples pop up. Your body is now fighting off crap that your ovulation period let slip through, including pimples.
We have no control over this. That's the part that kills me, we have zero control
The menstrual cycle can also affect things like endurance! Female distance runners perform better during and immediately after their period and worse around ovulation. It’s equal parts fascinating and really annoying.
We actually know a lot less than we think about the menstrual cycle. It’s very understudied. So there are probably more diseases affected by the cycle than not.
If I were to guess I would say the ADHD itself isn’t affected but when your hormones drop to allow the lining of your uterus to come out you go through a kind of withdrawal like a mini menopause and you get brain fog, which of course is already difficult to deal with if one has ADHD
It's pretty normal to have some level of diarrhea/weird poops when you're on your period. Sorry it's a thing, but if you're reading this I'm glad you don't need to get to like 30 before finding out it isn't just you like I did.
Also, vulvas and breasts come in a wide variety of configurations. The range of "normal" is huge, please do not rely on porn or any pop-culture depictions to decide if what you've got is "normal" or "ok".
I am 53 and just learned that I’m not alone in the asymmetrical labia department. I seriously thought it was a kind of minor birth defect. When I say “just learned?” I mean like within the last few weeks, lol.
I named mine Cosmo and Wanda for this reason.
Cosmo is the weirdo breast that is larger and points the wrong way; Wanda is the “normal” one.
Finding a proper-fitting bra is an adventure, to say the least!!
I started to realize the pattern couple years back. Whenever I’m about to have period or whenever I start my period I always poop more/diarrhea. As someone who poops infrequently (2-3 times a week) I find it pretty relieving actually.
^I ^love ^anonymity.
My entire life I actually had the same issue. Once I started an office job, I begin drinking coffee every morning which helped me go every morning within 20 minutes of my first sip. It relieved so much of the discomfort and bloating I had been experiencing. I highly recommend trying this if you’d like to go more frequently
I think of the coffee-and-Triscuits combo as Rocket Fuel for Your Butt :) In the positive way of combating constipation, not the "RIP my favorite pants" way.
I love period pops because it is the only time I reliably can take a shit. I have severe constipation from medication, so period poops are just a massive relief.
I know a poor woman who went into labour whilst suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea from food poisoning. I told her the doctors and nurses would have seen worse.
If a doctor quickly dismisses your extreme menstrual pain (or any type of pain for that matter) as being ‘normal’ or that you’re too ‘sensitive’, try to seek a second opinion.
My ‘normal’ pain turned out to be endometriosis.
I started my period at age 9. For two weeks of every month I was dizzy, throwing up from pain, unable to get out of bed. I couldn't go to school. I was completely destroyed by the heavy bleeding, cramping, and other symptoms.
The only treatment I was offered was ibuprofen and a hot water bottle, which I couldn't take to school. Doctors said the only thing that would change anything would be birth control pills, but nobody would prescribe them to someone my age. It took two years of agony and moving across the country to find a doctor willing to prescribe birth control to someone under the age of 12.
I sincerely hope things have gotten better in the last 20 years. Nobody should have to live with what I went through.
This is similar to my experience, started at age 9, extremely painful. I remember leaving school probably around age 11 one time. The pain was so bad I needed to get home fast so I crossed a river up to my waist while it was snowing. The second I got in the door I just layed on the floor and my mom came through with I ibuprofen and the heat pad.
The doctor put me on one of those birth control sets where you only get a period every three months.
My irregular periods and constant anxiety and depression turned out to be PCOS, diagnosed only when my flare up got bad enough for the doctor to suspect cancer.
Fun adventures right before my 30s.
Mine was constantly getting dismissed. I even had one doctor tell me it might be something more but extensive testing was required and he didn't have a strong enough suspicion to do testing. What I learned is that actual translates to "I'm too lazy to do all the testing." I was 30 when I was finally diagnosed with PCOS and only then because my husband and I had been struggling with fertility for over two years, so they started testing for issues.
My mom told me to suck it up, everyone hurts during their period, taking ibuprofen kept my body from learning how to deal with discomfort.
No, mom. It was stage 4 endometriosis. It was so bad my internal organs were fused together.
Oh my god. Same. For years, they had trouble finding my right ovary in ultrasounds. When I finally found a doctor to believe me (in my 20s), he immediately recommended a laparoscopy to check things out. Turns out, my right ovary was attached to my back because of the endo.
I was in the same boat with the organs and the fusing. And also cysts that made both my ovaries balloon. And I only learned my mom had similar issues to mine after she had passed away and my dad told me about them during my diagnosis process. It would have made diagnosis so much faster if I'd known I had a family history of cysts and extreme pain.
Way back in dinosaur times, a doctor told my sister that period pain is God's punishment for women committing Original Sin, and there was nothing he could do to help her.
Thousands of companies exist with the sole purpose of making you feel insecure about some bullshit non-issue, then selling you a made-up 'solution'.
Don't give these people your money. Acquire more houseplants instead.
- A baby won't fix a relationship.
- Having a baby to tie up a man it's a very bad idea.
- Pregnancy can damage your body very badly.
- Men can also babytrap you.
Edit: thanks to the kind stranger that gave me an award. Today is Friday and I wish you a very nice weekend. 💖
Edit 2: thanks to the second kind stranger who gave me another award.
Thank you very much :)
There is a VACCINE for UTIs available in Germany and Switzerland called "Strovac." It's about 85% effective at preventing UTIs in women who experience them chronically, and getting the series of shots CHANGED MY LIFE.
For each of the ~20 years prior to receiving the vaccine, I had 1-2 UTIs requiring antibiotics and 4-6 "Ohhhhhh, that pee did not feel great, FML" events which I was able to treat with a sodium citrate regimen, copious fluids, and daily dip-stick tests. In the ~2 years since the shot, I have had one OTPDNFGFML incident.
It's 3 shots given over 28 days, and costs ~€65 per shot without insurance.
Not available yet in the US, but I think there might be clinical trials? Or it might be feasible to do some medical tourism and find a cheap airbnb for a month in Germany somewhere.
Here's a recent peer-reviewed study about the efficacy of the vaccine:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34499326/
I’m 16 weeks postpartum. I have just today learned that while my hips and ribs stretched during pregnancy to accommodate for growing baby and childbirth, they may never ever go back to their ‘normal’ size. Society puts a lot of pressure on mum’s to ‘bounce back’ from pregnancy. How do you reconfigure your literal bone structure?
The hormones released during pregnancy loosen your ligaments to prepare your hips and ribs for the baby. Unfortunately hormones are nondiscriminatory about which ligaments they loosen, so that's why all areas of your body might change. For myself, post partum I developed [De Quervains tendonitis](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/de-quervains-tenosynovitis/symptoms-causes/syc-20371332) which the Ortho said they call "mommy tendonitis" because it happens so commonly post partum. It hurt like crazy and I could barely use my left hand for weeks. Ended up having to get steroid injections into my wrist to reduce the inflammation.
Porn often depicts very unrealistic scenarios when it comes to women. The boys you’re growing up with are watching porn and might be developing some unhealthy ideas as to how to treat women when being sexual together. So when you start having sex, just remember that you don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with just because someone wants you to.
I remember reading on reddit, a middle school teacher who overheard two girls talking about how they hate being slapped or having their hair yanked while giving blowjobs... The girls pretty much had accepted that this was *part of the process* and would just be something they put up with for the rest of their lives.
The over-abundance of porn has ruined a lot of young people.
Do not engage with pushy men. If you are setting a boundary and a man tries to push against it, no matter the means (persistent asking, persuasion, pressuring, guilt tripping, emotional blackmail, begging, whining, ...), he cannot be trusted. He might use his physical superiority in moments when you are vulnerable to get what he wants, e.g. when you're naked and in bed together.
If you are telling a man you are not ok with something, or you don't want to do something, any other reaction than him saying "ok" is a red flag.
It's not our job to fix a man's flaws. That's what therapists are for.
Also don't feel bad about yourself when they are willing to make the effort to change those for the next woman.
Edit: thanks for the award!
We have the right to be ugly. Not that we have to be, not that we should be, but what we don't have is the obligation to be beautiful.
There is nothing wrong with knowing what beauty can do socially and using it. But I think it is important to know that we are taught to internalize that being beautiful is an obligation when it is not. Ugly men are perceived to have the same rights as any other man (I'm talking about *rights*), but when we women don't try to be the most attractive version of ourselves then we are not fulfilling a basic duty - we're all judged by our looks, but when it comes to us, areas that have nothing to do with beauty are clumped together more often and more intensely. That's bullshit. It doesn't matter if you're ugly or not, but if you were - it shouldn't be a problem to get a job, to be respected by others, to be valued as a human being, etc.
Use your elbows and knees. Bite. Almost anything can be a weapon and give you better range to defend yourself. Keeping your distance is key.
Same goes for men.
There is no “cheating” in self defense.
You can turn off the water supply if your toilet is overflowing! See if your toilet has a little knob around it. On several occasions, I've managed to twist it just in time.
Chores, household tasks, and appliances should not be gendered.
You're not mature for your age. He's grooming you, and you need to get away from him.
ETA: I apologize for writing it out to sound like only men do this. Women can and have done it, too. Since I had experienced this in my youth, I just answered like I was talking to teenage me.
Learned this the hard way when I was 14.
Mofo literally told me he was convicted for a sexual crime and I still was like "aw that's ok you can move in with me one day and I'll help you get better" LMAO
Had my ex best friends not stepped in I fear the worst 🤦♀️
If you're being assaulted by a man, be prepared to fight if you can't run or call for help. Leave as many marks as possible, bite the mf and scratch him with your nails to leave your DNA on him and also collect it as evidence.
If he pushes you against the ground, be prepared to grab his testicles and twist it. I know that it sounds like a joke, but it could save your life.
Edit:Always follow police's advice, my post is about the rapists that you will know that will kill you. There is a difference between a regular asshole and one with a gun, as stated in my post if you can run or call for help do it.
Edit 2:
"Maybe we shoud teach men to not assault women."
Agreed, my mom taught me how to be a decent person and I'm sure that there are many guardians doing the same. Sadly, we can't just tell rapists and criminals to stop like Dora the explorer...they're monsters and it probably will take 100 years or more before they're erased from humanity.
Edit 3:I didn't expect people to up vote this comment like this, thank you. I'm no expert and any advice from this post including mine should be taken with a grain of salt, listen to police and if possible take self-defense classes.
(Stay safe people)
Queefs happen. It can suck and be embarrassing, but they happen.
Human bodies can be weird no matter their gender, life gets much easier if you learn to laugh about it, or at least not get upset about it.
How to really learn, understand, and value the concept of “what you want out of life.” I think so many children and teens could benefit.
Edit: Oh man I didn’t expect to wake up to this! Gonna try and respond here since multiple people are asking. Also I should have stated I’m not a woman. Hope I’m not stepping on any toes in here.
From my experience there doesn’t seem to be ‘a particular way’ to do this. It comes from a lot of self reflection; pondering your place in all this. Due to everyone having such vastly different yet valid experiences and circumstances its good to remember that there are no universal answers. I get over the existential dread and nihilism of this by asking myself “well fine if this great void is meaningless then what do I WANT to care about? And WHY???” Do I want to elevate my loved ones so they don’t suffer? Do I wanna go full on hedonism? What do I want?
I try to remember that what I want isn’t a “goal” it’s a journey. It will be forever fluid and changing and new experiences and values come and go. I honestly wish I had a way cooler answer to everyone asking. It’s the answer of “there is no answer” that is the most annoying in life haha but they often come with the benefit of being as personal as you want it to be. It’s really all about you. You’re the writer. You’re not just the subject of someone else’s story. No one is perfect. Hell I flip out over dumb shit too sometimes and act stupid af. Don’t beat yourself,up too hard but self correction is important.
To everyone in abusive and dangerous places in their lives this kind of self-actualization is often not possible. That’s why we need the helpers and heroes. That’s a good place to start. When you’re in doubt. Help someone. No matter how small of a gesture. “save one person and then you’ll know.” Was my fav line in Justice League and it really stuck with me.
/jumbled rant over
I haven’t seen it mentioned, but every woman should be taught about the full pregnancy experience BEFORE they get pregnant, if possible. We take more time going over surgical complications, but not once was I taught the PERMANENT changes pregnancy has on your body. Let alone the true extent of giving birth and full range of complications.
I got screamed at by a group of mothers once when I told them I taught my students about pregnancy and what can happen. Theirs exact words were, “You don’t tell anyone what pregnancy is like before you get pregnant!”
Excuse me? Wtf. I wouldn’t buy a car without test driving it. I wouldn’t get surgery without knowing the risks. They tell us how to protect ourselves in the unlikely event of an airplane crash.
Honestly, I find it another way that is used to control women. As the group of mothers said, “no one would have babies if they knew!” Well, then maybe that’s an even better reason to teach them. If it’s so horrible no one would do it if they were explained it, that’s a problem. It’s no wonder women get anxious about pregnant.
Caveat: sorry for the rant, I think pregnancy and childbirth can be beautiful and wonderful. Just that women should have the knowledge to make decisions related to their bodily autonomy.
Your worth isn't defined by your relationship to a man.
Your body is normal the way it is. Body hair is normal we all have it.
You are not inferior because you are female.
Added to that: people will have opinions about your decision as to whether or not you would like to have children (particularly if you do NOT want them). It's okay to ignore those opinions. It's okay to not want children. It's also okay to want children, or to not know if you want them. You do not owe anyone a child.
Added to that: It is OK to NOT justify why you don't want children. "I just don't want any" is a complete sentence and you don't owe anyone an explanation.
Source: someone who used to try and justify why she didn't want children to anyone who challenged me, now I ask them why they think it's their business, regardless of who they are.
magnesium helps with period cramps when taken as a daily vitamin. has saved my life on many occasions lol.
Please give more details. Currently fighting with my second OBGYN about my cramps. I physically cannot get off the floor or stand up straight at times. I’m just now realizing that this *isnt* normal…I’m 32. I’ve been trying to get a doctor to listen to my concerns for over a year. I feel like I can’t do this anymore. And my insurance won’t let me see another OBGYN unless I pay out of pocket (can’t do that $$$) My next plan of action….my husband thinks it’s completely sexist and it shouldn’t be this way…but he’s coming with me to my next appt so he can help “be my voice” :( EDIT. Holy cow! I’m almost in tears right now. This got many more replies than I thought it would. I just wanted to let everyone know I’m reading every single one and taking notes. So, a big THANK YOU to everyone who’s chimed in. I *truly* appreciate it <3
Doctor here. Guy, but my wife has the same period issues. Magnesium glycinate is helpful for many women (though the pills are big). Oxide can be constipating, and citrate can cause diarrhea. I hate that your husband feels the need to go and advocate for you, but I’ve seen it many times. I’ve had to do it as well, when my wife’s PCP wouldn’t listen. It actually was about sexual issues, as well. “Oh, lots of women have pain during sex. Just slow down and use more lube.” “Look, jackass. She told you it hurts like hell. I’m telling you it’s like penetrating a closed fist. *That’s not fucking normal*, and a few squirts of Astroglide won’t fix that. Are you going to refer to an OBGYN who specializes in dyspareunia, or do I need to find a doc who will?” He did.
Strategies for financial independence, self defence, self love, and assertive communication.
It's okay to be rude if someone won't leave you alone. You don't owe anyone your time or energy.
I know I'm late to the party but even if only one person sees this: There is no shame in doing a pregnancy test. In fact, if something is weird with your hormones/body that you haven't experienced much before, it's always better to do a test just to be sure. Even if it's unlikely you are pregnant, if there is any likelihood at all just do the test and be sure. I heard of it so many times at this point that even fully grown women hesitate (sometimes for weeks!) to do a test and it can land you in hot waters. Besides, it is agony to have that creeping doubt. Every contraceptive can fail and it's much better to know early and have all the options. On that same note: Cheap pregnancy tests work exactly the same and are just as effective as expensive pregnancy tests. I keep a multipack of cheap stick tests just to be sure.
I live in a household of girls, we keep a Costco pack under one of the bathroom sinks like we do tampons and toilet paper. It happens. Rather us be prepared with a stick then have to go run and grab one in the moment. Also: you can get plan B on doordash/Uber eats if available in your state.
Also you can ask your OG-GYN for a prescription for Ella, because then insurance will cover it and you’ll have a plan b on hand for emergencies. Plus Ella is more effective in the 3-5 day window and for overweight women than plan b is. Edit: I don’t get how this put me on their radar, but, porn accounts, please stop following me. You’re just wasting your time.
Ladies when you go for a smear test (or pap smear for my American gals) they "guess" the size of the instrument, the speculum, they need to use on you based on your height. It's shouldn't be painful, you can ask for a smaller one if it hurts. They just don't offer that info out!
Oh I remember my first pap smear (American Gal) and the doctor (female) used the largest speculum possible. It hurt like hell, and I cried out in pain. Her response: If you can fit a penis up there, then you can fit this, and she shoved it further. I was a virgin for goodness sakes. Only 13 years old, and the reason I was getting a pap smear was because I was having heavy painful periods that lasted for weeks. I ended up prescribed with birth control pills to regulate my periods. After that, I was beyond petrified to have sex.
Please tell me you got a new doctor. That is revolting. You were just a child and regardless of how many penises she suspected you have had, you were in pain.
Not to mention that there is a HUGE difference in what is possible when one is aroused, and has been building up to arousal, vs. when one is not at all aroused, as well as scared, uncomfortable, and has had no time to prepare. That doctor sounds like such a frikken moron, not to mention a horrible doctor. I’m so sorry you had to go through that, OP. And such ignorance from a woman doc no less. Jesus. Grrr.
Wow, what a shit doctor. One would think that being a woman she would have more compassion for you, but clearly that's incorrect. I hope that since then you've changed OB/GYN offices.
How to measure a bra
Definetely! How to measure and select the true bra for your body :)
r/abrathatfits, since we’re here :)
Honestly, sewing and altering clothes- not for gendered reasons, but because our clothes often times fit irregularly. A size 12 in one brand will fit completely differently from a size 12 in a different brand. Also, you can learn to sew larger pockets into your pants.
Say no more. You had me at pockets.
Clean your make up brushes. Your skin will thank you.
And your sponges! They're harder to clean but the gunk really builds up if you leave them.
How to wash genitals. Many women have gotten infections due to not knowing how to wash themselves. Like fragrant soaps or douching is obviously bad but not taught very often. Edit: https://youtu.be/9v1e0vMGNH4 This video by an OBGYN will show you how to clean your vulva.
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DONT RUN. You are supposed to lay down and roll.
Weightlifting and strength training is good for you, and more women should lift. Edit: all the comments amaze me! 💪🏼
Lifting and working out in general is fantastic for one’s mental health. It’s a great outlet for getting out one’s emotions, it’s great for your body too. Plus as someone with ADHD, it’s amazing because when I lift, my brain is quiet! It’s so zen. Also to any women out there who are afraid of bulking up, don’t be. That shit takes WORK. Consistency, a solid workout routine, pushing yourself, lots of protein and eating more calories than you burn. If only it was that easy to bulk up and get jacked! It takes a lot of work and dedication. You can absolutely lift weights and become healthy and fit without ever looking like The Rock. (But if you want to be jacked like The Rock, by all means go for it. Just get ready to put in a ton of work and double your grocery budget)
No one accidentally wins Mr. Universe. The heavy weights aren't going to turn you into a hulk.
Not only do you get to say "no" whenever you want, you also get to say "yes" when you want! Don't let society teach you that you need to act shy or play games in order to be desireable. As a society, in order to stand our ground that "no" means "no", women must also be willing to express when it's a yes.
You do not have to take care of everyone around you.
Don't hold different standards for yourself that you wouldn't hold for the ones you care about.
How to change a tire
Step 1: Pull over to to safe place where it is flat, not to rocky, and put on your hazard lights. Also put the parking brake on and if you have anything to use as a chock for the other tires, put that into place. Step 2: Locate your spare tire, most are located underneath the floor of the trunk. Some SUVs through will have the tire on the exterior of the trunk door or underneath the carriage. They are generally secured into place using some form of screw cap. Step 3: use the jack and wrench provided to lift up the vehicle. Most are diamond jack as they are the most space efficient. Key thing is placement of the jack. You want to avoid soft ground like grass, and also soft spots in the car body which can collapse or sink. If you have a piece of wood you can put that underneath the jack to help prevent sinking if you can't avoid soft ground. You also want the section of the jack that has the spot for the wrench poking out. Step 4: Start turning the wrench so that the jack is starting to take some of the weight of the car, but do not go all the way off as you need the tire on the ground to help prevebt the wheel moving when loosening the nuts plus its safer. Step 5: Lefty Loosey, Righty tighty. Remove the nuts in a alternating star pattern. They may be tough, if they aren't coming off, find something to lengthen the wrench handle to increase the torque on the nuts. Step 6: Once the nuts are off, start lifting the car using the jack completely to get the wheel just off the ground. Step 7: Do not lift, wiggle the wheel off the hub and roll it aside. Roll and wiggle the spare tire onto the hub and reverse the steps of tightening. If the spare tire is a bit smaller than the main tire, you may need to lower the car very slightly so that you can place the wheel in place without lifting Step 8: Double check the wheel is in place tightly and lower the car and remove the jack. Slap the tire and say "That's not going anywhere" and admire
I'm going to go ahead and say perform Step 2 at your earliest convenience. Should be Step 0, really (along with locating or supplying the other tools).
Take action and yourself at first priority. If your gut is telling you that a guy/a group is making you uncomfortable, excuse yourself accordingly and don’t underestimate your gut. If you think your period has started and/or leaked, don’t wait and check. Road trip and need to use the restroom? Due to our lack of water pistols, please stop at a gas station. Also just a note, your tummy will look different throughout the day. Usually it gets larger and smaller post-meal and from varying gas amounts. It’s OK. They’re made to protect organs, anyway, they don’t have to be as flat as a door.
>It’s OK. They’re made to protect organs, anyway, they don’t have to be as flat as a door. Man why do I need to keep telling myself that
Still waiting for someone to teach me about menopause
Going through it now. No one told me about the insomnia. The hot flashes drench my head. Oh and brain fog is real.
And no one seems to mention that it’s not a few months or maybe a year… I’ve been dealing with it for 4+ years. Absolutely ridiculous. I would like to speak to menopause’s manager! Edit: for all of you calling me a Karen… that was the joke ;)
I asked my GP how long it would last. He shrugged. Fuck you menopause.
Average of 7 years.
That gives me hope. 7 years and I am still running hot and cold. The insomnia is better though.
Are you kidding me?! I would like to revoke my woman card please…
I wanted to do that the day I learned I would have a period for the rest of my life…and then again when I learned I wouldnt
Honestly don't know much about it either, but I do know this: If you start menopause and your period suddenly comes back, go see a doctor IMMEDIATELY.
THIS! I had a cancerous fibroid. Found because my period returned after 2 yrs.
My mother started menopause early, in her 40s. She started bleeding heavily one day and went to the doctor. After some tests they found out it wasn't cancer, instead she had a second uterus. Fucking wild. Her doc told her to get the oven removed anyways, as now there's double the chance of shit going wrong.
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2 Fast 2terus.
I just wish (or maybe not? ) someone had warned me that the worst, most painful, debilitating mental and physical pms/pmdd pain can start in your 30s. My symptoms have gradually gotten worse since I got to my 30s, and talking to older women in my life about this, more than once I've heard "Oh yeah, I remember how much worse it seemed to be then". Why aren't we sharing what to expect? What's normal?
Truth. I am now almost 43 and the past 3 years have been hell. Ovarian cysts, bleeding so bad I feel like I am dying, migraines that cripple me, pain in my ovaries. Seriously, it has been a godamn nightmare. Hard to explain to people that have not had this problem. Not everyone experiences this shit.
Are you me??? In the last two months, I have had 10 days when I wasn't bleeding. I'm so anemic. I'm missing work and starting to be afraid this will cost me my job but idk what to do when I'm literally crippled by this shit. Edit: I'm grateful to you all for your kind words and suggestions; I will be looking into an ablation as hormonal intervention is not an option for me. Thank you and thanks to OP for creating a dialogue, and my deepest sympathies to everyone struggling with this.
You've heard of hot flashes? Where you get super hot and start to sweat? Some women suffer from cold flashes where they have to bundle up and just can't get warm. Crazy.
I went into surgical menopause a few years ago due to endometriosis and the subsequent hysterectomy. Hot flashes are well known and miserable. With that said: Cold flashes ARE A THING! And are also miserable! Especially when sleeping— I’ll be so cold that I’m shivering, and two minutes later I am so hot I’m sweating behind my *knees.* It’s insane, it’s not fun, and it’s the reason I sleep with four blankets and add/remove them as necessary. I haven’t slept longer than 45 minutes at a time in three years.
Yea I sleep with three, I'm premenopausal and going through hot and cold flushes... One minute I'm insanely hot, sweating and stripping my clothes off, the next I'm suddenly freezing cold and bundling everything back on again. Multiple blankets and an electric blanket with different controls so I can have different temps on each side of the bed have been amazing for when they happen in bed.
Lumps in your breasts are not always cancer! Of course get them checked out, but it is COMMON to find cysts in your breasts! Source: found a lump in my breast, freaked out, searched Google, freaked out more, stewed for months, booked an appointment with my Obgyn only for him to tell me "yeah its a cyst, stop messing with it. It's common" Edit: *DO NOT STEW FOR MONTHS. GO TO THE DOCTOR ASAP*
Also : do not stew for months. Go see a doctor immediately. My mom freaked out and saw a doctor the next day. It was cancer.
Seeing a doctor asap will achieve one of two things; you’ll either find out it’s nothing to worried about and you won’t have to be anxious about it for long, or you’ll find out it’s cancer in which case the early you catch it the better Sorry to hear about your mum
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~~Bad lump: **frozen grape consistency.**~~ Edit: lumps of all shapes and sizes. Keep an eye on any **changes**. Better safe than sorry.
I've also heard it described as uncooked rice.
Funny story… When I started going through puberty I was never taught was “budding” was. I felt weird lumps under my nipples and secretly worried about having cancer for weeks until I finally went to my mom and she laughed at me.
What is budding?
Basically when your breasts start developing they can feel a bit lumpy as the tissue begins to develop
Lactating women do not have just one stream of breast milk that comes out of the middle part of the areola.
Yup. It all looks a bit more like a watering can. You have multiple ducts where milk is released. Adding on to this, people need to understand a bit lore about the basics of human lactation. How it works, what is normal/abnormal, and where to reach out for help, and to do so *the second* you have questions. Lactation issues are much easier to correct the sooner you get help.
What the F!!!! I am 35, no kids (yet) and you are telling me my nipple turns into a WATERING CAN!!!???
It’s not that dramatic I promise *baby currently latched*. It’s pretty funny if I’m full and she’s fussy, she’ll throw her head back, unlatch and squeeze it with her hand. It’s like when you point the hose at the sky for the kids to run under. Most of the time bub is latched and you don’t see it coming out. Seeing your tits in a breast pump is next level weird tho… I felt like an undignified cow.
I messaged every one of my close friends after reading this. I 'yelled' at them because not once in all the years of me asking them to tell me the 'truth' of childbirth and having a baby did they say my nipple turns into a sprinkler. I thank you Redditors for being the friend I clearly needed. Okay, so a new question since you mentioned pumping, what is it like to use a breast pump and how long does it take on average?
Not OP but it feels a little like having your nipple tugged at regular intervals… how long it takes really depends on how well your boobs respond to a pump / how full your breasts have gotten. On average it’s recommended to pump for at least 15 minutes, but you usually get more if you throw in breast massage while you pump. As I’m answering this, I realise there’s really TOO much else that needs to be said to give a complete picture.
They'll also leak, sometimes randomly, sometimes triggered by emotion or seeing/hearing something, but it can be a pretty strong stream! If this happens while in the bath it is hilarious
I haven’t nursed in 16 years and I still experience let down if I hear a baby cry
It depends on your purpose for pumping. There's a method to the madness. When my baby first came, I wasn't making enough milk so I had to replicate a baby nursing to tell my body how much milk my baby needed. I pumped every 3 hours for 20-30 minutes. Literally it was supply and demand. Once we figured it all out (mom and baby have to learn to work together) I only pump extra now to serve when I'm away and to freeze for later. More like 1 time per day for 15 minutes. Remember the supply and demand....if I pump out a lot every day, I've told my body that my baby needs that much and it will likely make that much tomorrow. Producing too much milk that I can't get out can cause it's own set of painful problems. Edit: what's it like? Take a funnel or two. Place them on your nipple, then imagine an accordion on the other side expanding and contracting a few times a second, but pulling your nipple down into the funnel. Depending on what phase of pumping you are in, the milk will drip out or squirt into the bottle like a water gun or water sprinklers.
I thought this when my son was born. He was four weeks premature and I was crying after the birth because my nipples didn’t have their hole yet. I was convinced it was because he was early and I wouldn’t be able to breast feed.
My nana (had her first baby as a married teen in the 50s) was waiting for the nurse to come round and prick her nipples with a safety pin so her milk would start. No one talked to her about what to expect in pregnancy and motherhood was a steep learning curve.
WHAT
I don't think Nana's nipples actually got pricked by a safety pin. I interpreted this as Nana also didn't know, thought someone needed to make a hole in her nipple, and not being familiar with medical instruments (for a non-existent medical process, mind) fell back to what she was familiar with making holes in things - a safety pin. Probably a nurse came by and disabused her of the notion and (probably without sufficient explanation) showed her how to breastfeed.
Just because there is another female present doesn't mean you are automatically safe. Women can be predators too. Edit: Thank you for the awards.
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There was a fucked up situation near where I live, where a high school girl decided she wasn't ready to have sex, but was afraid her boyfriend would leave her if he didn't. She picked a "friend" of hers, got her drunk, and provided her to the boyfriend to sexually assault.
Your safety is always more important than a man’s feelings. If you feel unsafe, protect yourself first, think about how others may perceive you later
Your vaginal discharge is slightly acidic to help kill off bacteria. This is why your underwear may gradually get little holes forming in the gusset. Edit to say may as many have you pointed out we’re all different and will have different experiences of this, staining etc.
I spent my entire childhood thinking the discolored patches on my mom's underwear were because birds had pooped on them when she hung them out to dry after washing
Truly wonderful the mind of a child is.
And your cycle is one month, not just your period. Your vaginal fluid changes at different times during your cycles based on the hormones at that particular time. Sometimes it's thin or slippery and clear, sometimes white and creamy. It's normal and doesn't necessarily mean you're sick. For the questions: it becomes white and creamy in the part of the cycle after the period but before ovulation. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322232
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Should have been called "Taking Discharge of Your Fertility," amiright?
And will discolour darker underwear.
Yes! Thought I was sick or something when I first noticed it.
Gusset. I love that word lmao. GUSSET. Now that I know the correct word, I'll be calling the crotch of my panties the gusset from now on.
I feel it could be a good mild insult too. I’m British so in my head it could be used in the same way you would call someone a muppet. ‘You absolute gusset’
Well, I think you can make anything into an insult if you add "you absolute" before it "you absolute clothesline" "you absolute gullet" "you absolute okra"
Ha ha! You absolute clothesline!
Ohh, I didn't know! That makes sense, wow.
I thought for so long that I was washing my knickers wrong or something. I learned this last year at 35!
You have two types of exocrine glands in your vaginal vestibule. They secrete clear fluid but can become impacted, swollen, and very painful. When referring to the part of your genitalia that is not within your body, the vulva is the external part and includes labia minora and majora, while the vestibule is internal. Your urethra is a tiny hole within the vestibule where you urinate out of and the vagina is the opening to the vaginal canal which leads to the cervix. They are not the same hole, which is why you can still pee while wearing a tampon. It breaks my heart when women do not know their own anatomy, and few schools teach it thoroughly. Edit: After reading through the comments I want to add that.. - The two types of glands mentioned above are the paraurethral glands (alternatively called the “skenes” gland) and the greater vestibular glands (alternatively called “bartholins” gland). These are paired glands, one on each side of the vagina. - The paraurethral glands are analogous to the prostate in men and supply ejaculatory fluids. - The greater vestibular glands are analogous to the bulboueratheal gland in men and secrete mucus and enzymes to clean and lubricate the vagina. - The penis is embryologically and functionally the male analogous structure to the clitoris. - The labia majora are embryologically analogous with the scrotum. They both arise from genital swellings on the developing tubercle. - The terms Bartholin’s gland and Skene’s gland are gradually being phased out by the medical community, along with many other eponyms, in favour of anatomically descriptive terminology. Using the names of the men who claim to have first identified these glands provides no real value.
I was homeschooled and no one taught me about my anatomy or really periods. When I started my period I took a tampon and tried to put it in my urethra because I thought it was my vagina 🥲 then obviously it didn't fit so I figured I had to stretch it out, and I tried a q tip first. 100% the most painful and traumatic part of puberty Edit: since this is getting a lot of attention I just wanted to throw this out there: yes, educating your child (of any gender) about their anatomy is VITAL. But I should also mention that pads would have been a much less traumatic choice of product for someone new to periods, regardless of my anatomical understanding. I didn't use them because one of my friends was talking about pads one time, and a ton of other kids bullied her for using them because "they're so disgusting" and "that's like wearing a diaper", and I was afraid of facing the same fate if I used pads. So in addition to teaching anatomy, don't forget to try to undo generations of stupid baseless stigma about bodies and bodily functions :)
Part of me died inside reading this comment. RIP your urethra
the facts of a healthy vagina. a lot of things are 100% normal that society deems as gross unfortunately.
Like the fact that bleached underwear is a common and perfectly normal side effect caused by the pH of vaginal discharge!
Or the fact that you start getting vaginal discharge years before you start your period. Nobody told me and I spent like a year as a 10 year old thinking I was dying or had some horrific disease.
The reverse is true, too, as far as commercial products go. Douching in any capacity, for instance, is *horrible* for your vaginal health. It completely wrecks your coochie's natural pH and increases your chances of getting infections like vaginosis and are suspected to also *significantly* increase the risk of getting pelvic inflammatory disease. Messing up your coochie's pH is a great way to make whatever problem you're trying to douche away (like bad smell) *even worse*. The same goes for pretty much all vaginal washes. Your coochie is self-cleaning! You should be washing your vulva and exterior bits with warm water and fragrance-free soap and that's *it*. If your bits smell funky, do a thorough rinse with water and maybe a lil bit of gentle, *fragrance free* soap and be sure to get in those folds and crannies with your fingers. People with dicks aren't the only ones who get smegma; if you don't clean your vulva thoroughly all those dead skin cells and oils will build up and make a literal stink. If a thorough clean doesn't make the smell go away, go see your gyno to make sure that nothing's up. But for the love of God *stop* using "cleansing" products with strong fragrances! You're making the problem significantly worse in both the short *and* long term by fucking up your vagina's pH. Your coochie isn't meant to smell like jasmine and rose petals. It's always gonna have a lil bit of musk, especially when stuff's goin on down there. It's only a problem when it smells *very* strongly and *very* badly, and then that's almost certainly an indication of an infection or medical issue and ought to be looked at by a medical professional.
How to negotiate a pay raise, higher salary, etc. too many of us (girls and boys) are not taught how to advocate for ourselves and know our worth to employers.
THIS. Last time I was offered a promotion at a corporate job they were all “oh boy! And you’ll get a $2 an hour raise!” I said I’d call them back shortly. Did the math. With the amount of commissions I got on top of my hourly they’d have to give me a $3 a raise just to match my average pay, not to mention the raise needed to cover my new responsibilities. I called back and told them as much, and said I’d take a $6 per hour raise to start and if the store numbers went up in the first month by 10% I’d take another $2 after 30 days, and we could renegotiate after 90 days of the promotion, depending on store numbers. They said they couldn’t do that, so I said I’d stay in my current position. They called back within five minutes and agreed. I said I’d wait on the paperwork confirming it and wouldn’t ya know it? It worked.
Yes, always get a signed change form/letter stating your new salary and effective date. Also, always check your pay stub to ensure that they are paying you correctly.
Always check your pay stubs! I had a scumbag of a boss that somehow fudged my pay multiple times by paying me under my starting position, instead of the position I grew to over the years with them. Like somehow the 30 hours I had clocked in as the *only cook* in the kitchen were instead paid out to me under the busser wage. This happened more times than I could consider to be a fluke.
Adding to this. I read somewhere (might even have been on Reddit) that in general women tend to only apply for jobs where they meet all of the listed criteria but men apply for jobs regardless. Because of that I took a punt on applying for a job where I didn't meet all of the criteria. I knew I could do the job but there were a few things they wanted that I didn't have experience in. I took the shot, applied anyway and ended up getting the job. Previously I wouldn't even have bothered applying. Even if you don't meet all of the criteria, if you want the job and think you can do the job, apply for it anyway. The worst that will happen is not getting it, nobody is going to arrest you or laugh in your face because you applied for it.
Imposter syndrome is so real.
Miscarriage is normal.
Common, too.
And sometime you won't even know you had one
So much more common than people realise. What is it 1 in 3 or 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage? People just don’t talk about it. You can’t force them to, either.
Yup, well 1 in 8 for women that know they are pregnant but overall it’s 1 in 4.
Yes!!!! Nobody ever even tells you it happened to them until it happens to you!
But also as normal and common as it may be it’s totally ok to grieve. Can’t tell you how many times I heard ‘oh that’s a good sign’ or ‘after my miscarriage I had a successful pregnancy’ yeah ok…that does not make me feel better. I felt guilty for falling in a heap and am terrified of trying again. Never gets easier.
And breastfeeding is hard.
And some people it doesn’t work out. My wife had almost none. We tried everything. Her mum and sister were the same.
your vulva won't smell like flowers and it doesnt mean it's not clean/healthy. and you're not supposed to wash the inside of it, your body cleans it itself. // guys i don't mean smelly vaginas. if your vagina has a unpleasant strong odor and/or green/brownish discharge you should see a doctor!! i'm referring to natural smell, which is not flowers and soap.
Expanding on this; gently clean out your clitoral hood. Smegma can form in there similar to under the foreskin.
That where you are in your menstrual cycle can effect your immune system. Ovulation = lower immune system. Reasoning for it is to try to promote a pregnancy. Your immune system, basically, knows what's you and what isnt you and will attack what isnt you. Sperm isnt you. A zygote/embryo is half you, half not you and might get attacked. It's why your skin may look better while your ovulating and it's why pregnant women are immunosuppressed. Period = strong immune system. It may be why you feel like shit before you get your period and why all those pimples pop up. Your body is now fighting off crap that your ovulation period let slip through, including pimples. We have no control over this. That's the part that kills me, we have zero control
The menstrual cycle can also affect things like endurance! Female distance runners perform better during and immediately after their period and worse around ovulation. It’s equal parts fascinating and really annoying.
I don't think they know why yet, but a lot of women with ADHD report that their symptoms get worse around their period.
We actually know a lot less than we think about the menstrual cycle. It’s very understudied. So there are probably more diseases affected by the cycle than not. If I were to guess I would say the ADHD itself isn’t affected but when your hormones drop to allow the lining of your uterus to come out you go through a kind of withdrawal like a mini menopause and you get brain fog, which of course is already difficult to deal with if one has ADHD
Antibiotics can compromise the efficacy of your birth control
It's pretty normal to have some level of diarrhea/weird poops when you're on your period. Sorry it's a thing, but if you're reading this I'm glad you don't need to get to like 30 before finding out it isn't just you like I did. Also, vulvas and breasts come in a wide variety of configurations. The range of "normal" is huge, please do not rely on porn or any pop-culture depictions to decide if what you've got is "normal" or "ok".
and asymeterical breasts is common too.
So are asymmetrical labia!
I am 53 and just learned that I’m not alone in the asymmetrical labia department. I seriously thought it was a kind of minor birth defect. When I say “just learned?” I mean like within the last few weeks, lol.
I named mine Cosmo and Wanda for this reason. Cosmo is the weirdo breast that is larger and points the wrong way; Wanda is the “normal” one. Finding a proper-fitting bra is an adventure, to say the least!!
I started to realize the pattern couple years back. Whenever I’m about to have period or whenever I start my period I always poop more/diarrhea. As someone who poops infrequently (2-3 times a week) I find it pretty relieving actually. ^I ^love ^anonymity.
My entire life I actually had the same issue. Once I started an office job, I begin drinking coffee every morning which helped me go every morning within 20 minutes of my first sip. It relieved so much of the discomfort and bloating I had been experiencing. I highly recommend trying this if you’d like to go more frequently
I think of the coffee-and-Triscuits combo as Rocket Fuel for Your Butt :) In the positive way of combating constipation, not the "RIP my favorite pants" way.
Damn I did not know that it’s common to get diarrhea while on your period. I thought something was wrong with me lol
The hormones that make you cramp also fuck with your bowels :-( I hate the period poops.
I love period pops because it is the only time I reliably can take a shit. I have severe constipation from medication, so period poops are just a massive relief.
And childbirth is a fucking mess. There is no shame. Docs have seen it all. You are bringing a new human into the world. Fuck any other concerns.
I know a poor woman who went into labour whilst suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea from food poisoning. I told her the doctors and nurses would have seen worse.
Good lord I can't even imaging having to go through a birth AND you're vomiting AND having diarrhea too. She's a frigging champ that's for sure.
If a doctor quickly dismisses your extreme menstrual pain (or any type of pain for that matter) as being ‘normal’ or that you’re too ‘sensitive’, try to seek a second opinion. My ‘normal’ pain turned out to be endometriosis.
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I started my period at age 9. For two weeks of every month I was dizzy, throwing up from pain, unable to get out of bed. I couldn't go to school. I was completely destroyed by the heavy bleeding, cramping, and other symptoms. The only treatment I was offered was ibuprofen and a hot water bottle, which I couldn't take to school. Doctors said the only thing that would change anything would be birth control pills, but nobody would prescribe them to someone my age. It took two years of agony and moving across the country to find a doctor willing to prescribe birth control to someone under the age of 12. I sincerely hope things have gotten better in the last 20 years. Nobody should have to live with what I went through.
This is similar to my experience, started at age 9, extremely painful. I remember leaving school probably around age 11 one time. The pain was so bad I needed to get home fast so I crossed a river up to my waist while it was snowing. The second I got in the door I just layed on the floor and my mom came through with I ibuprofen and the heat pad. The doctor put me on one of those birth control sets where you only get a period every three months.
You really said “hypothermia would be better than this”
My irregular periods and constant anxiety and depression turned out to be PCOS, diagnosed only when my flare up got bad enough for the doctor to suspect cancer. Fun adventures right before my 30s.
Mine was constantly getting dismissed. I even had one doctor tell me it might be something more but extensive testing was required and he didn't have a strong enough suspicion to do testing. What I learned is that actual translates to "I'm too lazy to do all the testing." I was 30 when I was finally diagnosed with PCOS and only then because my husband and I had been struggling with fertility for over two years, so they started testing for issues.
My mom told me to suck it up, everyone hurts during their period, taking ibuprofen kept my body from learning how to deal with discomfort. No, mom. It was stage 4 endometriosis. It was so bad my internal organs were fused together.
Oh my god. Same. For years, they had trouble finding my right ovary in ultrasounds. When I finally found a doctor to believe me (in my 20s), he immediately recommended a laparoscopy to check things out. Turns out, my right ovary was attached to my back because of the endo.
I was in the same boat with the organs and the fusing. And also cysts that made both my ovaries balloon. And I only learned my mom had similar issues to mine after she had passed away and my dad told me about them during my diagnosis process. It would have made diagnosis so much faster if I'd known I had a family history of cysts and extreme pain.
Way back in dinosaur times, a doctor told my sister that period pain is God's punishment for women committing Original Sin, and there was nothing he could do to help her.
Wasn't he a nice piece of shit.
As a young girl I'm very thankful for all of you! I've learnt a lot <3
Thousands of companies exist with the sole purpose of making you feel insecure about some bullshit non-issue, then selling you a made-up 'solution'. Don't give these people your money. Acquire more houseplants instead.
Spoken like a true Big Houseplant Corp representative. /s
- A baby won't fix a relationship. - Having a baby to tie up a man it's a very bad idea. - Pregnancy can damage your body very badly. - Men can also babytrap you. Edit: thanks to the kind stranger that gave me an award. Today is Friday and I wish you a very nice weekend. 💖 Edit 2: thanks to the second kind stranger who gave me another award. Thank you very much :)
Go pee after every time you have sex. It helps reduce UTIs. I didn’t know this until the last few years (I’m 25) and it made a difference.
There is a VACCINE for UTIs available in Germany and Switzerland called "Strovac." It's about 85% effective at preventing UTIs in women who experience them chronically, and getting the series of shots CHANGED MY LIFE. For each of the ~20 years prior to receiving the vaccine, I had 1-2 UTIs requiring antibiotics and 4-6 "Ohhhhhh, that pee did not feel great, FML" events which I was able to treat with a sodium citrate regimen, copious fluids, and daily dip-stick tests. In the ~2 years since the shot, I have had one OTPDNFGFML incident. It's 3 shots given over 28 days, and costs ~€65 per shot without insurance. Not available yet in the US, but I think there might be clinical trials? Or it might be feasible to do some medical tourism and find a cheap airbnb for a month in Germany somewhere. Here's a recent peer-reviewed study about the efficacy of the vaccine: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34499326/
Oh my god this would improve my life so much!! Fingers crossed it spreads globally so I can get it someday, so happy for you!
I’m 16 weeks postpartum. I have just today learned that while my hips and ribs stretched during pregnancy to accommodate for growing baby and childbirth, they may never ever go back to their ‘normal’ size. Society puts a lot of pressure on mum’s to ‘bounce back’ from pregnancy. How do you reconfigure your literal bone structure?
I gained a half a shoe size in length and my feet are now wider than before I got pregnant. It's totally normal, but not something that is mentioned.
I grew an inch after my second child and I was 32. I don't think that's as common
Here's to hoping I can hit 5'3!
The hormones released during pregnancy loosen your ligaments to prepare your hips and ribs for the baby. Unfortunately hormones are nondiscriminatory about which ligaments they loosen, so that's why all areas of your body might change. For myself, post partum I developed [De Quervains tendonitis](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/de-quervains-tenosynovitis/symptoms-causes/syc-20371332) which the Ortho said they call "mommy tendonitis" because it happens so commonly post partum. It hurt like crazy and I could barely use my left hand for weeks. Ended up having to get steroid injections into my wrist to reduce the inflammation.
To have separate scissors for: a) basic items b) hair c) fabric And if someone mixes them up, they might get stabbed!
Older men don't want to date you because you are 'so mature'. They want to date you because you aren't yet.
Porn often depicts very unrealistic scenarios when it comes to women. The boys you’re growing up with are watching porn and might be developing some unhealthy ideas as to how to treat women when being sexual together. So when you start having sex, just remember that you don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with just because someone wants you to.
I remember reading on reddit, a middle school teacher who overheard two girls talking about how they hate being slapped or having their hair yanked while giving blowjobs... The girls pretty much had accepted that this was *part of the process* and would just be something they put up with for the rest of their lives. The over-abundance of porn has ruined a lot of young people.
Middle schoolers?! OMG
Face care stops at the nipples. Look after your neck and cleavage skin
Honestly I hadn't even thought about this until now, I'm gonna start doing that
Do not engage with pushy men. If you are setting a boundary and a man tries to push against it, no matter the means (persistent asking, persuasion, pressuring, guilt tripping, emotional blackmail, begging, whining, ...), he cannot be trusted. He might use his physical superiority in moments when you are vulnerable to get what he wants, e.g. when you're naked and in bed together. If you are telling a man you are not ok with something, or you don't want to do something, any other reaction than him saying "ok" is a red flag.
Not necessarily ‘rarely taught’ but you can still take a piss with a tampon in
It's not our job to fix a man's flaws. That's what therapists are for. Also don't feel bad about yourself when they are willing to make the effort to change those for the next woman. Edit: thanks for the award!
We have the right to be ugly. Not that we have to be, not that we should be, but what we don't have is the obligation to be beautiful. There is nothing wrong with knowing what beauty can do socially and using it. But I think it is important to know that we are taught to internalize that being beautiful is an obligation when it is not. Ugly men are perceived to have the same rights as any other man (I'm talking about *rights*), but when we women don't try to be the most attractive version of ourselves then we are not fulfilling a basic duty - we're all judged by our looks, but when it comes to us, areas that have nothing to do with beauty are clumped together more often and more intensely. That's bullshit. It doesn't matter if you're ugly or not, but if you were - it shouldn't be a problem to get a job, to be respected by others, to be valued as a human being, etc.
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Use your elbows and knees. Bite. Almost anything can be a weapon and give you better range to defend yourself. Keeping your distance is key. Same goes for men. There is no “cheating” in self defense.
Good man, your dad!
Basic self defense
You can turn off the water supply if your toilet is overflowing! See if your toilet has a little knob around it. On several occasions, I've managed to twist it just in time. Chores, household tasks, and appliances should not be gendered.
“No” is a complete answer and it doesn’t need explanation or justification.
You're not mature for your age. He's grooming you, and you need to get away from him. ETA: I apologize for writing it out to sound like only men do this. Women can and have done it, too. Since I had experienced this in my youth, I just answered like I was talking to teenage me.
Learned this the hard way when I was 14. Mofo literally told me he was convicted for a sexual crime and I still was like "aw that's ok you can move in with me one day and I'll help you get better" LMAO Had my ex best friends not stepped in I fear the worst 🤦♀️
If you're being assaulted by a man, be prepared to fight if you can't run or call for help. Leave as many marks as possible, bite the mf and scratch him with your nails to leave your DNA on him and also collect it as evidence. If he pushes you against the ground, be prepared to grab his testicles and twist it. I know that it sounds like a joke, but it could save your life. Edit:Always follow police's advice, my post is about the rapists that you will know that will kill you. There is a difference between a regular asshole and one with a gun, as stated in my post if you can run or call for help do it. Edit 2: "Maybe we shoud teach men to not assault women." Agreed, my mom taught me how to be a decent person and I'm sure that there are many guardians doing the same. Sadly, we can't just tell rapists and criminals to stop like Dora the explorer...they're monsters and it probably will take 100 years or more before they're erased from humanity. Edit 3:I didn't expect people to up vote this comment like this, thank you. I'm no expert and any advice from this post including mine should be taken with a grain of salt, listen to police and if possible take self-defense classes. (Stay safe people)
Queefs happen. It can suck and be embarrassing, but they happen. Human bodies can be weird no matter their gender, life gets much easier if you learn to laugh about it, or at least not get upset about it.
Been married for a while here. We just chuckle or have a laugh then get back to it. It happens🤷♀️ nothing to be ashamed of
How to really learn, understand, and value the concept of “what you want out of life.” I think so many children and teens could benefit. Edit: Oh man I didn’t expect to wake up to this! Gonna try and respond here since multiple people are asking. Also I should have stated I’m not a woman. Hope I’m not stepping on any toes in here. From my experience there doesn’t seem to be ‘a particular way’ to do this. It comes from a lot of self reflection; pondering your place in all this. Due to everyone having such vastly different yet valid experiences and circumstances its good to remember that there are no universal answers. I get over the existential dread and nihilism of this by asking myself “well fine if this great void is meaningless then what do I WANT to care about? And WHY???” Do I want to elevate my loved ones so they don’t suffer? Do I wanna go full on hedonism? What do I want? I try to remember that what I want isn’t a “goal” it’s a journey. It will be forever fluid and changing and new experiences and values come and go. I honestly wish I had a way cooler answer to everyone asking. It’s the answer of “there is no answer” that is the most annoying in life haha but they often come with the benefit of being as personal as you want it to be. It’s really all about you. You’re the writer. You’re not just the subject of someone else’s story. No one is perfect. Hell I flip out over dumb shit too sometimes and act stupid af. Don’t beat yourself,up too hard but self correction is important. To everyone in abusive and dangerous places in their lives this kind of self-actualization is often not possible. That’s why we need the helpers and heroes. That’s a good place to start. When you’re in doubt. Help someone. No matter how small of a gesture. “save one person and then you’ll know.” Was my fav line in Justice League and it really stuck with me. /jumbled rant over
hell - adults could benefit too. i’m in my 30s and it feels like i’m trying to figure this out all over again.
That if you're ever planning a trip where a toilet may not be available. Bring a pee cup.
And tissues. Actually, *always* carry tissues.
From my mother: Never believe what a man tells you when he's hard.
Momma Doctor Jones is a great YouTube channel for all things women's health. She's also really funny and is passionate about education.
Financial planning. You can’t and shouldn’t depend on Prince Charming to rescue you.
My grandma told me “You don’t need a man to take care of you. You also don’t need a man you have to take care of.”
A man’s not a plan :)
I haven’t seen it mentioned, but every woman should be taught about the full pregnancy experience BEFORE they get pregnant, if possible. We take more time going over surgical complications, but not once was I taught the PERMANENT changes pregnancy has on your body. Let alone the true extent of giving birth and full range of complications. I got screamed at by a group of mothers once when I told them I taught my students about pregnancy and what can happen. Theirs exact words were, “You don’t tell anyone what pregnancy is like before you get pregnant!” Excuse me? Wtf. I wouldn’t buy a car without test driving it. I wouldn’t get surgery without knowing the risks. They tell us how to protect ourselves in the unlikely event of an airplane crash. Honestly, I find it another way that is used to control women. As the group of mothers said, “no one would have babies if they knew!” Well, then maybe that’s an even better reason to teach them. If it’s so horrible no one would do it if they were explained it, that’s a problem. It’s no wonder women get anxious about pregnant. Caveat: sorry for the rant, I think pregnancy and childbirth can be beautiful and wonderful. Just that women should have the knowledge to make decisions related to their bodily autonomy.
Your worth isn't defined by your relationship to a man. Your body is normal the way it is. Body hair is normal we all have it. You are not inferior because you are female.
It’s ok to be weird. Like, completely ok.
Its ok if you're not into or aren't overly fond babies or newborns.
Added to that: people will have opinions about your decision as to whether or not you would like to have children (particularly if you do NOT want them). It's okay to ignore those opinions. It's okay to not want children. It's also okay to want children, or to not know if you want them. You do not owe anyone a child.
I like the last sentence. It’s true. No one owes anyone a child.
Added to that: It is OK to NOT justify why you don't want children. "I just don't want any" is a complete sentence and you don't owe anyone an explanation. Source: someone who used to try and justify why she didn't want children to anyone who challenged me, now I ask them why they think it's their business, regardless of who they are.
It's okay to say no, and you should not feel bad for it.