{"id":959,"date":"2014-06-22T17:50:11","date_gmt":"2014-06-22T17:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/?p=959"},"modified":"2014-06-22T17:50:11","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T17:50:11","slug":"au-revoir-aunt-flo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/?p=959","title":{"rendered":"Au revoir, Aunt Flo"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have not had a menstrual period in 52 days. That\u2019s almost a month late. No, I\u2019m not pregnant. And this isn\u2019t the first time in the last few months I\u2019ve been late, though it’s certainly the longest delay.<\/p>\n

I know what this means: I am beginning \u201cThe Change\u201d.<\/p>\n

But Jess, you\u2019re thinking, you\u2019re so young! And I am, though the pink hair is part of an illusion that obscures my real age to some extent. I can also, at long last, thank oily skin for something\u2014I have very few wrinkles, despite a whole lot of worrying and laughing.<\/p>\n

But early menopause is in my family. In fact, when the first irregularity appeared right before my 39th birthday, I called my mom and said, \u201cDidn\u2019t you start pre-menopause when you were 38?\u201d She confirmed that fact, and I replied, \u201cWell, like mother, like daughter,\u201d much to her horror. My aunts began that phase of their life early as well.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m rapidly discovering that I know far less about what to expect than I did before I got my first period. There\u2019s no health class with this information, however awkwardly delivered. To be sure, the inexplicable movie we were forced to watch in fifth grade, featuring the Broadway cast of \u201cAnnie\u201d explaining menstruation<\/a>, wasn\u2019t what I\u2019d call helpful. In fact, there are Internet discussions among people<\/a> who left gym class the day they saw it, more confused and weirded-out by the random choice of message-bearers than the message delivered.<\/p>\n

And even though I was well-informed in advance, you\u2019re never really ready for that first period. I discovered mine when I took a bathroom break in the middle of a theater screening of the legendarily horrible movie Ishtar<\/em><\/a>. It lasted a few days, then failed to return for an entire year. In fact, I\u2019ve never been quite sure whether it really was my first period, or that the movie was so bad it caused me to spontaneously hemorrhage.<\/p>\n

I took the absence of menstruation as one of the small graces during my pregnancies. Sure, I was puking my guts up all day, every day, for 5 and 7.5 months respectively, but at least I didn\u2019t have to put in a tampon for almost a year.<\/p>\n

So I definitely won\u2019t miss having my periods. Nor will I miss my fertility, in all honesty. Even though I occasionally have baby urges that seem to come from a completely alien source outside my brain, I\u2019ve resolved that I simply can\u2019t do the pain and sickness again, let alone the sleep deprivation and potty training. Pregnancy was quite simply hell for me; labor and delivery were a breeze by comparison.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll admit some concern about the physical discomfort, sleep loss, and mental changes that are common to menopause. None of those are things I\u2019m going to deal well with more of\u2014they would surely aggravate my already existing challenges with fibromyalgia and mental illness. And I\u2019m already slightly annoyed at the unpredictability thing. Wearing panty liners and avoiding light-colored pants for the next ten years is going to be a pain.<\/p>\n

But otherwise, I\u2019m curious about the new club I\u2019m joining. It doesn\u2019t feel as momentous as the \u201cnow you are a woman\u201d club, but I\u2019m betting this one, with all its life experience and perspective, has a whole lot more fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have not had a menstrual period in 52 days. That\u2019s almost a month late. No, I\u2019m not pregnant. And this isn\u2019t the first time in the last few months I\u2019ve been late, though it’s certainly the longest delay. I know what this means: I am beginning \u201cThe Change\u201d. But Jess, you\u2019re thinking, you\u2019re so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,77],"tags":[518,521,520,517,516,519,510],"class_list":["post-959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physical-ed","category-sex-ed","tag-aging","tag-growing-up-on-broadway","tag-ishtar","tag-menopause","tag-menstruation","tag-periods","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":960,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959\/revisions\/960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profbanks.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}