To bleed or not? It's up to you
Life without blood
Between June 2018 and January 2023, I lived four blissful years without a period. I didn’t have to worry about being prepared or taking a pill small enough to fall down the tiny crack between the bathroom vanity and the shower screen. My monthly bleeds never arrived because I had a Mirena inserted into my uterus. A Mirena looks like this.
A diagram of a Mirena. source: Planned Parenthood
A mirena is a hormonal intrauterine device (or IUD) that goes into the cervix and slowly releases a low dose of the hormone levonorgestrel. It prevents pregnancy by thickening the mucus of the uterus to block the sperm and thinning out the lining of the uterus to make implantation more difficult. The sperm can’t get through to fertilise an egg. You still ovulate but you don’t get a period. It’s one of the many contraceptive options available to us in Australia.
And it sits like this.
How the Mirena works to prevent pregnancy.
Doctor says ‘no’
But a Mirena needs removal every five years and as its expiration date crept closer, my partner and I discussed our options. I was done with the pills and the IUDs. We had our two kids and as I turned 40 last year I was hoping that the “look-at-a-dick-and-get-pregnant” party trick of my 30s was wearing thin.
To decrease our chances of a “geriatric pregnancy” (god, it just gets better and better), we decided my partner would get a little snip in his ball sacks to stop those hungry seamen from swimming upstream. In medical terms, this is often referred to as a vasectomy.
We got the news that my partner was shooting blanks and his vasectomy a success as my regular doctor took extended leave so I booked an appointment with a woman I’d seen only once before.
At the appointment I explained that my Mirena was expiring and I wanted to go free-style. It was a difficult decision because I’ve never enjoyed having a period. I have no desire to claim my womanhood by bleeding out. I dislike most events that come with periods– the hassle of bleeding, the excruciating pain that used to vibrate through my back muscles, and when I was younger and trying to fall pregnant, there was the devastation left by crimson clots. Maybe the only good thing about them is taking a period shit (if you know, you know, and if you don’t forget about it).
But I had had some form of birth control hormone on and off since my late teens. At 16, my mum put me on the pill to “help with your skin” and as an impressionable teen I jumped at the promise of the complexion of a perfectly photoshopped Miranda Kerr on the cover of Dolly Magazine.
I also have a history of aura migraines so to avoid strokes I have to lay off the oestrogen and while there were other options available to me, I explained to the doctor that I’d done my research and made my decision. I wanted a break.
”Are you sure you want to do that? You are 40 now. Are you sure you don’t want to have another Mirena put in? While you may no longer need it for contraception, women nearing menopause often find themselves needing to have it put back in to stop heavy bleeding and severe pain.”
Perhaps she should have just called the retirement home and be done with me. And then to put my mind at further ease, she followed with:
“Have a think about it and get back to me because we can’t do the procedure today anyway because I need notice and I like my patients to have a painkiller beforehand. It’s an uncomfortable procedure.”
And as I walked out, I thought “It surely couldn’t be any more uncomfortable than listening to you.”
Perhaps she thought she was being helpful by warning me of the perils of a period, because, you know, as a woman of 40 with two children and two miscarriages, I’d obviously never had one.
A right to choose
On average, a woman in Australia will have between 450 and 500 periods in her lifetime and bleed between two and seven days. If you usually bleed for four days and have 450 periods in your life then you’ll be bleeding for FIVE YEARS. FIVE YEARS. Getting a period isn’t only about the time you spend bleeding, there are also financial burdens of buying period products and the emotional toll that a non-binary or transgender person may experience with a period as a constant reminder of a body they don’t want.
Here are just some of the symptoms you might get before or during your period:
pain or severe pain (dysmenorrhoea)
bloating or weight gain
constipation or diarrhoea
nausea
headaches
sore and/or swollen boobs
acne
fatigue
mood changes and feeling irritable
If you have a condition like endometriosis, your period will be another kind of hell. It’s a lot. Anybody who bleeds should get to decide what birth control method they use and whether they want a period or not, without judgment.
We have so many options available to us and contraception–unbelievably–still largely falls to the one blessed with a uterus to deal with. Add to that the stigma and shame still encasing our periods. We are told from our teens that our periods are a healthy part of life but in the next breath we’re told that we should hide it away.
The morning I got my first period at the age of 14, my mum shoved a box of Tampax into my hands, sent me into the toilet and said “Don’t come out until you’ve got one in”. How many times have we grabbed our handbag to take to the toilet when we really just needed to take a tampon? I still remember trying to convince boyfriends to buy tampons for me because I was too embarrassed. We’re told to accept our bodies but only if you mop up the blood with tampons, pads, cups or period panties because nobody wants to see you leaking. That’s just embarrassing.
I consider myself lucky that I don’t live in a place like Nepal where despite being criminalised, girls are still forced to live outside the home in outdoor huts when they have their periods. And what happens when you live in a country that doesn't have access to sanitary products and clean water? Over two billion people lack basic sanitation services.
And if you’re lucky enough to live in a country with clean water and access to period products then I hope you can afford them. And don’t have period sex because that’s disgusting and nobody will love you if you do. And you must take the pill, every day–don’t you dare miss one because we don’t need any more teen mums. Put a reminder in your phone or in your diary. Go to the hospital for a morning-after pill if you must!
But give your body a break for god’s sake! How are you going to fall pregnant if you’ve been on the pill your whole life?!
It’s utterly exhausting and confusing. It can be difficult to figure out what to do. I’m strong in my convictions. I’d made my decision. I’m also not so easily swayed so I found a better doctor who reacted as a doctor should: “Yep, let’s take it out. You can see how you go and if you find your period becomes unmanageable we can reassess your options later on.” She whipped the Mirena out and sent me on my way. No prior warning needed.
Nine months of bleeding
I’ve been having a period like clockwork every month for nine months now. I’ve always been in tune with my body so without clocking in and keeping check, I can tell when I will start bleeding just by the feel of my body.
My period is a bit heavier than it was years ago before the Mirena but unlike the excruciating pain I felt through my 20s, I have no pain. It’s certainly not the dire situation the doctor tried to tell me it was going to be. It’s inconvenient, yes, and I’m still adjusting to dealing with the blood, especially after nearly five years of not getting a period. I usually wear period pants during my bleed and I was out the other weekend when it arrived. I knew it was coming but I left the house in a hurry, unprepared and found myself shovelling reams of toilet paper into my pants, knowing full well that it would all creep up my backside giving me a thick wedgie.
Life is a moving and unpredictable beast. Much like our sexual desires, needs and wants change over time, so does our feeling towards our periods. There may be stages of your life where you don’t want to have your period and you’ll go on some form of hormonal control. There may be stages of your life where you’ll be desperate for your body to release an egg that will hopefully be fertilised, and there may other times when you’re ambivalent. Trust what you need, not what others tell you you need. For now, I’m okay with a monthly bleed but maybe in a year or two, I’ll feel differently. Right now, I’m fine with it. Period.
Love,
Theodora