Pray with me that my bleed comes.

23 January 2023

Pray with me that my bleed comes.

It’s been 3 years and 14 days since my last menstrual bleed. Or 158 weeks. Or 36.5 months. Or 1,109 days. Whatever. It’s been a long time.

I loved getting my bleed. Although when I experienced pre-menstrual pain and cramps I felt it so viscerally in MY body and MY womb, I also experienced it as feeling all of the pain of the planet, of mother earth. Then came the release, the letting go, the end, the death. Examining the blood, the tissue, the colour, the texture, the consistency, the volume, the smell, the taste. And offering it back to the earth.

And beyond the 5 days of blood, the cycle then continued for another 3 or so weeks, transitioning through the seasons.

3 years and 14 days ago I was almost 40 years old and with a history of polycystic ovaries, and really did believe perimenopause was the next pertinent milestone on my personal physical journey. Though I had an inkling I could be a pretty decent parent, mostly because of the spiritual, healing, embodiment and self transformation journey I’ve been on for the last decade or two, I didn’t think I was going to be a parent in this lifetime. I thought I would continue to birth and midwife projects and events and such into the world, but not a human baby.

But my next period didn’t come, and a month later I discovered I was pregnant. It was the first time in my life I had to make a decision, a choice whether to continue with or terminate a pregnancy. For the most part I was elated that my body worked! That I was able to conceive! After a long time feeling that I was someone who wasn’t very fertile or whose body was not wanting to function optimally for one reason or another.

I want to write more about the journey from there to here as there are so many layers to this conversation! But for now I want to pray that my bleed comes.

There’s been a 9 month pregnancy then 2 years and 3 months of raising a wee bairn. In particular breastfeeding for that time. There’s no one way people who breastfeed will experience the relationship to their menstrual cycle postpartum. Someone may start getting their periods again almost straigth away, or after a few months, but for me that’s not been the case, not one drop.

My feeling is that on my current parenting journey my body is wise enough to know what it can and cannot do optimally. My body knows how to create nourishing milk for Eden. And for that I am so deeply grateful. My body knows it could not also return my menstrual cycle to me. My body knows I am holding a lot on this parenting journey. My body knows I cannot be ALL right now.

Then three months ago we transitioned from super relaxed, intuitive on demand breastfeeding, to becoming more boundaried and structureed and Eden onlly having a bfreastfeed first thing in the morning, last thihgn at night before bed, and possiblly a feed before morning nap if we’re at home.

On rare occassion in my breastfeeding journey when I was really physically and emotionally exhausted I’d come doewn with mastitis, a swollen and tender right breast accompanied with flu-like symptoms, then suddently just before this breastfeeding transition, I stated getting mastitis on the full moon would you believe it! It felt like my body was trying to have some sort of cycle, some sort of release.

Shortly after this breastfeeding transition, I experienced ovulation pains in my ovaries, more prominently in my right one. My vaginal discharge returned, different texture one week then the next. I felt all hot and headachey one week. I thought my period was coming, then nothing. This has happened for the past three months now.

On this journey coming back to my body and my self over the past six or so months I have been supported with homeopathy and herbs, acupuncture, cranio and postpartum bodywork, somatic therapy and more dance and yoga and wild sauna but still nothing!

A dear sister visited on Friday, I got childcare sorted so we could go for beautiful, relaxed sauna times. This weekend, new moon, feeling headachey, spaced out and VERY emotional! Both Saturday and Sunday I was w e a r y, had to just lie on the sofa for half an hour, and be completely still. Went to a mindful / conscious dance event yesterday morning (again without Eden) and spent much of the event on my knees sobbing into the ground. Releasing. Grieving. Alowing tears of sadness and sorrow to flow.

For me as a mother who has not been held as I had hoped I would by my family, my community, my society. For all mothers.

For the feminine who has been crushed by colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy. For the feminine in all of us.

For the women of Iran who have been tortured and killed. For all women.

For the planet who has been abused. For all of life.

AND I was able to move through this, let go, and step into a space of grace and equanimity.

Yesterday I began feeling really womby, and bloated, and nauseous, feeling the change of hormones akin to morning sickness (but no sex for this to be a thing!), and today I’ve been feeling the menstrual cramps. So viscerally.

I’ve been praying that my bleed comes.

I hope this isn’t the end of this chapter, of my menstrual years. Not quite yet.

Please pray with me that my bleed comes.