And then, my mom came home from work. She looked at me and immediately knew something was up. "What's wrong?" she said. I started to cry. I didn't know how I was going to break it to her that I was bleeding to death.
"There's blood in my underwear and I have no idea why," I bawled at her. Her eyes lit up in this knowing way and her voice changed. She spoke softly, "Does your stomach hurt?" Now that I thought of it, yeah. It had been hurting all day.
She took me into the bathroom and sat me on the toilet, "You have your period," she said, "You're becoming a woman."
My period?? THAT'S what it was? How did I miss that? And whoa--what's all this becoming a woman stuff?
My mom kept talking, "Your body's going to start changing. When a woman gets her period, it means that her body is getting ready to bear children."
Children?
"This doesn't mean that you'll have children now," she said, "it just means that you'll be ready for it in the future."
I was so happy I wasn't dying that I didn't even care about the rest of the stuff. She handed me clean underwear with a pad already in it and told me to put it on. Then she showed me how to wash the blood off my underwear so it wouldn't stain.
And then, my mom came home from work. She looked at me and immediately knew something was up. "What's wrong?" she said. I started to cry. I didn't know how I was going to break it to her that I was bleeding to death.
