Sunday, September 16, 2007

Day 2: Getting comfortable

It's day two of my moon cup experiment and I have to wonder -- did my period start early this month because I was so excited about giving the cup a try? My horoscope for last week was all about noticing the pull of the moon and being in touch with how the moon (and other large bigger-than-oneself influences) affect my body and soul. Maybe I was just destined to ask Diana for a moon cup this month, so that I'd have two days at home to get comfortable with its use before starting the work week.

Anyway, here are my observations from today:
  • I've been kind of crampy, which is slightly unusual. I doubt this has anything to do with using the moon cup, but usually when I feel crampy I prefer to use cloth pads so it's been a little odd having something in my vagina today. I took an ibuprofen and have been feeling better.
  • It's a lot easier (for me) to insert the cup standing rather than seated on the toilet. Removing the cup is also easier standing, although the possibility of spillage seems to increase. I've decided that I'm going to continue sitting when removing the cup, just in case.
  • This seems kind of obvious in retrospect, but, although I'm pretty familiar with the consistency of what comes out of my body when I menstruate, I expected it to be thinner in the cup. It's not. It's stretchy and fairly thick and strands can be both in the cup and above it when I take it out. This means being wary of pulling out strings of menstrual blood and normal vaginal discharge when removing the cup (also why sitting on the toilet seems to work best for removal -- any blood/mucous that comes out with the cup will fall into the toilet, rather than on your pants). I did get some on the toilet seat, but I'm chalking that up to not taking off my long sweater before heading to the bathroom and so having to do some pretty creative balancing while taking the cup out. Lesson learned.
  • Is it weird to think your menstrual blood is pretty? One reason I like sea sponges is because it gives me a chance to get up close and personal with my menstrual fluids. The cup does too, but more so. I think especially because the cup is clear silicone rather than the pale yellow of the sponges, the vibrant crimson is even more striking. It was kind of strange to be sitting on the toilet, pants around ankles and sweater balanced on one arm, checking out the gorgeously alive splash of scarlet that just came out of my body, but now I can sort of understand the appeal of painting with your own menstrual blood. Where else could you find such a perfect red?
  • The pull-tab of the cup initially felt clunky and bothersome. I was tempted to trim it but decided to wait and see if I got use to it. For the most part I don't even feel it anymore (except occasionally if I sit in a weird position) and the longer tab really helps with removal, so I think I'll leave it.
Last night I was telling my housemate Kerry about using the moon cup. She recently started using sea sponges, so there's been a lot of talk about menstruation in our house as of late. She asked me, "if you were using the moon cup and you got lost in the woods, would you drink your menstrual blood to survive?" I know you can drink your own urine in survival situations, but does anybody know about menstrual blood? Something to think about!

2 comments:

Res said...

I know this comment is years later, but -- thanks for this. I just got a mooncup and this little set of entries is amazingly informative and very reassuring.

I was using the Instead softcups (Love love love those!) and my local store just...stopped selling them. Serious disappointment!

So I went looking for alternatives and found the mooncup -- which I'd passed by before because it was just intimidating.

I wanted to say, also -- its so nice to see someone who (honestly and openly) comments about the blood. ....when I started using Instead I was surprised by the results -- I had no idea what was coming out of my body and, darn it, I'm almost 40! I knew some of it -- I used to run a cadaver search dog, and while the guys had to have EMTs pull blood for their training samples, Nature gave me an easy way out, heh, but...

...you're right. its gorgeous. The color is amazing and the texture is not at all what I expected. And when I rinsed out the Instead cups (they are clear soft plastic) and saw what showed up as the water swirled everything away -- I'm a photographer now and I wanted to photograph it, the way the color and tissue looks.

Thank you for your honesty! It is helping make a scary change a lot less scary!

Tracy said...

Res, I'm glad someone else shares my thoughts about menstrual blood being strangely beautiful! I felt a little like a crazy person putting that out there, but it's good to know I'm not alone -- it really is quite an amazing color.

I'm glad this blog is helping you on your moon cup journey! Feel free to get in touch if you need any advice :)