What Was Your First Period Like?

CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 09:49 am: [report]

Punctuation is hard.

indiemamacita
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 09:52 am: [report]

I was nine. And had not had any of the “talks” yet. I was actually oddly calm about it. I just grabbed my mom and said, hey mom, can you look at this (my underwear). But I also spent the next couple of years horrified that my friends would find out.

Pookie
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 09:52 am: [report]

I was 13, and sharing a room with my two younger brothers(we were in the process of movingand my room was deemed storage), I woke up to the screams of my brothers calling my mom b.c my WHITE pj’s AND sheets where covered in blood…...yeah Good Morning to me…..she spent hours cleaning and explaining to my brothers that it was normal, and to NOT mention this to their friends…..<shudder>

Unohoo
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 09:57 am: [report]

My first period was the morning the space shuttle Challenger blew up.  Coincidence?  I think not.

Laurel
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 09:57 am: [report]

My first period was when I was in 6th grade, and it was really light (luckily), so I was able to wait till I got home to deal with it. There were definitely a few months where I’d get caught off guard and have to wrap my underwear with toilet paper though.

Mostly I remember being relieved when I got my period. I had an idea that it was going to come soon, so I was glad to finally have it and know when it would be coming in the future.

EnfantDeLune
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 09:59 am: [report]

Sixth grade P.E. class. I hated P.E. (from kindergarten through high school) and had the same teacher every year - Mr. G. Jerk. I always tried to get out of P.E. by faking sick, so during one class when I got all-of-a-sudden-soul-wrenching-cramps, he thought I was faking. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew I was in pain. He sent me to the dean’s office because I was crying and “making it up.” The dean called my mom to pick me up because of my discipline problem. My mom took me home, where we both discovered I wasn’t faking it. Panties and cute pink leggings were ruined. Tampon/pad talk ensued. I still have not forgiven Mr. G.

skywalk
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:01 am: [report]

I have know idea, does everyone remember? I think I was around 11 but that is about it.

snap
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:04 am: [report]

a couple weeks after i turned 13.  it started slow and light, so i was skeptical for several hours that it was even my period.  i didn’t tell my mom (nervously) until that evening, and she showed me how to use a pad.  i remember feeling like i was wearing a diaper until i got used to it.  i had my second period four weeks later, and i’ve always been so perfectly regular.

Ginger
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:05 am: [report]

My first period was boring.

I had known about it for years, having devoured these ‘What’s happening to you’ sort of books at nine years old (and again at ten because puberty just seemed so fascinating).

My period didn’t come until seventh grade. It was right before I left for school and I decided to use the bathroom before catching the bus. It felt odd so I looked down and everything was red.

It still kind of freaked me out, even if I knew what it was. But I still called my mom (she had left, like, fifteen minutes earlier) and told her I had gotten my period. She said to just get her pads (she wasn’t explaining tampons to me over the phone) and we’d go shopping for whatever size I needed after school.

Not that exciting. I did revert back to my fourteen year old self when I started using tampons this year. Tampons made me exicted for my period again. God knows why.

Ginger
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:06 am: [report]

@EnfantDeLuna Gym teachers suck about these things. Even a good portion of the female ones I’ve met will accuse you of faking. Or just give you a ‘did not participate’ grade for the day.

GreenAura
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:09 am: [report]

I was 13 and knew what to expect thanks to 7th grade sex ed.  But my mom was seriously busted up over it. She was bawling and saying over and over how her little baby is growing up.  Then she told my dad.  He came in my room and SHOOK MY HAND and said “well I guess you’re a woman now, just don’t go getting pregnant like your aunts did” and then for a week straight, he avoided any kind of contact with me.  Awesome. I moved out 4 years later.

pinkjellyfish
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:09 am: [report]

I was 12, and it happened on a weekend (not during school, what a relief!) Luckily I knew what to expect, and it started while I was going to the bathroom. It was all very anticlimactic. But I guess in return for giving me that small favor, my body from then on had the cramps from hell. High school was torture, because a few times I went to the nurse’s office begging for something to stop the pain, but they just thought I was either pregnant or faking it to skip class.

I’m happily cramp-free now Birth control, you’re my HERO!

AjSeven
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:14 am: [report]

@skywalk. You’re not alone, I don’t have the slightest clue, where I was, what I was doing or how old I was. Guess we’re the minority on this one.

Jamie Lee
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:25 am: [report]

i got mine in 8th grade during my english midterm…i remember trying to hustle up to my locker to get my stuff to get on the bus to go home quickly, hoping no one would notice the mess on my jeans. And forever and a day, I will always remember that my very good friend, who is a guy, noticed and very discreetly gave me his sweatshirt to tie around my waist so I would have a cover up, and he never mentioned it to me or anyone again…what a lifesaver!!!

CuteinOhio
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:26 am: [report]

I woke up one morning in 6th grade before school with mine.  My mom gave me the pad talk, and then made me up a little purse that she told me I was allowed to take to school with me (god only knows why she didn’t just tuck some pads into my backpack…).  I, for some reason, thought this was how it was done.  So not only did I feel weird about getting my period, I also had to carry around this little purse that everyone was curious about. 

When I got home from school I got a phone call from my grandfather congratulating me on becoming a woman.  Most.  Awkward. Thing. Ever.

Emi
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:29 am: [report]

11-12. I kept getting these pains that felt different then anything I had felt before, and finding brown stuff (old blood) in my underwear. I was raised by my grandma mostly, and I was too embarrassed to say anything until I got so stressed I couldn’t take it. TBH I thought I was crapping in my pants without realizing it (how dumb). She just said it was my period, and promptly called people. Not even half an hour later I’m sure *everyone* in my family knew and I got calls of congrats from members in another state.

gloriafretz
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:31 am: [report]

I was lucky to not get it until I was 15. That way I was mature enough to deal with it. My mom was 9, glad I didn’t take after her

dudette
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:32 am: [report]

I was in 7th grade and I got my period on a saturday.  I just remember thinking, “this is it?  this is GROSS” haha.  Well my mom was on a weekend trip so i just helped myself to her pads in the lower drawer of the bathroom.  Once she came home I told her, but I couldn’t go to school on Monday because I didn’t own a purse and we were not allowed to carry around backpacks in my middle school.

Em.Ryd
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:48 am: [report]

I was almost 11 when mine came. It was slow at first so I hid it, half way out of embarrassment and denial, for the first day. But when I woke up the next morning it was very clear that I just couldn’t hide it any more. I went to my mom bawling and told her. She approached the situation in a manner only a true hippie mama could, by taking my underpants from that night and soaking them in a bowl of water in the back yard. She then proceeded to fertilize the garden with my menstrual blood. I then had to crawl through that legs of my mom and her friends and emerge a women. Needless to say I think my embarrassment and trying to hide my period was completely justified.

ulostme
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 11:09 am: [report]

I remember it like it was yesterday…

I was in the 6th grade (early bloomer) and the summer before school started I saved up my allowance to buy me a white jean outfit with matching LA Gear sneakers(remember those?? gotta love the 80’s), and I wore it on a science trip to the Liberty Science Center the first week of school.  Someone else noticed the blood on the back of my pants and my entire class…and every other school on that filed trip…knew I got my period.  My teacher gave me her cardigan to wrap around my waist, but the damage was done.  I had to stay with the class the whole day, walk around the museum, eat lunch, and ride the bus home.  At the time, I was humiliated, but now, it makes for a pretty great story.

sportzriter13
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 11:26 am: [report]

I was going into 5th grade, and I remember going to bed with a stomachache, and in the morning my beautiful pink silk pj’s were covered in blood (thank god my mother is a laundry goddess-they came out of the wash looking like nothing happened!) My mother, whose very calm and straightforward, had asked me to let her know if I ever had blood in my underwear. So when it happened, I knew exactly what was going on, and was ready. The only thing I wasn’t prepared for was the pain. Getting on the pill took care of that.
I hope that I’ll be as supportive and helpful to my daughter, as my mother is to me. To me, that seems to make a major difference in how a woman perceives herself.

Humble Bee
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 11:26 am: [report]

I got mine when I was 10 in the 4th grade and I thought I was going to die. I had no clue what was happening. Luckily it was summer so I didnt have school.

justme
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 11:28 am: [report]

I have an older sister so I knew the day was coming.  I was in 6th grade.  I had a feeling the night before it happened so I used a light pad and when I woke up in the morning it had arrived and everything was nice and perfectly stain free.
I went in to wake up and tell my mom who was in bed with my stepdad.  I had to BEG her to get out of bed so I could tell her without an audience.  She gave me a new pad and said we’d change the sheets later, she was pretty shocked when I told her there was no mess.  Hooboy this pristine start had nothing on the messes that came in the future. I never knew when it was coming and sometimes my uterus would just explode. God bless birth control.
To this day, my cousin knows when I started my period and I know for a fact that I’m not the one that spilled the beans.

sameji
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 11:47 am: [report]

I started over the summer between 4th and 5th grade, so I would have been 10, I think. I knew what it was because my parents had given me books, so in the morning when I saw it I went to my parents’ bedroom and told my mother, “Mom, I think I started my period.” I had to use her overnight pads at first, since she used tampons during the day and wouldn’t let me use them at first (she eventually did let me wear them for karate class). It really wasn’t dramatic or anything, I was just like “Crap, I started my period.” Incidentally, I still have moments like that….

delovely
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 12:17 pm: [report]

It was like a whimper of a period. And I thought, “Well, this isn’t so bad.”

Oh, if only I knew then what I know now. I’ve never hated something so much (yet prayed for it on certain occasions) in the last ten years.

angiecakes
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 12:39 pm: [report]

12 years old. Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Grabbed my mom and said “need your help in the bathroom.” Quick pad lesson, no fuss. Then she decides to tell my aunt, who drunkenly announces my accomplishment to the whole family an hour later. Thanks auntie. :-|

WhiskeyJenn
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 12:48 pm: [report]

I was 12, and it was the 4th of July and my family was having a picnic…let’s just say being at a park with only like, the non-flush kind of toilets is not the setting to get your first period in. Then trying to weasel my way into my mom through my relatives…yikes. I was a very very very easily embarassed girl when I was that age and my family likes to be loud about things like that.

@angiecakes- What is with the holiday thing?! It sounds so so familiar…

aries3_04
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 12:51 pm: [report]

I read some of the posts here, I can’t believe family members would tell extended family about it…how embarrassing! For all I know, my mom told everyone and I wasn’t aware.

I was 14 and got it at summer camp. I woke up and walked to the bathroom, where I’m sure the other girls saw it - when I got in the stall, I saw red everywhere - even on the back of my t-shirt. So I acted like nothing happened and used a ton of toilet paper. I called my mom and she talked to the counselor who gave me pads. I hid all my clothes (I was too embarrassed to get them laundered so I scrubbed them in the sink) in the back of my suitcase. I threw them away once I got home. I knew about sex ed and all of that so I acted like it was no big deal and avoided talking to my parents for weeks. Talk about denial.

effing hickster
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 12:57 pm: [report]

@ulostme: You would think that there would be at least one parent who might think to give you a ride home after an embarrassment like that, wouldn’t you?

My younger brother has a tampon horror story as well. My brother, you say? Well, in seventh grade, he learned that it’s very bad manners to inspect a woman’s purse. He got trounced in front of his whole class for doing that. I think he learned his lesson. He’s now the most polite man you’ve ever met (besides me).

Ginger
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 01:13 pm: [report]

@ulostme I had a guy friend in middle school have a similar problem.

He got this all white outfit that he was so proud of (and that his mother had shelled out lots of cash to get him) and at the end of the day a red pen he had in the pocket exploded. And the stain was about the same place (I have no idea how this happened) that a period stain would be.

All of the girls teased him so badly because, as I put it, we ‘thought guys never had this problem’.

Needless to say, he was not happy at all.

LunaLena
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 01:15 pm: [report]

Mine started during winter of seventh grade.  I remember this because it started the day before I was leaving for a three-day ski camp that I had been looking forward to for months, so I hid it from my parents because I was afraid they wouldn’t let me go.  The year before, the health office at school had distributed sample packs of pads to the female students, so I made do with those and then bought a small pack at a convenience store.  A bit of blood and pain wasn’t going to stop me from hitting the slopes!

It wasn’t horribly traumatic, though.  I’d been reading those coming-of-age books like “Are You There, God?  It’s Me, Margaret” for years by then, plus my mother had sat me down with some illustrated medical books and explained sex and menstruation when I was 11, so I had a pretty good idea of what was coming.  The only really annoying part is that my period seems to take an evil delight in appearing at the wrong times.  Not only did it nearly wreck my ski camp trip, during the next few years it started while my family was at Universal Studios, the night before a family vacation to a tropical island, etc.

sameji
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 01:24 pm: [report]

@effing hickster:
When I was in 5th grade, my mom would only let me use pads, so I kept a spare one in my back pocket. During music class, we were all sitting down on the ground for whatever reason, and apparently my pad was sticking out a bit. The boy behind me somehow thought it would be appropriate to pull it out and ask me what it was in the middle of class. Of course, I got indignant, told him it was “personal,” and told the teacher on him later. I’m not sure if she ever told him what it was, though. After that I started carrying a little purse to prevent something like that from happening again.

rsonnack
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 01:41 pm: [report]

All I remember is that I was around 12, and I realized it when I was going to the bathroom at my dad’s house. I think I immediately threw away that pair of undies and grabbed another pair and used toilet paper. I didnt get pads until the next day because that’s when I went to my mom’s house. I was definitely too weirded out about it to tell my dad lol. I just casually told my mom, and she casually gave me some pads, and went out and bought a new package for me to take to my dad’s house.

mayorbubbles
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 02:40 pm: [report]

I got my first period a month before I went in to high school (and turned 14). I was staying at my aunt’s house because my mom went on a cruise. I was in denial for the first and second day and would have rather believed I was dying than to think I had just gotten my first period. Then when I took a grip on reality I used my aunt’s pads. Somehow she found out and told my mom, and my mom told my entire family -.- So at my birthday party the next month all of my female relatives were like “Congratulations! you’re a woman!” Oh joy…

impoddity
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 03:02 pm: [report]

I was 13. I thought I had a stomach bug, the cramps were so bad.  My mom kind of threw me some Stayfree pads, which were the bulkiest. I knew. I’d seen the commercials.  And she wouldn’t let me use tampons until I could buy my own with my own money. 

She still acts weird if we’re out at the supermarket and I pick up a box of tampons.  Some people are just conservative about body issues I guess.  She never bothered to give me the sex talk either.  I actually talked to my younger sister about it when she entered middle school and bought her a pack of condoms when she started getting serous with her first boyfriend. 

Needless to say, I don’t think my mom would be very happy with my actions.  But someone had to do it!!

Lynn
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 03:13 pm: [report]

I can’t read all the previous responses. Something is jacked up with The Frisky’s comment section, it’s cutting off half of each comment!

Anyway, am I think only girl who doesn’t remember her first period? I know it came late-ish and I was 14 or 15 (now I know why, my girly business is all jacked up on the insidey parts, I’ve only had 2 or 3 natural periods in my life). I don’t remember how I felt about it or if I cared. Even two years later when I was at the doctor and she asked me when I started my period, I couldn’t even tell her. That was only 2 or 3 years later and I had no idea when it had started. So I guess that shows how little it bothered me. I do know that I didn’t talk to my mom about it at all, except to say “we need tampons.”

lawyrgrl
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 03:14 pm: [report]

I was 11 and scheduled to spend the night over at my best friend’s house.  Even though her house was less than 2 miles away and her mother was one of the nicest and most level-headed women I have ever known, my mother made me stay home “just in case.”  In case of what?  My vagina exploding?  She made a big deal about it and asked me how I was every 10 minutes.  I remember thinking, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that she needed to get a grip.  I think that she was trying to be nice and make it a bonding experience but that was just not in the cards for us - then or ever really.

Also, my mother insisted that I could not use tampons because I was a virgin.  I am not sure if she actually believed that they would not insert properly or if they would “break my seal” and make me less valuable to my eventual purchaser/husband. 

_jsw_
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 03:25 pm: [report]

@Lynn: There’s been a formatting “fix”.

It’s broken things for me on Safari.
They still work on Firefox, though.

_jsw_
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 03:26 pm: [report]

@Lynn: And as soon as I posted that, it’s working again. I suspect magic.

writergirl
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 03:56 pm: [report]

My mother didn’t tell anyone, and in fact, was insistent I never said a WORD about having it.  Ever.  To anyone.

Pretty ironic considering my period and repoductive organs have been the discussion of almost every doctor in the tri-state area now.

Typewriter
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 04:15 pm: [report]

I think I was either 13 or 14, but I had read Judy Blume’s “Forever” when I was 8, so I knew it had to come eventually. I’d actually been agonizing about it for years already. Then when it came, I was kind of like “Uh.. mom? A little help?” and she told me she’d had a dream the night before that it was going to happen. Freeeaky.
Anyways, no major dramz, other than the fact that for a while the cramps were so bad, I told my mom I wanted my ovaries removed. Slight overreaction on my part.

Anniushka
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 04:20 pm: [report]

My first period story is kind of sad, but I’ll tell it anyway.

Basically I started my period when I was 12 and a half, two days before my teenaged brother died of cancer. I told my mom at the same time as she told me that he was gone. The period itself wasn’t a big deal—I already knew all about pads and stuff, which I guess was best, considering the circumstances. Like my mom needed anything else on her plate at the moment.

Yep.

...God, that was a bad way to enter adolescence. Wow.

Typewriter
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 04:21 pm: [report]

Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure I’m remembering the wrong book, “Just As Long As We’re Together,” which I also read that year. Big Judy Blume phase for me. It prepared me years in advance.

Typewriter
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 04:23 pm: [report]

@ Anniushka: That must have been so hard. Being 12 can be difficult enough.

Knitter79
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 06:18 pm: [report]

8th grade.  Friday the 13th.  I was going to the bathroom and called my mom in to ask her to get me a pad (and clean underwear).  She got me one then told me not to tell my sister (two years older) because she had only just gotten hers a few weeks before.  My sis was pissed that I ‘developed’ at the same time even though she’s older.  My mom’s idea of the birds and the bees talk was ‘they taught you that stuff in school, right?’ so no embarrassing conversations about pads or tampons.

ShortyDooWop
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 07:38 pm: [report]

Aug 2, 1997, I was 11 out of town at a bed and breakfast with my mom and aunt.  I saw the blood, new what it was and got some toilet paper.  My mom saw my panties and told me to wipe better LOL…so I let her believe that.  I got home 2 days later and started using the pads my mom had secretly placed in the linen closet.  She finally figured out what was going on and wanted to talk about it.  I told her that I had it handled and did not want to talk about it.  I’m a strong believer that moms and daughters don’t need to discuss things nor be friends so I keep my Mommy at a distance…she still threw in, “I guess you’re a woman now.”  I was upset for days!

maroon
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 07:42 pm: [report]

The first: I was 12.  It was relatively anticlimactic.  I went to the bathroom in between classes (French and gym), and discovered my coming of age.  The rest of the girls made a big deal of it, but meh.  I told my mom that night, and we stopped to get pads together, because she was NOT about to guide me through that obstacle course with her own carbon-dated tampons.
The trauma: fast forward 4 years, when I had maneuvered through the obstacle course, and I was wearing a tampon to a field hockey game.  A rather violent one.  I was knocked to the ground, and managed to stop the ball, going about 50mph, WITH MY HOOHA.  It was only years later when I heard stories of people going to the ER with plungers and rolls of coins up their nethers did I feel relatively normal when I presented in the ER with my stuck tampon in my swollen, bruised bits.

Ginger
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 09:43 pm: [report]

@maroon Dude, you are hardcore.

effing hickster
wrote on September 11 2009 @ 10:59 pm: [report]

@maroon: Yowza! That beats the time I horse-shoed the dividing wall at the skating rink with my crotch!

maroon
wrote on September 12 2009 @ 06:07 am: [report]

@Ginger- thanks.  to this day i still can’t bring myself to wear a tampon unless ABSOLUTELY necessary :(

mrfunny107
wrote on September 12 2009 @ 05:30 pm: [report]

My first period was pretty intimidating. We have a major essay due in a week and my teacher was all up our grills when….wait…ooooh…never mind.

Melania
wrote on September 12 2009 @ 05:49 pm: [report]

I was shopping with my Mom and Grandmother and they went into Kmart, and then we used the washrooms in there.  I was almost 13.  There was a bit of light blood on my underwear and i called my Mom.  She was unimpressed and handed me a pad. 
I was so depressed as i had read these books about mothers celebrating womanhood with their daughters and my mother could not care less. 
My sister introduced me to tampons, was the nicest thing she ever did for me.  We used to have to hide them as mom believed only non virgins could use them. 
My mother eventually got over that as my own daughter belives in buying tampons in bulk!, and never even remotely considered a pad. And me neither. 
I would like to see an article and comments about applicatorLESS tampons.  Those i dont get, it just seems way to messy to me.

drebella
wrote on September 13 2009 @ 06:11 pm: [report]

first time for me was right before march break and I was at home getting ready to go to this week long church thingy called spring folly where afterwords I would be staying at best friends house. I think i was maybe 11 and i called my mom into the bathroom when it happened. My older sister(by six years) was convinced that i was only spotting and that i hadn’t actually gotten it yet.(i think she was mad because she had gotten it not long before that..lol) Anyway my mom sent me to my friends with a huge supply of pads and quick instructions on how often to change them etc, etc. I was so embarrassed that i hid all my used pads in my bag until i got home to dispose them,(i know ew). I thought that pads were the grossest thing in the world and soon switched to tampons(self educated about them)I have never gone back to pads. And yeah my mom called all the women in the family to tell them her baby was now a woman.(she also told my dad…lol)Anyways i was kinda excited even though i got terrible cramps right away cause I thought that meant my boobs would get big cause I had hit puberty. Sadly enough that never happened and its been 14yrs now…lol

Ally
wrote on September 13 2009 @ 08:37 pm: [report]

I was the first girl in my family but still had a bit of an idea thanks to my mum slinging me a pack of pads when I was in year 6 and telling me to have a look at them and get familiar cause it wouldn’t be long until I needed them.
When I got my period it was the middle of an Australian summer and I was distraught because my mum didn’t explain about tampons and told me I couldn’t go swimming. Difficult.
She also called everyone in the family and told my dad - which I was mortified about but it was justified by my mother saying that when my dad did nursing he came first in gynacology. Once again awkward.

Buhri
wrote on September 14 2009 @ 11:47 am: [report]

I got mine the summer after 6th grade, my mom had told me nothing about pads or tampons so we went to Walmart, she sent me to the pad aisle and told me to pick some. HA, I got liners! I ruined a few pairs of clothes before I went online and figured out I needed actual pads.

jackofhearts
wrote on September 15 2009 @ 10:39 am: [report]

I’ve got PCOS so mine was very late - didn’t get it until I was sixteen and although the pain was unreal, I was so happy I couldn’t stop smiling. The first time I put in a tampon (I’ve never used pads or STs - sanitary towels - to give them their UK name) I couldn’t believe how uncomfortable it was.. took me a bit of time to figure out the angle etc but I nailed it in the end. The overwhelming memory is one of relief.

Julie Rose
wrote on October 25 2009 @ 08:11 pm: [report]

I was 12 and it was on Thanksgiving Day and just had felt a little out of sorts most of the day.  After dinner I went to my room to lie down but when I went to the bathroom discovered that I had gotten my first period. I was pretty happy because most of my friends had already gotten theirs.  Between health class and mom I knew what to do and there was a package of pads just waiting for this day to arrive. Pads were OK for that first month and my period was over by Monday.  A couple of weeks later we were having swimming in gym class so my mom had to give me some tampon lessons, but was pretty cool about it.