Elevate Your Health Colorado Let the Gynecologist pick the conversation

Last weekend we invited a couple of other families over to our house for dinner.

They have kids the same age as our kids, so the kids ran off to the park and left the adults to cocktails and chit-chat. None of the other parents are doctors; they are all lawyer/business types. So when I overheard one of the moms, Sally, telling the other mom, Janine, something about her daughter’s period, of course, that’s when I chimed into the conversation.

Both of them have 12 year old daughters, one who has had her period and one who has not. Sally’s daughter, Sophie, was over at Janine’s house and there was a spur of the moment decision for Sophie to sleep over.

Sophie, however, was a 12 year old with her period and no sanitary supplies. What to do?

The idea of Sophie asking Janine, “Can I borrow some tampons?” Well, that was out of the question, because even though virtually all women have or have had a menstrual period, that has got to be the most embarrassing, unrealistic, frankly outrageous question for a 12 year old to ask another woman.

So the moms talked and magically, some sanitary supplies appeared in the kid’s bathroom and all was well. The sleepover went off without a hitch, and everyone was happy…. Except for the dads at my dinner party on this evening. Because Sally went on to ask me if it is normal for her 12 year old to have such heavy, long (10 day) periods.

How heavy?

Well a graphic description ensued. (Not graphic for me, but graphic for a male lawyer.) One of the dads then just up and left the room—left the food, left the conversation, left the wine! I guess not all conversations that are normal for a two gynecologist family are tolerable for everyone.

At any rate, I wanted to try to help out her daughter, as did my gynecologist husband, and he suggested her daughter try some birth control pills.

Well I can tell you most mothers do not want to hear their 12 year old daughter’s name and the term “birth control” in the same sentence, and that was true for my friend Sally. “I don’t think so,” she says.

Then I say, “Let me re-phrase that. How about some hormone pills to help your daughter with the inconvenience of her long, heavy periods?”

She thinks about it, still skeptical, and my husband and I give her the names of some of our trusted OB/GYN friends with whom she can have a formal consultation and evaluation (which will almost certainly not require a pelvic exam for her daughter). She seems to feel better about it, as we reassured her that it is very unlikely there is anything serious going on and one of the options may be for her to just wait and see if things improve with time.

That settled, the men join the women again. The lawyers start to drive the conversation to politics. Everyone starts to scream at each other.

I think maybe its just better to talk about periods.