Nope, no such luck. My entire life up until we decided to have a baby I thought I just had a sensitive digestive system. I seemed to get what I thought were gas pains or constipation pains. It didn't seem tied to my period because it never happened when it was supposed to happen: right before Aunt Flo arrived.
Well, when you are introduced to the strange and terrifying world of starting a family you learn lots of new things about yourself and babies. Like, lots, we're talking information overload here. One of the things I learned was that I wasn't one of the lucky ones, I also had monthly pain, but it was tied to ovulation instead of menstruation.
Basically, what this means is 1 out of 5 women experience what is called Mittelschmerz, a German term that translates to "middle pain" or pain in the middle of one's cycle. Fabulous! There's no textbook definition for the types of pain that come with Mittelschmerz, apparently all women experience varying degrees of it and it can range from short bursts of sharp pain or long, drawn-out, dull pain.
My Mittelschmerz manifests as something akin to a really horrible gas pain on either my left or right side that only goes away if I take Advil. It happens when the ovary releases an egg, and in some women it can hurt because some blood and fluid is released that irritates the rest of your abdomen. I guess it's good to know that I can ovulate but man does it hurt.
Being a woman can be so gross but also feels incredibly empowering because we can go through all these disgusting, painful things and still come out as strong as ever. So if you didn't already know about it, that's the word of the day: Mittelschmerz.
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| What I feel like doing cause of Mittelschmerz |
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