This post is about my period ... read on if you dare!!!

Avert your eyes if you are the remotest bit embarrassed by "women's things" LOL This post is about my period!

I take the pill religiously every day without fail because I have a horribly irregular natural cycle and it helps me to know when to expect my period. It can be an awful shock when you are out for the evening in a pair of white trousers and you suddenly get your period. NO it has never happened to me, but my fear of it meant I never wore white until I discovered the pill! LOL

Anyway ... damn I sidetrack a lot don't I!

I haven't had a period since Christmas. I hadn't overly worried because I know my body very well (I've known it thirty two and a half years!) and I also know there is no chance of me being pregnant ... I did a test a couple of months ago at the start of January just to be absolutely sure and surprise surprise it was a big fat negative.

I just put it down to stress because I remember all to clearly the last year with my ex boyfriend ... I was with him for five years and the last year we were together I didn't have a period AT ALL and I was taking my pill to the letter! I was back and forth to the doctor (at one point I did get pregnant by my ex despite the pill and had a miscarriage as I hadn't known I was pregnant and was doing a lot of stupid stuff but that is a whole other post!)

Anyway ... since then, I've always had pretty irregular periods. I even tried norplant and the depo injection but they sent my already screwy emotions completely outta whack. I eventually went on the pill again, doctors put it down to being stressed out in a bad relationship and blah blah.

I split with my ex, tried out a couple of different varieties of the pill with the doctor and eventually found a brand that worked for me and didn't turn me into a hormonal bitch from hell! LOL! After that the pill was kind of my regulator! I take a pill for 21 days and then have 7 days off. During that seven days I bleed for about 3.5 and it's usually fairly light to moderate. It's been that way for over a decade ... until just before Christmas anyway!

BUT the last period I had was actually in December. Admittedly I had "backpacked" my pills in November (for reasons I won't discuss in a public post!!) so that I didn't come on... but since then despite taking the pill properly, I've not bled at all. Anyway, after I took the negative test a couple months ago (I can't believe I am posting this in my blog but there ya go!) I decided that again "just incase" - to be doubly sure and all that jazz ... that I would take a test by the end of March if I hadn't come on!!

Soooo it was only actually a few days ago that I took yet another (very negative!) pregnancy test! The weirdest thing was ... as soon as I started thinking about the (exceptionally ... and seriouly, I mean SLIM) chance that I could be pregnant ... my boobs started to feel tender, I had to pee more often and funnily enough I hadn't been sick in a LONG time. See, whenever I've been pregnant before (pg 4 times had 2 miscarriages - one with my ex, one with hub then 2 children) I have ALWAYS had morning sickness.

In fact, I remember it wasn't even morning sickness - I referred to it as "Martini Sickness" ... ie anytime, anyplace, anywhere!! It was one of the first cues that I was pregnant ... and the fact that my being sick seemed to have stopped? It was all such a weird bizarre co-incidence.

Anyway (damn I am waffling tonight aren't I!) I had decided last night that I would take another pregnancy test in the morning "just to be absolutely doubly sure" because the first test I did when I was with Megan was a negative even though it worked out I would have definitely been pregnant at the time. It was only when I re-took the test two weeks later that it showed positive. A scan even proved I was 11 weeks at the time, so the test should have showed positive. The first test I did when I was pg with Nathan showed up right away and I was only very barely pregnant with him. My body is as wacky as my mind - go figure!

The weirdest thing was after thinking about that last night and starting to really worry about the possibility (yeah I slept badly too) .. I threw up this morning. It wasn't pretty is all I will say! Even the kids asked me if I'd been crying - LOL yeah I looked that bad!!! It was the start of me really feeling like absolute shite today.

I even remember thinking first thing this morning (about the point I gave up looking in the mirror and just put a hat on to take the kids to school!) ... I thought, is it me or is it just ironic that I throw up again (major pregnancy symptom after not throwing up for a LONG time) when I really start to panic about the "remote" (and seriously, it is a very very very remote possiblity! LOL) chance that I could be pregnant?

Bizarre how it was negative eh! LOL

(yeah I know, I take forever to get to the point!!)

So even though I was feeling crabby and crappy ... baggy and bloated. I went into work to do literally "the necessary" and came straight back home again. I put it down to working so hard recently for so many days in a row straight ... and needing almost a day off to recover from my day off yesterday!

Then - about half one this afternoon it happened! (cue Hallelujah chorus!) The reason for several anxiety / panic attacks today ... the reason why I have felt like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards!!

I GOT MY PERIOD! YEAH!!!!!! It's been incredibly light and hardly noticeable, but I'll deal on that! LOL I'm not just happy that I have absolute concrete proof that I am in fact NOT pregnant (even though the possibility was slim - did I say that enough yet? LOL) but it's also a reason why I have felt crappy and gained 2lbs this week! HAH!!

Okay period talk over - you can read again!!

The funniest thing was ... well, it wasn't funny as in haha but more funny as in hmmmm .... for that 2 minutes that I avoided looking at the results window, I actually hoped it would be positive even though I knew it would be negative!! Clear as mud? LOL A positive result would not have been a good result considering errr "circumstances" for want of a better term, but there was still a tiny part of me that knew there was that very VERY slim possibility.

I'm going to be 33 in July (tick tock and all that) and it's now very unlikely that I will ever have another baby. Those two minutes were almost like my last chance saloon and oh am I feeling it!

Hadn't meant to end on a melancholy note :-( Hopefully tomorrow will bring a better day ... and maybe I really REALLY need to get a puppy!!

I love Dawn Porter!! (not in a pervy sexual way tho!)

I watched "Dawn Get Naked" tonight ... completely by accident as it was on just after something else I was watching and I couldn't be bothered to change the channel as I was working on the website and the TV was just background! Thing is, it was the best decision I have ever not actually made!! Needless to say I didn't get far on the website because this TV prog had me HOOKED!!




I have seen Dawn Porter on TV before, and I have always thought she is totally awesome!!! She looks a bit like Lilly Allen (who I also totally love in a non pervy sexual way!) Dawn Porter is totally funny and 100% female real WOMAN. She is very easy to identify with because she is so real. I watched this TV program and god it was like my self confidence went through the roof!! I WISH I had known about this at the time of filming because I would have SO SO been there, supported her and got naked on her bus!!!

My favourite thing she said was "Life is so much better when you don't give yourself a hard time." I am definitely going to adopt that philosophy!! I am just GUTTED that I hadn't actually HEARD about this before considering how online my life is!!! I would have SO been there to support her and support this cause!

OMG I actually feel so incredible right now. My body image has been something I have struggled with for so long ... but ... and this is the thing I have learned this evening!!!! .... I am beautiful! I have a FEMALE FIGURE with lumpy bumpy bits in all their glory ... and you know what? THAT'S OKAY!!!

Dawn did a photo shoot and had a photo of herself taken with no makeup on ... she was then sent off for hair & makeup and looked lovely as she was normally ... but THEN she was photoshopped and made PERFECT... and I literally mean perfect. They even took one of her slightly squinty eyes and replaced it with a mirror image of the other! She was shaved down, her nose was altered and her whole face was given a glow.

The thing was ... when you actually compared this perfect photo to what Dawn actually REALLY looked like ... although you could see it was her, it really wasn't her ... if that makes sense! The two images were such extremes that it was crazy! All of a sudden things just made sense to me. The "perfection" that she was striving for just simply doesn't exist!

One thing that really struck me was that ... I would actually LOVE to have Dawn's figure! Part of me felt that if *I* looked like SHE did then I would be sooooo happy ... yet, there she was with SO many insecurities about her own body! It really did open my eyes about the truth behind REAL women!!

The biggest thing I have learned tonight is ... and I am quoting Dawn directly here .... "why on EARTH would we WANT to aspire to be something that doesn't exist!?"

Normal looking girls are made to feel crap about themselves because they are confronted with these false images of what is so called perfect! The thing is ... it just doesn't actually REALLY exist! I have no doubt that the models used in magazines are classically true beautiful women... but what Dawn's show tonight taught me is that the representation of these women that we see in the magazines is SO FALSE!!! It truly doesn't actually exist

Is it any wonder that girls grow up self conscious about their bodies? OMG I have learned so much about myself tonight. In just an hour of watching this TV prog, I am no longer AFRAID of what I actually am. I know now that not being perfect is not only OKAY, but that it's actually what 99.9% of the population are!!

So yeah, what started out as a bit of a blah day, actually ended up being quite inspirational! All hail Dawn Porter! LOL It did actually inspire me for my next photography challenge too ... I want to photograph REAL WOMEN. It wouldn't matter if they are a size 8 or a size 24 ... they would be REAL women and that's something that I feel very affilliated with from my own body and self confidence issues, and it's also something I very much want to support! I also think that the local papers would be very interested in it.

With the whole "eat healthy", "must exercise lots" and "must look good" that is pushed on people (and women in general) these days ... it was just so enlightening and empowering to watch an hours worth of TV about a REAL woman with REAL insecurities and to learn that although SHE had a body I would love to have myself ... that she had the exact same fears and worries about HER body ... as I do about mine!

I definitely feel my next personal photography challenge has to be along those lines - but I need to aim for 150 rather than 25 :-)

Feeling very empowered, very inspired ... and very WOMAN!!!