Going with the Flow

So, it's been a while.  Only - what?  A year?  More?  Psh.  I don't even know.  

Life, eh?

(I checked.  It's been almost exactly a year.  Okay, okay!  It's been 2, dammit!)

Quick update on "This One's for the Girls" post from March 2011:  
( http://onceuponthelifeofagirl.blogspot.ca/2011/03/this-ones-for-girls.html)

Am currently going through a menstrual cycle using the new menstrual cup called Femmy Cycle.  IT.  IS.  AWESOME.  Right from the start had no issues with it, as I did continuously with the Diva Cup.  Hmmm, the Diva Cup not the gold standard of menstrual cups?  Surprise, surprise.  Not a one-cup-for-every-girl world, but a menstrual-cups-for-every-girl world.  

I did some pretty extensive work on my pelvic floor after fiddling around with the Diva Cup for over a year.  It was an amazing, necessary, affirming, comforting, fascinating and useful education!  Lauren Campbell at LifeMark Physiotherapy in London, ON is the best physiotherapist!  Since I've never been to any other physios she gets to hold this distinction.  ;)  She was patient and always took time to answer all my questions and correct my viewpoint.  (Doing the Tupler Techique to heal my diastasis recti had given me a very inaccurate mindset toward my abdominal muscles, how to heal them and the treatment they need.)  One of my goals going to see her was to be able to use the Diva Cup.  After 4 months of seeing her on a weekly basis, I had restored so much health, tone and strength to my pelvic floor but still could not get the Diva Cup to work for me.  It was very disappointing.   I started reading some reviews and some other blogs about menstrual cupping and finally came to the conclusion that - duh! - the Diva Cup did not have to be the only cup I ever tried.  Why was I setting such narrow parameters on myself?!  *sigh*  
So, I began doing even more research into a subject that I thought I had already covered.  That is when I found the recently released Femmy Cycle.  A menstrual cup with a relatively different design than all others.  I figured if one style didn't work for me, why try to replace it with a similar style by a different name?  Why not go in a different direction and maybe work my way back?  
I ordered it from the company, it shipped directly to my house in less than 2 weeks.  The kit comes with 2 cups in it, under $40!  Um, thrilled much?!  I think so!
I got the package a couple of weeks and and it has been floating around my bathroom counter until I finally put it in "my drawer".  I thought several times about playing around with one and testing it out before my March cycle started.  But I didn't.  I think I was nervous that if this cup didn't work where would I go next?  What would I use?  I don't mind the Jade & Pearl Sea Sponge Tampons, but I'd like to have something a little more convenient.  I was also afraid.  Yup.  I need to go there.  I was afraid that if this cup didn't work it meant that my pelvic floor (aka, vagina in this instance) was somehow defective.  Messed up beyond repair.  Shot from childbirth.  Done.  Broken.  
And, as a woman, a sexual partner, an educated Doula, I know that is not true!  

In my excitement about finding a reusable cup that seems to be working for me, I may or may not have innocently beckoned my unsuspecting husband into the bathroom to tell him it was working and how much I was loving it before I had rinsed the cup out.  (NOTE:  although I am loving the Femmy Cycle cup, they are not invisible!  And, when being used for certain aspects of the menstrual cycle, they have a certain look to them.  ;P)  Astonishingly, my husband survived this completely hypothetical scenario.  Ha ha!  

I did experience a bit of leaking the first night that I used it.  But in hindsight, I believe my bladder was quite full and was helping to accomplish that.  We'll see how the next few days go, and I'll try to do another post with all of my findings and feelings.  

Yay for menstrual cups!  Yay for easy cycles!  Yay for saving the environment, one small step at a time!  

  http://femmycycle.com/get-the-femmycycle/