It's Important to get your period even if you don't want kids

I don't ever want to be pregnant. I don't want my own children.

I do want to foster/adopt children but the whole idea of pregnancy really disturbs me.


 I'm not sure where or when this oppositional desire to pregnancy came from in my life but it's something that played a role in my eating disorder. When I was in 5th grade and my body was developing I remember being afraid that I was or would become pregnant because I was starting to look bigger (and I didn't understand how reproduction actually works). This uncomfortableness in my body led me to eventual restriction of what I ate and an obsession
with my stomach looking as small as possible.

 I remember in the depths of my restriction and low weight one evening I was in a drama and we had to wear skirts. Mine was tight against my waist and as I felt my lower abdomen, I was horrified and disgusted because it still wasn't as thin as I wanted it to be. I didn't want my body to have any resemblance of fertility or a female figure. Not all of this was conscious at the time and there were a lot of other factors that played into my eating disorder, but being angry with my body for ever "thinking" it could get pregnant was a motivating factor for me to neglect my physical needs.

I got a period at age 11 and lost it at 13 and it didn't come back until I was 21. As I struggled with disordered eating through middle and high school I was told frequently that I needed to be at a higher weight and/or be less restrictive in my eating so I could get a period. I wasn't opposed to getting my period at this time but it wasn't that critical for me since I knew I didn't ever want children.

I heard the other arguments about how amenorrhea causes things like osteoporosis but the summer before my freshman year of college was when I decided I needed to recover from my eating disorder completely and that meant regaining a period. This would be the sign that my body would be completely recovered physically.

"If you don’t have children, or aren’t married, you are still called to live like you are part of this glorious archetypical motherkind — you are called to live like a woman who would honor God in her mothering, because you honor God in your whole life, embracing his design and purpose for women as a whole, and for yourself as a woman." -Rachel Jankovic 

I'm grateful that I now get periods consistently. I have to admit that it is still frightening for me to think that my body's in a place where I could become pregnant. But just because I could become pregnant doesn't mean I ever will be. God made me female and designed my body in such a way that it needs to be at a certain weight to menstruate. I could try to deny that fact but then I'm wouldn't be properly taking care of my body and I wouldn't be living up to the person that God created me to be.

I haven't done extensive research on this subject but I have heard that having a regular menstrual cycle also protects from cardiovascular disease and may also play a role in protections from depression, anxiety and sexual problems. (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4207953)

For me the greatest realization has been that having a regular menstrual cycle and looking like a female are necessary aspects of my health even though I never plan to become pregnant.