Once a month, I fertilize my houseplants with a boost of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium-enriched all-vegan blood. It’s free and requires no dead animals in the form of “blood meal”.

It occurred to me recently that this blood meal would be more easily procured if I switched to using a cup during my bleed: pop it in, go about my day, slide it out, and feed my greenies. Rinse and repeat. Symbiosis. Minimal water waste. Certainly more eco-and-joint-friendly than soaking my handmade pads and wringing them out in a bucket.

What I didn’t expect was the learning curve. After all these years of getting to know my vagina, we still have our awkward moments when we get intimate.

“Oops, sorry! Didn’t mean to poke you!”
“Should I cut my nails?”
“How did my cervix get WAY UP THERE!?”
“Where did I put my damn lube??”

This is month three or so of the switch, and I’m still working my way through it. Things I’ve learned:

• It’s impossible to relax while contorting your body in order to insert your own finger AND thumb inside your vagina. It’s a good thing it’s a place that stretches because there’s also a fairly large silicone cup inside there too.
• There is always a small child nearby, needing help at the precise moment that you’re squatting over a bowl and digging a silicone cup out of your snatch. “Mommy, come wipe my butt!” is not what you want to hear when you’re knuckles-deep in your own bloody insides.
• My mid-bleed cervix is so high that my fingers cannot reach the lip of a cup. A good time to discover this is mid-cup-removal when you realize that you can’t “hook your finger” over the top to release the suction as the instructions so casually explain, and you begin to wonder if this piece of silicone will now be a permanent part of your anatomy. (Did you know that your cervix changes depths throughout your cycle? It also changes its thickness, firmness, and how tightly closed/opened it is!)
• A little bit of lube can change the whole experience.
• The reproductive system does not offer an automatic process for cup/foreign object removal as it does for baby expulsion. (Search “fetal ejection reflex” on Duck Duck Go.)

I’ll certainly be alternating between methods for keeping my life-blood off the furniture – my lady bits are not used to this much excitement – but I’m also glad I had a reason to search the internet for “can’t get my cup out” today because it led me down a long, stretchy, magical tunnel of information all the way to beautifulcervix.com which celebrates the glory of the cervix, provides education, and even offers a kit you can use to see your own cervix, which I accept as a valid reason to do capitalism.