cycles
by trish beckman

One of my favorite topics to contemplate is the mystery of the hormone dance and the monthly miracle commonly known as the women’s menstrual cycle. What fascinates and holds my attention is not the predictability of the blood, or the capacity to plan a pregnancy. What is amazing about the female body is its intrinsic desire to both protect a women’s creative capacity and to project that capacity out into the world. We have the ability to attract the world to us and when necessary to withdraw deep into ourselves.

All of this may sound quite removed from your experience of the ebb and flow of your cycles. Perhaps it is time to bend the edges of reality and to go deep inside for a visit to our ovaries, our uteri, and our brains.

First we’ll stop in at the hypothalamus. This amazing part of our brain is what takes in light and dark. This part of the brain is responsible for setting off the hormone cues to start the cycle. However, the hypothalamus is sensitive and can be thrown off by travel, sleepless nights, exhaustion, or stress. Studies have shown that most women begin their menstrual periods during the darkest time of the moon, the new moon, and usually at the darkest time of the day between four and six AM. The hypothalamus will release hormones to stimulate the anterior pituitary gland. In response the FSH and LH hormones are produced which will act directly on the ovaries.A quick trip to the ovaries shows them hard at work. In response to FSH levels, our eggs (known as follicles when they are in this dormant state) wake up and start developing. Perhaps as many as 500 or 1000 eggs will be stimulated by the FSH and begin growing rapidly. As the eggs develop more receptor sites, the FSH is quickly absorbed by the biggest eggs and the slower, later growing prodigy begin to fade away. Within 7 days, the race to be the dominant egg of the month is complete with one egg absorbing all available hormone and continuing to grow for yet another week. As this process unfolds, the growing eggs have been producing estrogen which aids in their growth and is also circulated to the uterus.

Estrogen —the “happy hormone”—will start circulating and the uterus will start laying the groundwork for the next potential pregnancy. The uterine lining becomes thicker, blood flow increases, and glycogens and sugars are grown to maintain an early pregnancy. Before returning to the ovaries where the bulk of the first half of our cycle’s activity is taking place, lets check in with our lives in the first two weeks of the cycle. The first half of our cycle begins with the first day of bleeding and continues for approximately two weeks. During this time we have the energy to take on the world, go to job interviews, rearrange the furniture, consider refinancing our homes or take on big projects at work. We are living high, happy to be immersed in our estrogen baths. We feel open and in touch with our innate capacity for change. We feel beautiful, capable, and creative. In the first weeks of our cycle as our eggs are growing and exploring the possibility of life and our uteri are preparing to nourish and sustain the next generation, our lives reflect growth, potential and promise.

Back to the endocrine or hormone system: we can see a feedback mechanism at work. The estrogen naturally starts ebbing off. The eggs no longer continue growing and in fact the FSH that is circulating is almost entirely consumed by the one dominant egg that won the growth race. The hundreds of other eggs or follicles that are no longer nourished by FSH and estrogen begin to die off. As the eggs dissolve they release androgens, our sex hormones. As estrogen levels drop off, the LH hormone peaks causing the egg to emerge from the ovary. The process of emerging from the ovary is called ovulation. As the egg is sent on its journey toward potential fertilization, the other eggs have created a surge of androgens causing us to be at our peak of sexual interest for the month.

While we have been in a high-energy state for the past two weeks it can’t compare to ovulation. Now our pheromones are flying! We feel beautiful AND the world perceives us as beautiful as well. We have a three-day period of exhilaration where we feel sexually free, curious, and maybe even sexually aggressive.
We have a heightened sense of well-being and very high levels of energy. We women, powerful and complicated as we are, use this energy and time to conceive all kinds of creative endeavors. And the system works perfectly to encourage and promote that possibility.

Very soon after ovulation we feel a shift in our lives. The pod from which the egg emerged at ovulation remains alive and well and begins functioning as a temporary endocrine organ, the corpus luteum. The job of the corpus luteum is to excrete progesterone that will keep the uterus still and quiet to prevent an unwanted early miscarriage and to promote the process of fertility. With increasing levels of progesterone circulating, we begin to slow down and the second half of our cycle unfolds. Our uterus is still hoping to promote and protect new life. We feel tired and begin to turn inward. We are much more sensitive to noxious stimuli which includes loud noises, bad smells and violent TV shows. Our system is wired to protect the smallest and most vulnerable little egg that is deep within us. Whether or not we are newly pregnant the hormones are there demanding from us quiet time to nurture ourselves; to lovingly submit to naps, days of lounging and accomplishing nothing, long baths, and long chats with girlfriends to process our lives. This is the internal time of our cycle. This is the time before we bleed.

PMS or premenstrual syndrome has a list a mile long of symptoms including exhaustion, irritability, headaches, bloating etc. I would hypothesize that the symptoms of PMS are caused by our inability to respond to our own innate needs at this time of the month. Our race to continue to be the most productive employee, or the best mom, or the attentive partner may not be in sync with our body’s demands to slow down and nurture and protect our deepest selves.

If we don’t become pregnant there is no communication from a fertilized egg back to the corpus luteum that is circulating progesterone. Without that signal, production ceases. As the levels drop off, prostaglandins are released which free the uterus from its quiet nesting state and bring on the cramps that precede our periods. As we bleed we let go of the glycogen stores we had been preparing all month. We won’t need to nourish that egg so we let it flow. As we begin to bleed our slow and weary approach to life gives way to some renewed energy. What? Could it be? Estrogen is back! And we—complicated beings that we are—begin the process of growth and creativity all over again.

Trish Beckman is a nurse midwife at New Dawn Midwifery. She moved to Asheville in January to join New Dawn. Tricia loves being a midwife and caring for women through all the cycles of their lives. She particularly loves births and was thrilled to learn New Dawn offers water births at home and in the hospital. She is currently writing a consumer book about birth. [parteratrish@aol.com]