I forgot I have hormones.

[pantryslut]

Three relevant facts to the situation at hand: First, you will remember I had a C-section back on the last day of September. Also, as soon as the doctor gave me the go-ahead, I had another IUD installed after the twins were delivered -- this happened to be at the tail end of December. This IUD is the kind that tends to make one's period light and sometimes intermittent or, especially if installed as mine was right after a pregnancy, absent altogether. Finally, I am lactating, which suppresses menstruation for a while.

So, over the past six months, I've had vague cramping around the general region of my incision site. Nothing awful, certainly nothing to see the doctor about. They come and go, I mostly ignore them, sometimes I take an Advil.

I kept expecting them to be an artifact of my healing process and so to eventually go away entirely, but instead they'd always come back after a few days or weeks. Maybe I was stuck with this pain permanently? Well, it would be disappointing but not truly debilitating, so oh well.

Cut to this weekend, when I found myself unaccountably weepy for a day or two. Sometimes this happens when I get sick, and there is a cold moving itself through the house.

Cut to yesterday, when I started spotting.

Oh!

Those strange pains in my abdomen?

Menstrual cramps.

Duh. I totally forgot what they feel like, no lie.

That would explain the mild acne breakout, too...