Girlology: A Girl's Guide to Stuff that Matters Read online

  Cervix—at the inner end of the vagina is the cervix. It’s like a very narrow two-way street, meaning it allows stuff to go in (sperm and some bacteria) or out (menstrual blood or baby). The opening is usually so small it can be considered “closed.” That’s why a tampon can’t get lost in your body—the cervix acts as a dead end for the vagina. The cervix is also an amazing part of your body because it keeps a baby inside but then opens wide enough to let the baby pass through during birth. Wow.

  Uterus—the womb or where a baby grows. It’s a strong hollow muscle with a thick and lush lining that will allow a baby to grow! It is usually about the size of your fist, but can stretch and grow to hold a baby . . . some babies weigh up to 10 pounds or more (talk about Girl Power!). The uterus has three openings: the cervix that heads into the vagina (you already know about that one) and the other two, the right and left fallopian tubes that connect the uterus to the ovaries. These serve as the passageway for the egg (coming toward the uterus) and sperm (going into the fallopian tube to find the egg!). The fallopian tube openings are about the diameter of a hair, very tiny.

  Endometrium—the lining of the uterus that is shed each month—as a period—if pregnancy does not occur. If pregnancy occurs, it’s where the embryo (a fertilized egg) implants and starts to grow into a baby. It is a thick, lush lining that has a lot of nutrients, fluids and blood that are necessary to grow a baby.

  Fallopian tubes—the tubes from the ovaries to the uterus that carry the egg once it is released (that’s called ovulation). They are about three to four inches long on each side, and they are soft like a ribbon, not like a pipe. This is the place where the sperm and egg come together if fertilization occurs. Remember, the fallopian tubes are only as wide as a hair, so you can imagine how tiny the egg and sperm actually are! At the end of each fallopian tube is a fluffy opening called the fimbria, which are constantly but gently swishing over the ovaries to sweep the eggs into the tube. Visualize the gentle movement of a sea anemone. Can you feel your fimbriae swishing now? They are. Anyway, the inside of the tubes are made of special cells that continue the swishing to keep that egg moving in the right direction.

  Ovaries—two oval things in the pelvis that are small, about the size of a medium strawberry. Each one is next to the fimbria of the fallopian tube. Girls are born with all the eggs they will ever have, which is way more than you could ever need! Can you believe we start off with millions? We save them up until puberty, then we only use one, maybe two, per month. Each egg is held in a small, fluid-filled sac called a follicle.

  The Journey of the Egg

  Now we’ve just listed everything in order from outside to inside, but if you think about how a pregnancy or periods happen, you have to think from inside to out.

  Okay, shift to reverse gear. The pathway that an egg follows to find its way out begins at the ovaries; then once ovulation occurs (when the egg is released), it cruises and shimmies down a fallopian tube and lands nice and easy (plunk!) in the endometrium of the uterus. If it is not fertilized by a sperm, it will come out as a period (don’t look for the actual egg, you’ll never see it). If it is fertilized, a baby develops and is born about nine months later. Can you trace the path and name the parts as you go?

  What about Breasts?!

  We can’t forget our breasts! They deserve at least a little attention here. (Boys and the media certainly give them attention, so we will, too!)

  You should know by now that they come in all shapes and sizes, and no two are exactly alike, including your two. Lopsided? Join the club. Most girls and women are, but it’s not really that noticeable unless you are looking closely. If yours are more lopsided than you think they should be, check with your doctor.

  Breasts have parts, too. The breast mound is the main part of your breast and is full of fatty tissue and glands that will produce milk. The nipple is the little bump in the center that can be indented, flat or poking out. Around the nipple is a circle of darker skin called the areola (uh REE oh luh). The areola or skin around it can be hairy, and the areola itself may have small white or light-colored bumps on it that are smaller than your nipple. Those extra bumps are gland openings—normal and nothing to worry about.

  Nipples can have a mind of their own and suddenly become hard and even more obvious when you are cold, excited or anxious. It can be kind of embarrassing to some girls, but try not to worry too much about it. Just like everyone gets goose bumps when they are cold or nervous, your nipples can act like those goose bumps, too. Have you ever heard them called headlights? Party hats? It happens to all girls! Some girls like to wear bras to help with this occasional pop-up. Other reasons to wear a bra include comfort and general breast health. Bras may decrease the color and size of stretch marks and may help prevent back pains.

  When should you start wearing a bra? Well, if you aren’t already, it’s up to you! Some women never wear a bra, and some don’t go anywhere without one. Lots of girls start wearing a bra when their breasts show through their clothes or start to jiggle a little. When your breasts are growing, it’s normal for them to be a little sore or sensitive. Sometimes wearing a bra can be more comfortable.

  Your breasts will grow quickly before you start your period and then a little more after you start. During this growth phase, they may take on a shape that you don’t like. Be patient, your breasts may continue to change shape and size up to about age 18. Because of this rapid growth, you may need to buy bras more often, because a properly fitted bra is important, especially when your breasts are growing. Bras can help prevent some stretch marks, but sometimes, no matter how much support you have for your breasts, those stretch marks happen anyway. It’s genetic. You can thank your ancestors! Don’t forget to buy a special sports bra for more physical activity. Finally, a bra will not prevent your breasts from becoming saggy later in life. That usually happens to some extent as we get older and is most noticeable after we have babies.

  Breasts are another important part of your girlness for several reasons. They are sensitive when touched and can give us sexual pleasure (we’ll talk about that more in chapter 8), but most importantly, breasts are for feeding babies. There is no food or formula that anyone can buy that is better for a baby than breast milk. And you know what? Your breast size has nothing to do with how much milk you can make. Even the smallest, pea-sized breasts can make enough milk to feed a big, hungry, chubby baby! Although most women can breast-feed, some decide not to for various personal or health reasons.

  The Rest of Your Body

  In case you haven’t noticed, your body will grow a lot in middle school. It grows up some and out some, up some more, out some more. In the year before you start your period, you may grow three to four inches taller or more! After your period starts, you can still grow a little, but it is mostly in your trunk. Your legs, arms, feet, hands and head are all done by then!

  Now what about that growing “out” part? Most girls complain about that part, but it is a part of getting that womanlike body. Your whole shape will change, and it’s for a good reason. Your waist will be more obvious; your hips and thighs will grow larger. Sometimes your butt and hips will get bigger—and your breasts? Well, we’ve talked about them already. You are starting to look more like a teen or young woman—but remember, you’re still a girl.

  Take care of this new body you are growing. It has to serve you for a long, long, long, long time. Some of these changes are hard to accept, but remember that being a girl is a gift, and this new body is part of it!!!!!

  Since We’re Talking about Girls,

  We Gotta Talk about BRAINS!!

  Finally, we can’t leave out the most important part of your entire body . . . your brain! Your body’s girl parts are not the only part of you getting a makeover once you start puberty. Inside that head of yours, there’s a major construction zone! Your brain hasn’t been this busy growing since you were a toddler! Can you feel all the electricity, the power, the buzzing and whirling that’s happening in there? Thoughts
, emotions, feelings, knowledge are all inside that head of yours. It is a busy place!

  Believe it or not, your brain is largest around age eleven or twelve (and if you have a 12-year-old brother or sister, we’re sure you’ll have a hard time believing us!). But for brains, size doesn’t matter much—it’s the wiring that matters the most!

  After age eleven or twelve, your brain starts to “delete” some of its unused parts and begin construction on some of the more grownup parts. It takes a lot of time, and what you do, think and feel helps decide what parts to delete. It’s kind of like deleting old files on your computer. Your brain is your computer, and if you leave some “files” unused for a long time, it starts to clean up and put away that old and outdated stuff.

  At the same time it’s cleaning out old files, your brain is also figuring out how to do more complicated jobs. Scientists have given these jobs big words like “advanced reasoning,” “abstract thinking” and “meta-cognition.” (You can impress any adult with those words!) What that means is that your brain is becoming more and more able to think about things that you can’t really see, like beliefs, trust and love. You become able to understand what it means to have choices and consequences. And your brain gets smarter every day!

  You can also think about “thinking.” That sounds weird, but when you were a little kid, you couldn’t sit down and think about your own thoughts, analyze your feelings or think about how things affected you. Now you are beginning to do just that.

  That’s why friendships are meaning more to you—you understand the feelings and emotional part of friends. Friends are not just someone to “play” with anymore. They are people who matter to you because they make you feel good about who you are. Try explaining that to a seven-year-old, and you’ll get a look or a grunt that says, “Huh?” instead of, “Oh yeah, I totally get it.” But young teens do totally get it because their brains are growing just like they’re supposed to. Get it?

  These changes in your brain are also giving you some thoughts, ideas and emotions that are very common among teenagers. You may feel like you have people watching you sometimes, even though you know you really don’t, like an imaginary audience. We don’t mean you are crazy, hearing voices or feeling paranoid; you just feel like you are performing for others sometimes. It’s okay. That’s helping you monitor your behaviors and think about how you act or want to act. Sometimes it’s good to “pretend” your parent or best friend is watching. It might keep you from doing something you really don’t mean to do or shouldn’t do.

  You may also have the [wrong] idea that bad things only happen to other people and that you are invincible (that’s a good vocabulary word—it means “it won’t happen to me,” “I can’t be beat or hurt”). Think about, for example, getting seriously hurt on your bike. Most adolescents think, “I don’t need to wear a goofy helmet because I’ll never fall and hurt my head.” But every year, hundreds of adolescents are killed or suffer permanent brain damage from falling off their bikes and hitting their heads. And what about pregnancy? Many teens have the idea that “it won’t happen to me,” so having sex without birth control is no big deal. That kind of thinking is why almost a MILLION teenage girls get pregnant every year in the United States, and one in four teen girls who has sex will get a sexually transmitted infection. That’s right, one out of every four every year. Even though you may have feelings of being invincible—remember that bad things can happen, especially if you aren’t being safe!

  On a happier note, you also start understanding justice and fairness better. You start to understand why rules you may not like can still be important. You also begin to realize that the world is a big place, and you are a small part of it, but an important part that can help make it a better place.

  Another area of your brain that is growing the fastest in adolescence has to do with emotions. That part also reacts to most of the hormones that are surging through your body. It’s what makes you have lightning-fast emotions like we talked about in chapter 2, but it also makes you look for activities and experiences that give you an emotional “high.”

  What do we mean by “high”? Most people are talking about drugs when they use that word, but here it means when you get an amazingly awesome feeling from something.

  Emotional highs come from all kinds of things, like singing, playing or listening to your favorite music, riding a dirt bike over a big ramp and catching a ton of air, rock climbing to a major height, galloping on a horse, Rollerblading as fast as you can go, riding a roller coaster, drawing a picture you love, laughing as loud as you can with friends who “get it” or writing a poem that other people appreciate.

  Having an experience that gives you that awesome feeling doesn’t have to be dangerous, but it usually does involve some risk . . . taking a chance either emotionally or physically. When you do that and succeed, you feel great. When you do that and don’t succeed, it can hurt—either physically or emotionally.

  Once you find something that gives you that great, awesome feeling, practicing or spending time with that activity becomes important, especially in adolescence. You become more skilled and familiar with the things that give you those awesome feelings. It’s an important thing to experience in adolescence, and it’s good for your brain development. Find something that makes you feel that way—a passion, a hobby, a challenge—and have fun!

  Think of the things that give you that “emotional high” or make you feel good about yourself. Answer the questions below to help you figure out what these things are.

  Things I love to do:

  Things I do well:

  Things I want to try or do more often:

  Challenges I enjoy:

  That’s a Wrap

  So can we quit with all this body talk? It’s a ton of information. Promise—no quiz, but do you get it? This is a tough chapter, full of facts and new words. Feel free to move on. Come back to this chapter when and if you need to or if you ever just want to. It’s here to help remind you about all the amazing stuff that is changing in you right now. It’s also here to reassure you that a lot of the “weird” stuff going on with your body is common to all preteen and teen girls.

  Just remember, all these changes in your body and brain take years to unfold and take hold. It’s normal to feel totally freaked out, amazed, grossed out or excited by your body changes. Some changes you will like; some you won’t. Over the years, your body will become comfortable again for you—like a pair of comfy, worn-in jeans. Appreciate it for what it can do and what it will be able to do in the future. It’s an amazing, miraculous, awesome thing—you are wonderfully made, whether you think so right now or not!

  6

  Periods, Period

  It’s no secret that the whole reason we have periods is so that one day we can have babies. And having babies happens because of sex. So if we are going to talk about sex (which we are a lot), we have to talk about periods, first.

  Having periods doesn’t have much to do with sex, but if you decide to have sex, and most people do eventually, you better understand your periods very well! Even if you are not having sex for a long, long time, it’s still important to understand the amazing events going on in your body that give you your little monthly “friend.”

  Blame It on Your Hormones

  We bet you’ve heard women or girls complain about being “hormonal” or turning “emo” (emotional), or maybe you’ve heard your mom blame your moods on “raging hormones.” Guess what? Hormones are good things, not bad things. They are chemicals made in our bodies that send messages or signals from one part to another. There are many, many different hormones circulating in each person’s body. Two in particular are very involved in your menstrual cycle: estrogen and progesterone. Heard of them?

  Like to Cycle?

  Your monthly cycle begins on the day you start your period. Hormones from the brain tell the ovary to start getting an egg ready. In the ovary, the egg grows in a little sac of fluid called a follicle. The follicle makes e
strogen that causes the endometrium to grow a thick and lush lining. When the egg ovulates (which means it pops out of the ovary), the follicle then makes progesterone that prepares the endometrium for a pregnancy. If the egg is not fertilized by a sperm from a male, a pregnancy does not occur. With no pregnancy, the ovary stops making the progesterone, and that signals the endometrium to shed the lining (and that’s a period). As the period begins, the brain signals the ovary to start over with a new follicle and a new lining in the endometrium. This amazing cycle then starts all over again!

  Want the short report? Egg matures > egg ovulates > egg travels down fallopian tube and into the uterus. No pregnancy? Then the uterus recognizes that and sheds the old lining, which starts a period. Now that’s an easier story to follow!

  Another way to say it: It’s kind of like a bed is made in the uterus for a baby to grow in. If there’s no baby there, the uterus decides it’s time to change the “bed,” sort of like changing the sheets. How often do you change your sheets? In your uterus, it’s once a month!

  And even if you don’t want it, here’s the long report.