The Best Kept Secret Blog - And Then I Was Supposed To Get My Period

In my day we used a calendar and said a silent prayer but leave it to the younger generation to come up with a better way to determine when our period is due to arrive.

But Mon.thly.info, the brainchild of University of Chicago student Heather Rivers and described by Siri Agrell in an article in this morning's Globe and Mail, is an on-line site designed to help women track their menstrual cycle.

Kudos are certainly due to Ms. Rivers for her initiative but I'm going to guess she didn't talk to her mother before launching this site.

While it might be a straightforward matter for a younger woman to predict when her period will arrive, the algorithms involved in predicting a midlife woman's cycle rival in complexity only those required for launching the space shuttle.

To benefit from mon.thly.info, a woman is asked to enter the date of her last period along with the usual duration of her cycle. From there on in, mon.thly.info will predict when her next period is due to arrive. (We used to call that counting and amazingly didn't need high-speed Internet service to do it but whatever.)

Okay, so my last period was May 11th. I know this for a fact because it was Mother's Day and I distinctly remember thinking that not being pregnant at this point in my life was the greatest gift of all. So far so good.

Now, what is the usual duration of my cycle? Hmmm. . . . Do they mean what was the usual duration before I turned 45 or do they mean currently? And if they mean currently, how can I express "anywhere from five to 50 days taking into account a positive correlation between the start of my period and some minor disaster in my life ('This morning the washing machine broke, the dog barfed and then I got my period')" as a whole number? I'll just say 33 days.

Next, I have the option of being sent a friendly reminder when my period is about to start. A nice touch that allows me to be prepared with all the necessary supplies. In my case that equates to an industrial size box of sanitary napkins, three bags of chips and a pound of chocolate.

Well, I'm good to go on mon.thly.info. Check back in five to 50 days and I'll let you know how I found the experience. Although I already suspect I'll be e-mailing Ms. Rivers and suggesting she include some "midlife-woman-friendly" features. Things like optional automatic e-mails to husbands warning them of their wives impending mood swings and celebratory e-cards when the whole thing finally come to an end jump to mind.