“It means that you are entering on what is known as the maternal period of your life; are actually becoming a woman with all a woman’s power of becoming a mother.”
“But you don’t mean that a girl of fourteen could become a mother?”
“Yes, it might be possible; but no girl of fourteen should be a mother, for she is not fully developed and her children will not be strong as if she had not married until after she were twenty.”
“But tell me, mother, all about it. I don’t see now how the baby grows?”
“Well, I was showing you the ovary in which are many ova. As the girl nears the age of fourteen, these ova start to grow and once a month one ripens and is thrown out of the ovary. It is taken up by the Fallopian tube, marked od 50 in the picture, and it passes down the tube into the uterus and through the vagina out into the world.”
“Can one tell when it passes?”
“No, but there is a sign that this change has taken place. The uterus is lined with a membrane in which are many blood vessels, and when the girl has reached this stage of development and becomes a woman, the vessels become very full of blood, so full that it oozes out through the walls of the blood vessels into the cavity of the uterus, and when it passes out of the vagina the girl becomes aware of it and knows that she has become a woman.
“This process takes place once a month and is called menstruation, from the Latin mensum, a month.”
“Isn’t it painful, mother?”
“It ought not to be and is not, if the girl is perfectly well. But sometimes girls have dressed improperly and have displaced their internal organs, or they have exhausted themselves with pleasure-seeking, or in some other way have injured themselves, in which case they may suffer much pain. When girls get about this age mothers are very anxious about them, very desirous that they shall naturally and easily step over into the land of womanhood.”