Anyone else hate that lumpy feeling when your tampon is so full of blood that its poking out of your vagina?

How about that version of cotton-mouth you get after like 2 or 3 days of pluggin’?

Ok. Who here bled through the nice sheets - raise of hands. Ok, who bled through the NEW set of nice sheets?

Eff. This me. Every. Freaking. Time. That’s why when our director of marketing announced we were partnering with Dot Cup, I told him I was game, even though he’d have to wait around 28 days for a piece of content.

I probably should have mentioned before I started that this might get bloody. But we’re all friends here, right?

I love my period. Or, I should say, I celebrate my period. Don’t get me wrong - I’m a strong, proud woman, the blood means my strong uterus is working and fertile, etc. I’m not a particularly squeamish person; I delivered 7 squishy, blood-covered puppies when I was 12 years old. Tied their umbilical cords with dental floss and everything. I don’t get grossed out easily.

That said, the first time I put in a tampon (come to think of it, probably similar era…), no one modeled that for me and I stuck the entire cardboard applicator up there. I remember mumbling something like “...is it supposed to be this uncomfortable…” to my mom on the drive to rehearsal for the school musical. She winced.

Same - welcome to the monthly gift of womanhood.

I’ve always wondered if there could be an easier way. Pads just aren’t for me. I literally will do anything to not have to wear a pad. The few times I’ve actually done it, it’s for sleeping, and I lie the wrong way and bleed through my underwear. A couple ill-fated times, I wore pads out and was disgusted by the feeling of diaper constantly plastered against me.

In my mind, menstrual cups are one of those fairytale items like an IUD. Seems like an awesome idea, but does anyone really use it? Isn’t it impossible to put in? Doesn’t it hurt? Can’t it, like, puncture my insides irrevocably?

I happily found out last week that the answer to all those questions are really easy: yes, people use it; no, it’s not impossible to put in, it doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t ruin a damn thing but my need for more expensive tampons.

The only tricky part was getting it in. But, like, come on, ladies. I was determined AF. I’ve conquered that problem before. Let me set the stage for you: my dog followed me to the communal work bathroom, where I figured I’d be in and out and none the wiser. Ms. Dog set the timer on stun because, after about a minute of me doodling around, she decided to poke her head in all the other stalls and give poo poo pep talks to all our neighbors. I mean, I’m 100% for that, but I’m not trying to get my company and my dog kicked out of our office space, so the countdown was on. I got over whatever mental hurdle I needed to and pushed l’i’l Dot up my lady haven. Easy peasy.

Taking Dot out was pretty simple - just had to break the vacuum seal by pushing the Dot wall in with my finger, and then the cup slipped right out. Like I mentioned before, though, I’m pretty inured to blood - there was a fair amount - but any lady who appreciates a good toilet bleed can appreciate that I didn’t have to think about changing a tampon for 12 hours.

Best part: between the one-stop-dot-drop and my life-affirming TUSHY, my va-jean is the most sparkling, fresh, babalicious as maybe ever? Now I can bleed it out all day in the cup, drain and rinse both myself and the cup with TUSHY, and just generally enjoy my life. The biggest concern I had was which book I was going to page through while my TUSHY was running. (It was this bougie-ass, satisfying fantasy read.)

All in all, 10/10 Dot 4 Lyfe. Maybe now I’ll actually get that IUD...