To not know how old I was when I got my first period?

[Talismania]

I have a new GP and I was asked this at my first appointment. I remember what house I lived in at the time so could say it was sometime between the ages of 10 and 15, but beyond that I have no idea. GP was surprised. Is this something most women remember?

I was ten years old and it was exactly 6 weeks after we had buried my father.

I was asked this at a breast clinic appointment.

Mine was the day Margaret Thatcher resigned! When I told the Consultant that - but that I couldn't remember when that had happened, so also couldn't remember how old I was - he didn't look too impressed .

It was April 1967 and I was 13. I'd been out to an absolutely gruesome church youth club thing (I wasn't a Christian even then but my dm thought it would be "good for me" to mix with them!) and I'd worn a really nice cream skirt. Luckily it was lined because when I got home and took it off the lining had turned red with blood. I remember my mother running me a bath and me going to get the mattress-sized Dr. White's sanitary towels and belt (a really uncomfortable combination) that I'd been issued with a few months earlier and told to "keep in your top drawer, ready". I also remember nearly giving my mother a heart attack by announcing that I was now a woman and capable of having a baby!

A quick google has just informed me it was 22nd November 1990.

Coincidentally, that would have been DH's 16th birthday. Although I didn't meet him for another 4 years.

April 1981. I was 11. It was a Saturday. I was in Peterborough felt a bit funny all day but didn't go to the loo so didn't know. I remember being pretty freaked out at all the blood don't know what I was expecting - blue dye? There were horse trials the next day - went to that. I thought I heard mum running downstairs calling "She's started!" but she denies it!

Ooh Pasithea couldn't help noticing your post I had no idea that could happen. xxx

I was 17, at sixth form. Can't remember the exact date.

I was 12. I remember waiting for the school bus being really conscious that I had a sanitary towel on, and looking around at the older girls thinking 'They all do this!'

I was ten and a half. Late January. Remember the day clearly. I hated starting my periods, didn't want to discuss or acknowledge them. My mother was very open about that kind of thing but I didn't want to be - I always found my parents very "intense" and it was a way of getting privacy and boundaries. At the same time, I felt incredibly isolated by it at school. I didn't really have any friends anyway, and none of the other girls were as developed as I was so it felt like another way I was marked out.

I was 13 and remember everything about that day. I was sat watching tv and felt a bit strange and had a tummy ache.
I remember waking up that night and going into my mums room to wake her up to tell her I thought my period had stopped! She told me not to be daft,..that it had not stopped.
I remember too that I heard her tell my dad that my periods had started and I was horrified she thought it ok to tell him.

I was 10. My Mum had just gone out to the car so I was in the house with my Dad and two older brothers. I go to the loo and see blood so I know I need Mum and run to the window and call for her. DDad and DBros come up and Dad yells at me for shouting. I scream back "there's blood in my knickers!!" and DDad throws the window open and shouts desperately after DM's vanishing car but to no avail. He then nervously rummages about in DM' drawers and gives me a single sanitary towel for a whole day at school. My the time I've arrived at school he's rung DM who has rung the school and I get called into the office. All the receptionists grin at me and joke about how daft DDad was for not giving me extra supplies and give me some spares.

Having my moment of menarche witnessed by the three men of my family was deeply embarrassing to my ten-year old self, but the look of dawning horror on DDad's face as he realised he would have to deal with this alone gives me a chuckle to this day.

(But - r.e. the timing - I had to look up some family records to find out the death date of a family member who had died just before I started to figure out my age, so YANBU, OP. The moment itself is clear but I couldn't pull the exact year out of a hat!)

I remember it was the day Robbie Williams left Take That, so 12th or 13th February, can't remember what year without checking. Also can't remember how old that would have made me. But I do know I will always be able to date it thanks to Robbie Williams!

I was 11. Woke in the night with excruciating pain but didn't know what it was. Remember reading pretty much the whole of 'White Boots' by Noel Streatfeild until morning came. Had horrendous periods from then on until my mum put me on the pill at 15.

I got it at a Guides meeting, I can remember the friends I was with and telling my mum and everything, but not how old I was. I think I was about 12/13 from the friends I remember being with.