Mayim Rabim

Ugh. My stupid period had to come at nighttime this time around, for possibly the first time since I got married. Calculating vestot is going to be a blast...

Wait, could this be possible? I have a 48-hour period blocked off in February for two successive vestot? Over a weekend, no less? Well, maybe not really, because I don't really have to keep 24 hours for both of them, but this time of year a nighttime veset is essentially the same as an all-day one.

The most ridiculous part of it is that I know I won't get my period then. Not without some drugs, anyway. Sometimes, I think halacha is just plain dumb.

I knew there was a reason we were supposed to circle veset-days in our calendars just as soon as we calculated them. It's so those of us with ridiculously long cycles wouldn't go and compltely forget about them until two weeks after they'd passed.

Oh well - if memory serves, we didn't actually have sex on any of the "wrong" days.

...black pantiliners for sale on eBay.

(Don't all go bidding against each other or anything.)

Even after an incredibly long cycle (we broke into the triple digits!), even after taking progesterone to make my uterus shed its lining, even after a week of farewell kisses and laughing about how I nearly forgot where the mikvah is...it hurts to be niddah again. This morning I woke up, felt a twinge of a cramp, noticed a tiny brown dampness on my thigh (not technically niddah yet)...leaned over, gave the husband a kiss, and headed off to the bathroom with a deep sigh.

I miss him already.

This photo and extended caption from the New York Times (free registration required) is somewhat interesting and somewhat inspiring. It's also somewhat about men, but I've never been one to turn down a chance to ogle some shirtless men.

I'm very possessive about mikva'ot. I feel like men have been given so many mitzvot - tefilin, tzitzit, minyan, learning Torah (among others) - and we have been given so few. Yes, when the Temple stood mikva'ot were used by both women and men for ritual purification. But in those days many things were different, and I get the impression that gender roles were both more and less polarized. It's rather irrelevant today, as the Temple is not there and ritual purity for men is basically a nonissue. Today, only women are required to use a mikvah. Tumah and taharah are practical concerns directly for married women, and for their husbands only by extension.

When Orthodox women try to edge into the world of "men's mitzvot," they are often told to be happy with their roles as women, to appreciate the differentiation between the sexes and to first seek meaning in those mitzvot which are incumbent upon them before venturing into the world of the voluntary. Why, then, do these same men feel the need to share in our special mitzvah?

Perhaps I'm being overly dramatic, but I wept when I read GoldaLeah's recent post, "Troubled Waters. She is on her congregation's mikvah development committee, and in discussing her changing view on their current mikvah plan, she writes:

I am behind the idea of a mikveh for this congregation, but I don't see a pressing need for one. There is one within an hour's drive of here, and there are also natural, outdoor mikvahs (mikvaot?) that we can use. The demand for a mikveh in our congregation for halachic reasons is almost nil. The demand for other uses is moderate, but I'm still betting only a few people will use it, and very few on a regular basis.

Contrast this with Rivka Slonim's famous quote from Total Immersion, which is also reprinted on the front page of our site:

Most Jews see the synagogue as the central institution in Jewish life. But Jewish Law states that constructing a mikvah takes precedence even over building a house of worship.

I understand that GoldaLeah's personal priorities may be different, and I'm pretty sure that no one's going to change her mind about that (though she is asking about the best way to go about making her views known, or not). Still, I'm sad. I'm sad for the handful of families in her community (if even that many) who are observing T"H and have to juggle other responsibilities to make the two-hour round trip to the nearest mikvah. I'm sad for the others who may be considering mikvah use, but who will decide that it's just "too much trouble" without a community mikvah. I'm sad for the (probably hypothetical) couple already struggling with T"H, perhaps contending with short cycles or halachic infertility or frequent weekday business trips, who finally throw in the towel when the wife's tevilah night turns up on Friday one too many times and there's no mikvah within walking distance. I'm sad for the children growing up in her town who will never learn to value T"H (even if they choose not to observe it as adults), because their elders did not place enough value on having a mikvah.

I'll save my thoughts on the whole not-looking-at-toilet-paper thing for another time, but for now I want to comment briefly on this question and answer from the Yoatzot site:

If you are ashkenazi, and wiped yourself immediately after urinating, you are considered niddah - unless you have a cut or sore in the area that may have been opened or scratched as a result of relations. If you are sephardi, then you are tehorah even if you wiped immediately.

Does that strike anyone else as utterly absurd? I mean, I understand that there are differences between Ashkenazim (loosely, Jews of Eastern European and German origin) and Sefardim (loosely, Jews of Spainish, Moroccan, or Middle Eastern origin) when it comes to stuff like harchakot, chatzitzot, number of dunks, etc. But something so weighty as whether a woman is or is not niddah?? Not even, "If you are X you are niddah and if you are Y you need to ask a more specific question." Same circumstances, polar opposite halachic outcome.

I know there are situations like this in other areas of halacha (such as women saying brachot on certain mitzvot), but it still seems so jarring to me, almost wrong. We Jews are already divided along so many other lines - denominational, political, philosophical. Must we still cling to a divison based not even on our present geographical location, but merely on the homes of our husbands' fathers' fathers?

I like to visit the Yoatzot website once or twice a week to read through the recently posted questions and answers. Today I came across this one regarding T"H and mourning, and read this bit about being in niddah when one partner is dying:

In the autobiography of Glueckel of Hameln (17th-18th c.), there is a moving account of her husband on his deathbed when she was in niddah. He tells her that they had observed the halacha all their married lives and shouldn't violate the harchakot now. They are united by their constant, unflagging mutual commitment to something beyond themselves, halacha.

Maybe our commitment to halacha isn't strong enough, because neither my husband nor I can imagine being in that situation and not holding each other's hands or exchanging a final soft kiss. It's not like we're going to jump each other, right? The harchakot are fences; why have the fence when the ikkar (main point) is basically non-existant?

By way of DovBear's blog, I found this bit about a woman who was denied tevila at a Brooklyn mikvah because she was wearing artifical (nail) tips. Of course, this sparked a long and interesting string of comments back on DovBear, but I was wondering what the readers here would have to say about it.

A woman wants to tovel with artifical nails, or nail polish, or hair extensions, or some other such thing that is probably but not definitely a chatzitza. Or she didn't do the right number of bedikot, or any at all. Or something else that makes the mikvah lady say (or want to say), "You should not tovel like that." Should she prevent the tevila? What if the woman is going to go home and have sex with her husband anyway? Or what if she won't have sex with her husband - is it really within the attendant's rights to force that kind of separation between husband and wife?

OK, I just have to ask: do you tip your mikvah attendant? the woman who cleans up the preparation rooms (if it's a different person)? How much? How? I've been going to the mikvah for a few years already, and I feel so out of touch for not knowing what to do...

As I sit here cutting my nails in preparation for my first tevilla in about four months, I wonder...why do the attendants at my local mikvah always have their hair covered? It's not like any men are coming in!

For those of you playing along at home, I thought I'd post a quick follow-up to this post. I was not niddah at the second Seder, so tricky wine issues were avoided. This morning, my reproductive system was kind enough to react properly to the progesterone withdrawal. It's been so long since I was niddah...I was almost convinced that I would miss it.

Nah. I'd still much rather go home and cuddle with my husband tonight. Oh well.

As you may recall, my first go at progesterone-induced menstruation didn't work so well. Shortly I went back to the doctor, got a prescription for a stronger version of the hormone, and was told to start "whenever." I carefully counted days in the calendar; it wouldn't do to have my tevila fall out on any of the festival days of Passover (first two or last two) if it could be avoided, particularly since for the first days we would not be within walking distance of a mikvah. It would also be preferable not to have to make a hefsek on first days (nowhere near a rabbi I trust to ask a shailah if necessary), and my husband will be away for chol hamoed (intermediate days of the holiday) so I shouldn't go to the mikvah then, and on such-and-such day in early May we already have evening plans with a big group of friends and I can't gracefully bow out so better to time the mikvah for later than that...

Whew, OK. Started the progesterone this past Sunday evening. It means that this cycle, my first off of birth control, is going to end up well over one hundred days. I kind of miss my period (though I'm not sure I miss actually being niddah). It will be nice to see it again.

I checked the calendar again last night. If my body reacts to this stronger progesterone now the way it did when I used it years ago, I should start bleeding on the third day after the last pill. Which is...Sunday. Before the second Seder. And, of course, we will be at another family's home, at a meal with twenty people, where the minhag (custom) is to pour each glass of wine for the person sitting next to you, of course. And I will sit next to my husband.

Of course.

I still don't know whether I am niddah. As of when Shabbat started, there was still only a little bit of spotting. Late Friday night I got frustrated and did a bedikah, thinking that it would probably be red and I could at least have the closure of knowing my status. Nope...brown, and not clearly a particular yellowish-brown shade that I know is okay. No particulary reddish spots either, and a few bits of very dark brown that could be problematic. So...we slept on separate beds, but in the morning we still exchanged a brief kiss. I did another bedikah (don't ask me why, since there was no reason to do so that I can see) and it was just as confusing as the one from last night. The spotting was practically nonexistent during the day, and we hugged a couple of times, though we did nothing more than that. At no point did I say to mysef or to my husband, "I am niddah." Shabbat is over and I'm still getting only little bits of brown dribbles. If I hadn't done those bedikot, I coud probably conclusively say that I'm not niddah...but I did them, they're there, and I have to deal with this in-between-ness now.

I don't generally bring T"H shailot to the rabbi of our shul; I've heard through the grapevine that he's not the best person to go to with those things, and besides I prefer to keep this area of my life separate from my shul life in general. We are privileged to live in a community where that separation is possible (multiple rabbis in our city), but of course the rabbi I usually go to with these questions was not easily reachable on Shabbat. I couldn't get in touch with him shortly after Shabbat this evening either (I don't have his home number....hmmm....maybe time for a new T"H rabbi?) so I'm still unsure of my status. And mad at myself for (what feels like) squandering my ast few days of not being niddah. And frustrated with my indecisive uterus.

UPDATE as of Sunday noon-ish: Asked a shaila. I'm not niddah. I shouldn't have done the bedikot, but they were OK anyway. Got a bit of conversation out of it too, some of which I appreciated (explaining why the bedikot were OK) and some of which I smiled politely at (stories about women who were told by their doctors they couldn't conceive and then did, stuff about Chana's prayers being answered, etc.). I truly appreciate that he took the time to sit with me and that he was trying to make me feel better, but really all I wanted to do was run back out to the car and kiss my husband.

Heh. That has the possibility of becoming the most popular post title around here. It's exactly how I feel right now, though. My husband and I have had sex once in the past two weeks (and it was about a week ago, I think). We've both wanted it, but there was always some reason...I was tired, he was tired, we needed to clean up for Shabbat dinner guests, we needed to set up for Shabbat lunch guests, we needed to clean up after Shabbat guests, I was sleepy from an after-work cocktail, he had a headache from fasting...

Now, I'm spotting. Maybe. I'm not looking for it, of course. I'm wearing my nice dark underwear, and I haven't felt a hargasha (does anyone?), but there is definite dark stuff and some external wetness. I took my fifth daily progesterone pill last Saturday. It's supposed to take seven to ten days before my period arrives, but what's twenty-four or thirty hours between a girl and her uterus? I can't really complain, medically speaking. Maybe it's the herbal supplements I started taking last night to help regulate my cycle. Maybe it's the raspberry leaf tea I started on again when I had my first twingy cramps two days ago. Maybe it's because I fasted yesterday. Maybe it's just my body overachieving, reacting to the progesterone drop just a tad sooner than expected, just to show me that it can.

Technically, I'm not niddah yet. It's just a little spotting, and I'm under no obligation to do a bedika. I'm torn between declaring myself niddah so I can start the count today, and pretending I don't notice so I can give my husband a proper hug and kiss when I get home this afternoon, before we rush out again before Shabbat. Sex tonight is right out, of course; intellectually, I know that I'm spotting, and besides I'm likely to have a steady flow before we get home from what is shaping up to be a very long dinner.

It'll be a nice break from the pressure to have sex (not that we had much of it in the past month or so...a 70+ day cycle can do that to you). But I'm just not ready for separation. I jumped out of bed at five o'clock this morning to make the very first local minyan, so I could hear Megillat Esther before work...no early-morning cuddling for us. I came home to have my se'ueda (nothing too special) and gobbled it down in front of the computer after the obligatory chag same'ach phone calls to relatives in other time zones. My husband, meanwhile, was still slowly waking up. I gave him a quick kiss as I rushed out the door, leaving my "insurance policy" (a Gladrag) on the dresser. I knew I should have gone back to stuff it into my purse.

I'm crampy and cranky and hormonal and the last thing I need right now is more indecision.

In my earlier post, ipseq said that she'd like to discuss the unspoken pressure to have sex as the only (halachicly permissible) means of sexual release for the husband, even when the wife is not interested. I think it's an interesting discussion, so I'm opening up this post for it, but I feel the need to state that it's not the sort of pressure that I was talking about in my last essay. The undefined tension in the air isn't imposed by this feeling that I must be an outlet for my husband's sexual frustration. On the contrary, a large part of the tension is that I desire the physical and emotional closeness. Rather, that I want to have had that closeness, and to have had it recently or in the near future, but not now dammit I'm tired/cranky/busy. But, oops, I'm going to be niddah tomorrow/in three days/next week so we'd better get it in while we can.

Or on mikvah night...it's not that my husband is so horny that he can't keep his hands off of me, or that I feel that way about him, it's that we're "supposed to" have sex and enjoy it. Not only that, but it's "supposed to be" my special time, the time promised to me (implicitly) in my ketubah. And if I don't cash in my chips that night, then he can use the "I'm too tired" excuse for the whole rest of the week if he wants...by which point I may be too tired, or the specialness of being together again will have worn away.

So, anyway, pressure. Specifically pressure-induced-by-male-sexual-frustration. Talk about it, because ipseq wants to. Because I want to.

This cycle has been going for months. OK, only two months and change, but that's plenty. I know the body takes time to adjust after going off of hormonal contraceptives, and I was never regular before, but not having a "break" is starting to annoy me. It's not that I want to be completed separated from my husband. On the contrary, I love cuddling before I get out of bed in the morning and exchanging a kiss when he comes home at night. And he's not pressuring me for unwanted sex...but that pressure is in the air just the same. After a few years of the "get it in now while you can" attitude, I can't help but think of being tehorah as a race against a deadline.

It doesn't help that for the first half of this cycle we thought that I just might ovulate on my own, so we tried for conception at every opportunity for a few weeks...now we're just tired. After all, we met and exceed our Intercourse Quota for one tehorah-phase fairly early on, and putting that aside, every-other-day sex is a tough act to follow (so much so that starting up again feel like an unspoken vow to go back to that rate, and we'r enot up to the challenge just now.) I feel guilty when I drop off to sleep without even a half-hearted attempt for the sixth, eighth, or tenth night in a row (even though my husband does the same, though unfortunately not on the same nights). I feel unattractive and asexual, but I can't be bothered to get myself excited enough to put on sexy lingerie or plot a mini-seduction...it's useless anyway, since there's a good chance one of us will choose to prioritize sleep or housework or some other task. I never thought the sexual excitement could drop out of our relationship so quickly.

I just filled a prescription for progesterone capsules...a few days of those, a few days off, and I should be niddah again. There's a chance that this could kick-start my reproductive system, though the more likely possibility is another anovulatory cycle and a PCOS diagnosis. I hope, though, that this break will be just what we need to revitalize our sex life, because if there's a long road ahead, at least the journey should be fun.

I just can't wrap my mind around some of the harchakot. I'm sure their origins are perfectly reasonable, but it's hardly a turn-on for me or my husband when he hands me the car keys or I put a plate of pasta down in front of his seat instead of four inches to the left. I know these things are supposed to serve as reminders of my niddah status, as red danger flags indicating that we're off-limits to each other. Ironically enough the reverse is usually true; we have no problem remembering not to kiss goodbye when leaving for work in the morning, but without fail it will be five minutes into dinner before one of us jumps up to put the "reminder" between us on the table. Shabbat can be a pain, because I hate grape juice and there's just no way for me to say Kiddush over wine and then share some of the cup with my husband. I can't imagine the trouble of not being able to pass a baby between us and I shudder to think of a situation where one of us is gravely ill when I am niddah. After all, it's not like I'm going to try to have sex with my husband when he's laid up in a hospital bed, so why wouldn't I be allowed to comfort him with a kiss on his cheek or a gentle squeeze of his hand?

Yet...we do it all anyway. Or, at least, we try to. The reminders on the table, a two-step passing process, no backrubs or hugs after a long and stressful day. In some ways, it makes being niddah easier. We don't have to debate and define our own categories of "sexual" and "non-sexual" because they have been set out for us. It's convenient and doesn't require much forethought.

But the stress piles up, and by about the halfway mark of each niddah phase my frustration starts to come out in conversation. My responses are sharper, my temper is shorter, and I begin to feel unattractive in every way possible. Which, of course, only upsets me further. It's not sexual frustration, exactly. It's a longing for human touch, for a literal shoulder to lean on. It's a desire for normality, for everyday life, for the moment when we can once again greet each other in public without an awkward step back (lest we forget ourselves and exchange a brief peck on the lips). It's not wanting to sit in an uncomfortable wooden chair when our friends kindly leave us two adjacent spots on the couch, and not wanting to explain to weekend hosts or hotel staff why we prefer the room with two twins over the one with the queen-sized bed. It's crying inside and out, and hiding it from the world and from each other, and oh how I hate hiding.