I have written a couple comments about my daughter regarding this birth control issue. She is on birth control and has been for almost a year now- not for sexual activity and pregnancy prevention, but even if that were the case so what?!?! No, instead beantown girl suffers from menorrhagia and secondary dysmenorrhea. That is, since almost the time of her very first period, she bled so heavily and suffered such severe pain and cramping that she was rendered immobile for the first 2-3 days of menstruation. She would become so violently ill that she would miss at least 2 days of school each month. PMS for this poor child was so horrible- she would rage, cry and be so very depressed that the entire family would try anything to avoid being near her. It ended up the safest place for her was her room for the week preceding her actual period and we all knew to just stay away from her if we could. I finally convinced her that she needed to see a doctor about this when her periods began to last for 8-9 days and she would become so pale and listless throughout the entire period that I feared she was becoming anemic. She was. After doing extensive testing, ultrasounds and blood work, the doctor diagnosed her with the menorrhagia and dysmenorrhea. She placed beantown girl on Ortho Tri-cyclen Lo, a low dose birth control pill in order to try to balance out the hormones. Since she has been on the hormones, her periods have become regular, 4-5 days of normal menstruation with less cramping and no more violent, raging PMS- an absolute godsend to my beautiful daughter, to be sure! (author's note- I am writing this with my daughter's permission; even though I could have just written this whole piece without her knowledge, I felt like I needed to have her blessing. It's hard enough being 16-- add into it your mother wants to write about your periods and everything else about this unfortunate incident and, well, I just needed to know that it was ok with her if I did this)

Now to this week. My daughter took a trip with the school band for 5 days just a week and a half ago. Any student on prescription medication had to have a form filled out and signed by the prescribing physician turned in before the trip. The day of the trip, the prescription medication was given to the doctor who was traveling with the students. He would hand out the medication as prescribed. For beantown girl, this was every morning after breakfast. She never thought a thing about it- neither did I. They returned from their trip and went back to the daily grind of high school. Thursday, my daughter came home from school and seemed to be a little out of sorts. I chalked it up to being tired and trying to get caught up on homework and such; however, I did ask her if everything was alright and she said yes, she thought so- it was just that at lunch there were some girls whispering and pointing at her in lunch and then they would break out into little fits of laughter. She couldn't figure out why they were singling her out but admitted that a couple of the girls were ones she had once had a problem with. They were the "popular" girls, 2 of whom were cheerleaders, and last year they had singled her out calling her names and such when they got bored and, in my daughter's words, "ran out of girls to harass and make fun of in lunch". I gave it no further consideration- we went on about our business of getting homework done, etc. Friday morning, I took my kids to school and headed off to my mother's to do some errands and such for my family. With the impending storms and bad weather bearing down on us, I sent my daughter a text that I would pick her up from school. My son had baseball so I only had to worry about her getting home.

I pulled into the parking lot and saw that she was standing inside the doors at school, her head down and shoulders shaking- I thought she was laughing at something someone said or was looking at her phone reading something funny. I honked and waived to motion her out, not sure if she saw me. She never looked up, just pushed open the door and practically ran to the car. She flung open the door and I started to say something about the wind and rain, but stopped mid sentence because of the look on my child's face! She was sobbing, face streaked with tears, cheeks red and eyes so swollen I could hardly see her beautiful brown eyes- I slammed the car into park right in the middle of the parking lot and asked her what was wrong.

Apparently I'm a slut- a whore- a bitch who is screwing every guy in school!

Little miss innocent, huh? Whatever slut- you take birth control pills so you can f*&# every guy in school! What a joke- u are nothin but a whore! Pretty bad when some guy on the radio who isn't afraid to tell the truth has to break it down for everybody- if u on the Pill u are nothing but a skank ass ho! My mom said girls on the pill are tramps who just wanna get laid and don't care about nothin- is that how u are?

She was speaking but it wasn't making sense- who said this? What are you talking about? For a minute we were talking over each other and finally I said just get in the car and tell me what is going on! She handed me a wrinkled piece of paper. I could tell it had been opened and closed, folded and unfolded wadded up and straightened out so many times it almost looked like it was going to fall apart in my hands.I thought I was going to throw up! I was crying- crying for my sweet daughter who was in a puddle on the front seat of my car, crying because I was so angry I didn't know what to do first! I drove home with one arm around my daughter and one hand on the wheel; I was saying things but for the life of me I can't remember any of what I said now. I just wanted to take the pain away from my child! I wanted to make her stop crying, wanted to erase all the horrible pain that she was feeling.

We got home and thankfully, it was just the 2 of us for quite awhile. We sat down on the couch and she just cried for what seemed like forever. I held her and cried with her and said more things that I just can't remember now! Finally I got her calmed down enough to tell me the story from the beginning. The note was in her locker when she opened it before her first class. She was so upset that she went to her teacher in first period and asked to be excused to go to the bathroom. She said for first and second period she tried not to be too upset- she cried a little bit but was just trying to figure out who would leave such a piece of trash in her locker. By third period, she had shown the note to a couple of her friends and they were so helpful, trying to play detective and at the same time telling her she should just ignore the stupid people! She managed to get through a math quiz and Spanish test and headed off to lunch in a pretty solid frame of mind. And that's when it really fell apart; apparently, the girls from the day before were the authors of the note. They lined up behind my daughter to get their lunch tray and started in on her. "Birth control whore", "I told my mom you were on the pill and she said you were nothing but a little tramp" "My mom said some guy she listens to on the radio was just talking about girls like you- he even said you were a slut!" "Yeah, my mom said the same thing, said it's about time people spoke up and weren't afraid to tell the truth"! They laughed, they harassed, they said so many things my daughter couldn't begin to remember it all- she walked back to her table without food and told her friends what was going on. She cried through lunch and through the rest of the day. She said she almost went to the office to call me to come get her but she was trying to be strong and not let them win! The last class of the day, however, was the final straw- it's her history class and 2 of these little monsters are in the class with her. They start the class off by talking about current events. One of the little witches brought up Rush Limbaugh and the (male) teacher said that he was an American Icon- sometimes he says things that can be construed as insensitive but overall, he was one of the few people left in today's media who was not afraid to speak the truth! The girls began to laugh and the conversation apparently changed. I don't think the teacher had any clue as to what was going on. My daughter said the rest of the class was just a blur- when the bell rang, she ran to her locker and down to the bathroom.

I asked my daughter how these girls found out about her being on birth control. It had to have come from someone on the trip, but we have no idea who. It doesn't matter, really, I just would like to know. My daughter looked at me so innocent, so very sad and asked me "Am I a slut because I take a prescription birth control pill? I don't take it because I am having sex, I take it to help my periods- am I a bad person, Mom?"

AM I A BAD PERSON? My 16 year old daughter asked me if she was a bad person because she is on the pill! Who are we? What century do we live in? Who in the hell has the right to say these things? Who does Rush Limbaugh think he is? Why is he allowed to say these things and hurt people? Why have I spent the last 2 days trying to convince my 16 year old that she is not a slut?

On Monday, I am going to my child's high school and meeting with her counselor and principal. I don't yet know what I am going to say but I know this- nothing is going to take away the pain my daughter felt, the humiliation she felt, the indignation she felt. Nothing will make this all O.K., nothing will take us back to before this all happened. As a parent, you want to protect your child from hurt and pain. I didn't protect my child from this- I can only try to make sure that she suffers no more at the hands of these little witches. Or ignorant assholes like Rush Limbaugh.

UPDATE #1- Thank you all so very much for the words of encouragement and all the advice! I am writing down notes and trying to prepare for tomorrow, as I want to make sure I do the best thing for my daughter. To all of you who have suggested putting this "out in public" I would love to; however, my daughter is not in a place right now where she can handle talking to people about this. I even jokingly said someone suggested going onto tv or contacting Lady Gaga's organization and she looked mortified- "Mom, it's bad enough you are talking about my period on the internet!" was the exact quote. I need to make this as easy on her as possible and don't want to create more problems for her in the process. Maybe once we tackle the principal and the school bullies, she will feel a little better about everything.

Update #2 I have been asked to update my post with this link to the petition to remove Rush Limbaugh from the Armed Forces Radio Network. Please, if you haven't done so, go sign this petition! We need to fight back- we need this idiot removed from the airways.

Update #3 I forgot to say "thank you" for sending this to the top of the Rec List! I am so very grateful to all of you for your kind words and great advice! I need to take a little break- my family is going to take an afternoon trip together. Just get out of the house, and maybe go to a movie or shopping. I will be back later to comment and interact with all of you! BTW, I also wanted to say, I am not handling this all by myself- Beantown dad is very much involved! However, I cannot print anything he has to say on this matter right now :-) He is beginning to calm down but this has devastated him as much (if not more) than it has me. His baby is being attacked and he just wants to mangle everyone involved! So, a break will do us all good I imagine! I will be back...

*Final update tonight* We are meeting with a friend tomorrow at 9:00am to talk over this whole situation. He's an attorney (he mainly does real estate law, but he returned our phone call) and is willing to hear the entire story. Just some important points I would like to cover (or answer):

1. The doctor was a parent that agreed to go on the trip and be responsible for the medications. I don't know what blame to assign to him, if any, but that was the role he played.

2. I don't want to sue the school. As I noted below, my daughter doesn't want to leave the school and none of us want to approach this in a hostile manner; I am so hurt and so very angry, but my husband and I both decided that we could make this so much worse for our daughter if we don't handle this correctly! I want to remain calm and reasoned. The facts are what they are. I cannot go into this thinking that it will go poorly!

3. These girls have made comments about my daughter in the past- calling her names, making snide comments about the clothes she wears; she is not their only target, but this incident was directly aimed at her.

4. Someone just noted that this diary is being questioned as "too coincidental". I have no response to this. I won't try to dignify this with a response. I will continue to keep folks informed as to what happens if you like; I am not asking for anything, nor do I want anything from anyone. If anything, my daughter would like for this to just go away! In fact, I question whether it was a good thing to write this- hindsight is 20/20 they say. She is embarrassed and miserable and while it was cathartic for me to write this diary, it hasn't been so for her. She doesn't want to be cheered on by people, doesn't want to be held up as an example of anything. She just wants to be 16 and normal. So understand, we aren't auditioning for a spot on the Today Show, aren't anxiously awaiting a call from some celebrity or shopping her story out for a book deal and the rights to a Lifetime movie. My husband and I are just trying to comfort our child and help her to not feel shame because of someone's ignorance.