Girlology: A Girl's Guide to Stuff that Matters

Vagina—the connection between your outside and inside parts. It is the passageway for menstrual blood, for sperm and for a baby at birth. It is a really cool body part for a couple of reasons (you think we’re weird, don’t you?). One, the vagina is very stretchy. If you put your finger in your vagina, you will notice that it is moist and wrinkly. It obviously needs to be stretchy for a baby to pass through it. The wrinkles or folds allow it to stretch more.It’s also really cool because it cleans itself (don’t you wish your room could do that?). Clean may not be the first word that comes to mind about your vagina, but this is no joke. The vagina is cleansed constantly, and vaginal discharge is created as it cleans. This discharge will start to leak from the vagina around puberty. It is usually a white to yellowish liquid that will feel moist, sometimes wet. When it dries in your underwear, it will look more yellow and may feel kind of stiff or sticky. Don’t panic—it’s normal. As long as it doesn’t stink, itch or change colors, it is normal.

Sometimes even normal discharge will make you feel itchy, especially if you don’t have much pubic hair (whether it hasn’t grown in yet or you’ve shaved it off ). The pubic hair helps pull the discharge away from the skin, but if the discharge can’t be pulled away from the skin, the moisture and pH (that chemistry thing) will cause the vulvar skin to get irritated and itchy. You can prevent this by using panty liners to help absorb the discharge or by using an ointment that contains zinc oxide (like a diaper rash cream—good for girls out of diapers, too!) around the vaginal opening. Okay. Enough vagina chat.

Cervix—at the inner end of the vagina is the cervix. It’s like a very narrow two-way street, meaning it allows stuff to go in (sperm and some bacteria) or out (menstrual blood or baby). The opening is usually so small it can be considered “closed.” That’s why a tampon can’t get lost in your body—the cervix acts as a dead end for the vagina. The cervix is also an amazing part of your body because it keeps a baby inside but then opens wide enough to let the baby pass through during birth. Wow.Uterus

—the womb or where a baby grows. It’s a strong hollow muscle with a thick and lush lining that will allow a baby to grow! It is usually about the size of your fist, but can stretch and grow to hold a baby . . . some babies weigh up to 10 pounds or more (talk about Girl Power!). The uterus has three openings: the cervix that heads into the vagina (you already know about that one) and the other two, the right and left fallopian tubes that connect the uterus to the ovaries. These serve as the passageway for the egg (coming toward the uterus) and sperm (going into the fallopian tube to find the egg!). The fallopian tube openings are about the diameter of a hair, very tiny.Endometrium—the lining of the uterus that is shed each month—as a period—if pregnancy does not occur. If pregnancy occurs, it’s where the embryo (a fertilized egg) implants and starts to grow into a baby. It is a thick, lush lining that has a lot of nutrients, fluids and blood that are necessary to grow a baby.Fallopian tubes—the tubes from the ovaries to the uterus that carry the egg once it is released (that’s called ovulation). They are about three to four inches long on each side, and they are soft like a ribbon, not like a pipe. This is the place where the sperm and egg come together if fertilization occurs. Remember, the fallopian tubes are only as wide as a hair, so you can imagine how tiny the egg and sperm actually are! At the end of each fallopian tube is a fluffy opening called the

fimbria, which are constantly but gently swishing over the ovaries to sweep the eggs into the tube. Visualize the gentle movement of a sea anemone. Can you feel your fimbriae swishing now? They are. Anyway, the inside of the tubes are made of special cells that continue the swishing to keep that egg moving in the right direction.Ovaries—two oval things in the pelvis that are small, about the size of a medium strawberry. Each one is next to the fimbria of the fallopian tube. Girls are born with all the eggs they will ever have, which is way more than you could ever need! Can you believe we start off with millions? We save them up until puberty, then we only use one, maybe two, per month. Each egg is held in a small, fluid-filled sac called a follicle.

The Journey of the Egg

Now we’ve just listed everything in order from outside to inside, but if you think about how a pregnancy or periods happen, you have to think from inside to out.