Dammit!
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.
Comments
The difference between my situation and that question, dvoe, is that I (still) haven't seen anything red. I don't think I can just pick a day and say, "I think I'll be niddah today." If the discharge were yellow instead of brown, but I knew I could expect my period to last only three days and I wanted to get an earlier hefsek, I don't think I'm allowed to just decide two days before my period arrives that I want to be niddah early. Or maybe I can...I don't know.
Also, I'm not sure that my two options there weren't mutually exclusive. Given the short time between when I got home and when Shabbat started, how could I have given my husband a hug and kiss (not niddah) and then, with absolutely no change in circumstances, said, "Now, before Shabbat starts and the day changes, I'm niddah," while still maintaining any sense of intellectual honesty?
Sorry if I wasn't completely coherent in my first comment, I definitely wasn't detailed enough in my harriedness.
My point was that I know that at least in some cases, both from my own experience (will get to that in a sec) and from questions I have seen on yoatzot.org, that (perhaps only in some situations? maybe in general?) you *might* be able to begin to count the 5 days from when you began to abstain from sex due to concerns about spotting -- even if you didn't 'declare' yourself niddah and continued to have other physical contact. While the question I linked to in my first comment isn't directly related to your case, I linked to it as an example of counting from when spotting began since it was the best I could find in my 2 second search. Perhaps the answer to this question is more relevant to you?
In my case, this took the form of spotting for 2 days or so that did not make me niddah (during which we didn't have sex because we didn't want to get into safek hargasha territory and have me possibly become niddah, but did have other physical contact since I was just being precautious about halachic issues with intercourse then as opposed to saying that i was niddah. I think it was just brown, but I don't remember). This was followed by more of a flow - the onset of which made me niddah (always a fuzzy line between the two, but that is another story). I spoke to a yoetzet, and was told that I could count my five days from when I began spotting, since we had abstained from intercourse, and the veset would be from when the 'flow' began.
*HOWEVER*, this may or may not have been in a case with various extenuating circumstances, as I tend to have (rolls eyes). So - while I don't know if it applies across the board, I *would* speak to somebody about the situation before assuming that these spotting days will be for naught, so to speak, for your 5 day minimum count if you later become obviously niddah.
I'm not sure I understand what you said in the second paragraph of your response in terms of intellectual honesty -- in this case, it doesn't involve declaring yourself niddah during the same type of staining that previously had not made you niddah. It is simply that you would abstain from intercourse due to concerns about the spotting -- and if something later clearly made you niddah, you'd then abstain from whatever other physical contact, BUT be able to count the 5 days from onset of non-niddah staining. On the other hand, if this spotting "clears up" and doesn't end up turning into something clearly niddah-inducing, then all you have done is abstain from sex for a few days while worried about the spotting, but you'll go back to "normal" afterwards, without needing shiva nekiim, etc.
While this may be surprising, it doesn't seem so odd to me, particularly since the reason for the 5 day minimum has to do with the possibility of expelling semen from intercourse a few days prior. See this article -- it may be that the yoetzet I spoke to was relying on the principles expressed in the last sentence of the article, since I was abstaining out of halachic concerns. You aren't declaring yourself niddah, yet the days of abstaining become subsumed in any later niddah days.
I hope that this was helpful... In any case, I would be sure to ask someone about this before doing any further bedikot -- I hope that the ones you did already were not problematic. Good luck with your situation, Michaela.
No time to address the crux of what you are saying (preparing for shabbat now), but this struck me, and I felt obligated to interject ASAP --
"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."
I recently learned that if you are abstaining due to staining (great unintended alliteration there) - even if you aren't considering yourself niddah, you can begin counting the 5 days from beginning of staining as opposed to beginning of the flow (veset still goes by when flow starts) -- so the 2 things that you say above are not mutually exclusive. For ex., see this yoatzot question, and there are others on this too that are more direct about it, i believe - but that was the first I could find.
this goes with the usual disclaimer of "consult your local halachic authority..." - maybe this doesn't apply to all situations --- but I have heard it from yoatzot I've asked, and seen it on the website.