Jennifer Lynne has hemophilia B and lives in Florida. She talks about the times her menstrual bleeding has disrupted her life.

Every woman with a bleeding disorder will have a story about how they got hit with a bad bleed in terms of menstrual period at an inconvenient moment. It used to happen to me all the time. I mean, think about being 13 and not being able to make it through history class without having to run to your locker and tie a sweater around your waist.

Several times I would be on a date, and I would have to cut the date short because I was bleeding so heavily and I needed treatment, or I needed to take care of it. And, you know, the date would always think, well, I wasn’t into him because I was leaving the date.

It wasn’t something, especially when I grew up, that you talked about. Like, I could never share that I was leaving a situation because of my period. So it happened all the time, that I would get a bleed at a very inconvenient moment.