My
homebirth cartoon is up on SMITHmag. The wonderful David Heatley is the cartoonist, and his wonderful wife Rebecca Gopoian was amazing at helping me edit the text down. They are calling it a Graphic
Graphic Memoir. I like that.
This is the backstory of BEFORE the cartoon starts...
In late September 2008 I was 34 weeks pregnant with my second child, in a cab on my way home from a “non stress test” at the hospital. I called one of my two midwives. I was fine, the baby was fine, but Martine was concerned because I was having contractions. Much to the chagrin of some of my friends and family, we were planning a home birth.
My five year old son Felix was born almost six weeks prematurely in St.Vincent’s in 2003. I had been planning to deliver in a freestanding birth center, I was too nervous to have a home birth the first time around, but he came early and I had the Pitocin and the hospital and it was diabolically painful and traumatic, but my son was fine, and I was fine.
In the cab, Martine laid it out for me: modified bedrest for at least 3 weeks. “I really want you to take it easy. You can get out of bed, but just for a walk to the corner. No subway, no swimming, and no sex.”
“I can masturbate though, right?”
“We don’t recommend putting anything into your vagina.” How did she know what I had planned?
“I can still have an orgasm though, right?”
“No, Christen.” Martine could hear the silence on my end. She sighed, “I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t do it. Orgasm releases oxytocin and can induce labor. We want to keep this baby inside for just a few more weeks, okay?”
I knew what orgasm and oxytocin could do to a pregnant woman. I was one of those horny pregnant women.
“You want me to lie in bed for weeks on end and not masturbate?!?! What the hell else am I supposed to do?”
“Read a book Christen,” Martine deadpanned.
And I did know what orgasm could do. I’d read the Ina May Gaskin books about pleasurable natural birth. I’d dreamed of staving off the pain of contractions with my Hitachi. I had planned a hippy happy sexy home birth and I wanted to orgasm all the way through.
She continued, as my belly rode the potholes, “You’ve had a previous premature birth. If we can keep this baby in until 37 weeks, then we can have the birth at home. Even at 36 and ½ weeks. But any earlier than that and you are going to be in the hospital again. You don’t want that, do you?”
No, I didn’t want to be in the hospital again. We were prepared for our home birth. The living room was full of birthing supplies—a birth pool, birth ball, shower curtains, old blankets, stained sheets, rubber gloves, flashlights, thermometers, extra towels, waterproof pads, iodine, Vitamin K drops, a container for the placenta, a scooper for birth and fecal matter, labor tea, baby clothes, diapers. We had the best midwives ever, Martine and Karen from
JJB Midwifery.
I wasn’t going to masturbate and fuck this up. I stayed completely celibate for over three weeks. (It was during the lead up to the US presidential election so I watched Jon Stewart on my laptop and obsessively googled this new Sarah Palin person, whom I despised and was sure wasn’t the mother of her new baby.)
And then on October 14, 2008 I was exactly 37 weeks pregnant. Full term. Finally.
That day, my midwives Martine and Karen said I could start being a little more active. “Don’t over do it though,” Karen cautioned, “we still want that baby to be fully cooked.”
So I didn’t overdo it. I got out my Hitachi and I masturbated, once. Okay twice.
Then I took a cab to the pool and swam really gently for 15 minutes and then I took a cab home and met Felix and his babysitter at our local café Espresso 77 and then we went home and there I was, at 5:30 pm, sitting on the couch with Felix, all of the sudden thinking, “Am I wetting my pants?” Why do I always think I’m pissing myself when I’m about to have a baby?
And then magically, it comes to life as an
illustrated cartoon! Martine said to me later, after the birth, when I was all raw and bleeding, "Oh, I hope you guys had sex." And I was like, "Ummm, no! You told me not to!"
Keep looking at the
Sexy Moms 2009 blogs!
Labels: Babeland Sexy Mama Blog, Babeland Sexy Moms Blog, Christen Clifford, comic, David Heatley, Graphic Memoir, home birth, maternal sexuality, motherhood, Rebecca Gopoian, Smith Magazine
