HomeBirth Cartoon on SMITHmag

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!

porn star pregnant sex

I had to share this link. You know I love anything to do with maternal sexuality.

In the Village Voice Tristan Taormino writes about porn star Nina Hartley's latest video about sex during pregnancy.

Click here to read it

Sexy Mama Take #1- Sex Positive Families

                                           

I'm so excited that Babeland invited me to be part of their Sexy Mama Blogs for the month of May!  I think it's so important to talk about sex and motherhood. We are such a sexually open society yet there are so many things that still have that Puritan influence and remain taboo. The deep, big changes that happen to a woman's sexuality when she becomes a mother are rarely discussed and I'm happy to be a part of this conversation.

For the past few years, I've been touring my show BabyLove, which chronicles my experiences with sex and new motherhood and maternal sexuality is one of my favorite topics. BabyLove is now running Off Broadway at 45 Bleecker with giveaways from Babeland. Today at the Wednesday "Mommy Matinee" I had this beautiful pregnant women sitting smack in the center and she was just this wonderful beacon of energy and I loved telling my stories to her, and I also loved giving her a Babeland Bullet with the advice to take some "Mommy Time" after her baby was born.

In the show I talk about wanting to raise my son Felix, now 4 and 1/2, in a sex positive household.

But it took me a long time to figure out how to be sexual again after becoming a mother, so when I first thought that I wanted to raise my son in a sex-positive household I only knew what that meant in the abstract, I literally didn't understand the specifics. And then I progressed to- "Well, that would mean a household where sex is actually being had..."

And now that my son is almost 5, and I'm pregnant again, raising him in a sex positive household means:

• not shying away from explanations of how babies are made ( This is a great book)
  
• expressing my affection for my partner in front of my child
• trying (!) to kiss my partner before my child when I walk in the door
• talking about all the different kinds of families we know ("X has two daddies and Y has two mommies and Z has two mommies and a dad")
• answering all questions honestly and with facts
• expressing my need for privacy
• teaching him about privacy (" Does it feel good when you touch your penis?  Great!  It's supposed to.  I know it feels good, but it's best to do that in your room where you can have some privacy.")

Today my son came to the theatre with me and while he was going through my prop box he found the bag of giveaways from Babeland.  

"What are these?" he asked.

"Toys for grown ups," I answered.

He put them down and ran through the shiny mylar curtain, happy with that explanation.

-Let me know what you think, and how you try to have a sex positive family...

BabyLove opens Off Broadway

After many years of development and touring and one night stands, BabyLove is getting a run at 45 Bleecker, presented by 45 Bleecker and Hourglass Group. Yay! More here www.babylovetheplay.com