Deliciously Naughty

Didn't I used to be kinky?

When the longest stretch of sleep you've gotten in months is 5 hours IF YOU'RE LUCKY it's not surprising that summoning the energy for sex is tough.  I know that there are these mythical babies that come home and start sleeping 12 hours through the night at 2 weeks of age or 2 months of age or whatever....if you had one, stop bragging about it-the rest of us don't want to know.

Sure the baby is growing more cute and interesting by the day.  One day they start smiling at you, and the first laugh is enough to turn your brain to goo that slides out your ears. 

BUT...think hard...when was the last time you had intercourse?  Can you not remember because you're so sleep deprived that you can't remember if you locked the front door/turned off the stove/ever moved the clothes from the washing machine to the dryer OR is it because it's been more than a week (or two)?

Pre-pregnancy, Sexyhusband and I were the type of couple that had intercourse about two times a week, sometimes three and there was lots of masturbation and hand jobs.  We didn't mind taking care of ourselves, but the other partner was generally more than willing to help out.  There was porn on the Tivo that Sexyhusband watched fairly regularly, and tons of erotica in the drawer under the bed for our perusal as the mood strikes.  We subscribed to all 4 of the Penthouse magazines and they never stayed in their discreet black plastic sleeves for long (btw, Penthouse...maybe your packaging could be a teeny bit more obvious?  We've had plenty of false alarms where we were all "yay! porn!" and then opened it and found a mutual fund profile from our investment firm, which is a fairly huge letdown).

Ironic, really, that Sexyhusband and I attended our first "lifestyle" (see kinky) conventions during my pregnancy--at 6 weeks pregnant and 6 months pregnant.  That we took classes on flogging, caning, and all manner of kinky thing when I was knocked up.  That I began topping Sexyhusband seriously when pregnant.  That I finally begged Sexyhusband to top me towards the end of the pregnancy once we collected enough data on what is and is not safe with regards to BDSM while pregnant.  In short, that we became MORE kinky during my pregnancy (as the puking allowed) than we had been previously.

We knew that giving birth would put a damper on our sex lives and the kink side of things going in.

I don't think either of us realized to what extent.

Once the LM was home from the hospital, we had my PPD to contend with.  Depression not being the sort of thing that incites a sex frenzy, sexual activity remained sporadic for quite some time. 

I want to say that our sex life really began to come back around 6 months post LM's birth.  There are lots of reasons for this...her health, her constantly reassuring evaluations by professionals who look for developmental delays, the fact that she was sleeping for longer stretches, that I was finally able to sleep without waking up to check if she was still alive many many times per night, that I had stopped pumping breastmilk, or some combination of all of the above and more.  However, our sex life coming back doesn't mean anything close to what it meant pre-baby.

It means I finally used my vibrator, which had been collecting metaphorical dust in my bedside table drawer for MONTHS.  It means that we're having intercourse about once a week...sometimes more and sometimes less.  It means more frequent handjobs when we're not having sex and Sexyhusband comes to bed at a reasonable hour. 

It was only a few days ago that it meant bringing out the BDSM toys.  The LM is 8 months old.

This is not to say that in the past 8 months we haven't done erotic hypnosis that invoked BDSM experiences, like "feel the sting of a cane on your ass" or that I haven't used BDSM scenes to bring Sexyhusband to orgasm when giving a handjob.  Or that we didn't use one of our all too rare date nights to attend an ultraviolet wand class with the BDSM organization we are part of.  We have.

But actually pulling out canes, a riding crop, and remembering how to use them required energy.  And energy, as many new moms know, is a precious commodity.

If we were a 24/7 couple, which we're not, maybe finding the time/energy to do BDSM play would have been more of a priority.  I'm certainly curious to find out how it will affect a friend of mine who is in a 24/7 relationship and is currently trying to get pregnant.  For me, BDSM is a way to get a dark thrill, a high I don't get otherwise.  But it's a high I can go months without.  That's not the case for her.  Just as I MAKE the time to read, she may MAKE the time to be submissive.

While I certainly have an issue with the message that it's okay to completely sexually alienate your partner for as long as you want after a baby (2 years?  REALLY???), I do want to reassure anyone whose reading and pregnant or post partum or thinking about becoming pregnant that you do eventually begin to rebuild your old self.  It just requires a little time...and a little sleep doesn't hurt either.

Sex in front of the baby...not as weird as I expected it to be

When Sexyhusband and I actually began to have intercourse (as opposed to the occasional quickie or the much more common handjob for him) it quickly became clear we were not one of those couples who would have sex in another room just because there was a baby present.  Our baby slept in our room, and while there was a bed in the guest room, it seemed like an awful lot of effort to exert on top of the effort we were already exerting just to have sex.  I am very anti sex on the couch or the floor because it's not sexy...it's uncomfortable.  Perhaps I'm just getting old as my 20's become a fond memory, but when I want to fuck, I want a big soft bed to roll around on.

The first few times we had sex, the baby was asleep.  Which was not really any stranger than the cat being in the room as we fucked, and even had the benefit of not being given the "I've seen better" look that the cat has perfected over the years. 

It was inevitable that we'd eventually have sex with her awake near us.  It wasn't weird or creepy so much as it was, well, funny.  Finishing, we lay back breathing heavily.  I glanced over, and was given a semi-serious, semi-contemplative look that effectively said "I've been waiting patiently...are you done?  Can I have a bottle or something?"  I couldn't hold back a giggle.

This is another area where I seem to exist in another universe from a lot of the moms I've spoken to.  Maybe it's because we sex blogging kinky moms just aren't comfortable piping up in the midst of a conversation that is largely full of "never in front of the baby" or "it's just too weird" or my favorite "I keep my top on and make my husband keep his on too so that the baby doesn't see anything wrong."  Most first year books, whether it's the Girlfriends Guide to the First Year or Baby Laughs or any number of other books I could call out all pretty much insist you won't want to have sex during your first year as a mom and your husband is a monster for wanting it.  (They're also fairly negative towards sex in pregnancy...and the Girlfriend's guide is horrified you might gain enough weight to become *gasp* a size 10 during pregnancy which is laughable to plus sized sex goddesses like I)

I guess that's the reason I want to talk about sexuality and motherhood...to add a different voice to the discussion. 

It is OKAY to feel comfortable being naked in front of your baby.  It's not like they came out of your body wearing an adorable perfectly coordinated outfit from Gymboree.  In fact, I firmly believe that comfort with nudity is one of those important values you show, and not tell.  It doesn't send the right message to say "your body is a wonderful thing" and then tell a child that "naked time is in our bedrooms with the door shut."  Sure, clothes certainly have their place...but so does skin.

Skin to skin contact is something many people advocate...the baby laying naked on the mother's chest.  Many women also breastfeed.  So I don't really understand how, especially if you do the first two things, you can freak out about being fully unclothed.

It is OKAY to have sex in your bed.  Cars, couches, floors and bathrooms are fun for the occasional interlude, but my 30+ year old back certainly isn't going to do it regularly.  If you have that much problem with it, maybe  you really want your baby in their own room?  And if you do...THAT'S OKAY TOO.

It's okay to be weirded out.  It's also okay to not be weirded out.

It's okay if the first few times you end up pausing a few times because the baby breathed weirdly or made a noise or you thought you heard something.  Or if your partner does.  Things are different and you need to learn the new rhythms.

It's also okay if you end up stopping mid-coitus because the baby needs to be fed.  I'm also giving you permission to ignore crying for a few minutes because you're inches away from finishing.

In short, I give you permission to be okay with having sex in front of your baby.

PPD and it's effect on sex drive

For some women post partum depression hits immediately.  Others, it creeps into their lives slowly.  And some of us are just hit like a ton of bricks.

I should have been happy.  I was finally home with my daughter.  She had been released from the hospital and she was alive.  She was strong. 

Maybe it was finally allowing myself to start to digest everything we'd been through.  My therapist certainly thinks I get to claim Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with regards to the whole thing.  In the moment you only react.  You don't process what you're going through.  I had so many parents say to me "I could never handle that."  The truth is that you handle the child you're given.  No one would wish for a child to be deathly ill, or to be diagnosed with a disorder or a disease or given a label that indicates their life might be less than perfect.  But if it happens, you deal.

So in the end, it really shouldn't be all that surprising that between my own predisposition towards depression and everything that happened coupled with the hormone hell that is life as a post partum woman that I just stopped functioning.  Over the course of a few days it became harder to motivate myself to respond to her cries.  I began to take care of her mechanically.  On the outside I was doing everything you're supposed to...giving her a kiss, telling her I loved her, changing her diaper, pumping breastmilk, giving her bottles, ferrying her to doctor's appointments and so on....but inside I felt empty.  I felt more and more disconnected from this little bundle of helpless and nonstop need. 

I felt alone after Sexyhusband had gone to work. 

I was lucky, though.  I understood what was going on enough to ask for help.  From family and from my therapist.  My dosage of antidepressants was tweaked.

I was isolated, not just from my child and myself, but from Sexyhusband.

There was one brief shining moment of hope, when at 5 weeks post partum I just decided I was ready to have sex, 6 week rule be damned.  But after that, it turned into a lot of handjobs, mostly out of guilt or because it was the easiest way for me to get to sleep, not because of desire.

When you have PPD, it's so easy to begin to hate yourself or to just not give a damn because you feel numb. 

I am a member of several online communties and there are plenty of members who had babies within days or weeks of my birthing the LM who say they still haven't had sex 7-9 months later.  Who have no interest.  In some cases, who are so consumed by their child(ren) that their husband is an afterthought.  I understand all of them.  I had to make a conscious choice to make my marriage a priority and I was lucky enough to have a husband who due to his own demons of depression understood exactly what I was going through.  Who could summon gratitude for a handjob.  Who made an effort back.  Not all of these women are as lucky in that regard.

But part of me wonders if they might also be suffering from PPD to some extent.

Becoming a mom, especially if it's your first child, especially if you hate failing (whatever that means in your book), especially if you don't want to parent by the norms of your socioeconomic status or current trends, is so overwhelming that it can blot out the sun.  I am certainly struggling to stay abreast of politics, something that was a passion of mine before.  Writing and cooking are things I fit in around everythign else, and often I don't. 

Marriage and a sex life require work.

Life isn't a fairy tale where it all works out if you just manage to find the right person.  Both partners in the marriage need to be committed. 

Throw depression or a partner who isn't holding up their end of the bargain and you have the start of a tragedy in the making.  It's not coincidence that at least 3 women in the community I am most involved in have confessed that they're considering divorce.

If you suffer PPD, know that there is support out there.  Even if the only support you want is to read the words here on a sex blog that it can get better.

It can get better.

A hospitalized child does not make for a set of overly sexual parents

As long time readers may remember, my daughter became very ill a short time after she was born.  The very short version of the very long story is that our baby got an infection that turned septic, and within a few days of being released from the hospital almost died.  Unfortunately the signs of her illness were all fairly ambiguous things that often show up in perfectly healthy babies.  The important thing is that we trusted our instincts and took her to the pediatrician, who in turn realized how sick she was and sent us immediately to an amazing hospital. 

We hadn't even really had time to process the fact that we were, in fact, parents when the LM became sick enough that it was a very likely possibility that we would lose her.  She was in early stages of  organ failure by the time we reached the Emergency Room.  Once she was stabilized enough to be moved to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) it was six hours before we saw her again.  When we finally were allowed to see her, she was on a ventilator and had so many wires and tubes coming out of her that the only place it was safe to touch her was one of her legs.  She was drugged on morphine to deal with the pain she was in.

Her room was a single (as were all the rooms because most of the PICU patients were immunocompromised in some way and sharing a room was a risk to their fragile health).  There was a couch that folded down into a single bed.  So that we could both stay with the LM in the hospital, we were also given a parent room down the hall on the same floor of the PICU.  It was a very small room with a twin bed, a chair and a small bed table.  Sexyhusband and I took shifts sleeping in the parent room and in the LM's room, and during the day we both hovered over the LM...talking to her, talking to her many many many doctors and worrying.

I was furious that my 7 days post partum body had needs I had to attend to.  That I had to stop worrying about my daughter for five minutes to try to worry about pads to soak up the lochia.  Luckily, that one was handled by the nurses, who got pads from a post partum floor.  If they hadn't been bringing me food because I was breastfeeding I would have resented having to leave the room to eat. 

Sex was something that had no meaning for me.  There was nothing that was farther from my mind, especially when several days later we found out that the LM had also had the further complication of a brain bleed.  That there might be brain damage. 

This is not to say that Sexyhusband and I were distant from each other.  There was a lot of crying, a lot of holding each other while we cried, and a lot of holding each other and hoping.  But it was not sexual, at least for me.  It was about comfort.

We are lucky in that we have a large circle of friends and family locally.  But for the most part we cut ourselves off from them with the exception of updating people through a specialized medical blog.  This was in part to prevent phone calls, and also because I needed to write or I would go crazy. 

I reached out for Sexyhusband instead of my best friends because he was the only one who understood, viscerally, what was really at stake and who cared about this little baby as much as I did. 

When they finally extubated her (took her off the ventilator) he and I were there together.  When the nurse let me change the LM's diapers, even with all the cords, he stood with me, and was as excited as I was that her umbillical stump had falled off and we could now see her perfect little belly button.

As the days passed and the doctors used phrases like "recovering much faster than we expected" and "move her to the children's floor" the world began to open up again.  We left the hospital for dinner.  We ran back to our apartment for things like DVD's to watch in the LM's room.  Our kisses became more about affection than comfort.

When the LM was moved to the children's room, it was a shared room.  We could still have a cot in the room, but only one of us could sleep there at a time.  We got a hotel room down the street so that the person not with the LM could at least sleep in a real bed.  Eventually we let the LM's grandparents spend time at her bedside so that we could go back to the hotel together.  It was still too soon for sex, but DN and Sexyhusband began to interact as people and not just react to the world as the LM's parents.

It was an important first step back towards regaining our sexuality as a couple.

It's easy to see how tragedy can ruin a marriage.  There were times when I thought about what would happen to us if we did lose the LM, and there were times when I thought in my heart that would happen would be divorce.  I'm still not sure if that was just my general despair and my depression talking, or if I was serious.  There were times when I had nowhere to direct my intense anger over my child's illness when I would direct it at Sexyhusband because he could sleep and I had to constantly wake up and pump (and no, no one was holding a gun to my head to pump, and no one would have faulted me for giving up pumping but it was the only thing I could do to help my child, so I did it...but hated every minute), or that he had missed rounds in the morning, or because he looked at me the wrong way.  Maybe I thought about divorce because I was so emotionally exhausted that having one less person to worry about was appealling.  I don't know.  I do know that I spent more time thinking about it than Sexyhusband knows.  It would have been so easy to pull away emotionally, to say "I realize you're in pain, but I just can't own your pain too", to isolate myself.  But I didn't.  And our marriage came out stronger because I did push back the urges to pull away from SH and instead reached out to him even as I thought about divorce.

We were incredibly lucky.  I am not exaggerating when I say there was a point when the odds of her survival were not in our favor.  That she was able to come home, and that we came out of our tragedy stronger as a marriage than we knew we could be are things I will never take for granted. 

We came out stronger.  More committed to each other.  More committed to being good parents (not that we walked into the L&D room with the goal of slacker parents of the year).  It's important that we were, because while we were on the road to regaining our closeness, it was still a road that would test us.

Being a new mom...the immediate aftermath (or a handjob in the hospital)

My daughter had some breathing issues that necessitated her admittance to the NICU immediately upon birth.  For the first 36 hours after she was born, she stayed 4 floors above me in a warmer next to a premature triplet girl who weighed just over 1lb to my daughter's almost 7.  During the day I tried to stay with her for as long as they would let me or until sitting became an agony thanks to the second degree tear I earned shoving her out into the world.  During the night I journeyed up into the quiet beeps of the NICU every two hours to feed her and to get updates on her.

Sexyhusband was with me the majority of the time as he did not have to wake every two hours to try to breastfeed the baby or pump when the breastfeeding failed.

Both of us were exhilarated and exhausted.  I at least had the benefit of the post birth adrenaline that makes you feel like you can do anything.

The hospital I had given birth in provided single rooms to all the new moms.  The bed provided was, of course, a single.  Sexyhusband was lucky enough to score a cot as opposed to the toture device that was a chair that theoretically flattened out into a bed but was more like a rock designed to twist your spine out of recognition.  There was a privacy curtain between my bed and the door to the room, which did not lock.  People knocked, or at least they knocked before barging in regardless.

The second night after our daughter was born, she was released from the NICU and like all the other moms, I was given the option of having her "room in" with me.  Which I definitely did as it was our first chance to be alone with her. 

Sexyhusband and I squeezed into the hospital bed and watched the LM sleep, her chubby cheeks and dark swirl of hair captivating us.  Like all new parents we watched her in awe, marveling how something as incredible as this little girl could have come from a single fertilized cell.  We talked about the various ultrasounds I had had, how she had changed from a tadpole to something vaguely lizardlike (with a tail) to something that actually looked like a baby.  We laughed about the ultrasound pic my OB has referred to as "alien face".  We reminisced about feeling her kick.  And about how stupid I had felt and how funny it had been when I showed up for my induction and had actually been in labor...."I just thought she was pushing her butt against my ribs" I had said.  Sexyhusband talked about watching me give birth--he had been holding one of my legs and had had a front row seat for the main event, so to speak.

Talking about all of it while watching her brought about a rush of love.  For the baby and for my husband.

Even though it felt like an 18 wheeler truck had slammed into my vagina, I turned over to face Sexyhusband and we began to kiss.  The kisses led to touches (more me touching him, as there were very few parts of my body that were not sore).  Before either of us really knew what was going on, I was giving him a handjob.

I realize that I am in the minority here (well, maybe not among MY readers, but certainly among the general new mom population if the boards and online communties I frequent and the women I've spoken with are any indication) but at least in our initial days, I felt more loving towards my husband than ever before...and I felt sexual.  Maybe it was the oxytocin (the love hormone) that my attempts to breastfeed, the pumping and the shrinking of my uterus were producing.  I knew that I wanted to express my deep love for my husband and sex was certainly out of the question.  Perhaps that why I instinctively reached (if you'll pardon the pun) for a handjob.

I've often wondered where things would have gone from there if our child hadn't become so sick as she did.  But she did, and as a result, my sexuality became the last thing I would think of for some time. 

But that's another post.

Another evolution of DN, the blog

I've been thinking a great deal about my blog.  How I have changed in the 2 1/2 years I've been writing it.  How the purpose of the blog has changed.  How I have struggled to find content to write here because I was certain that my readers didn't want to read a sex blog that focused on motherhood and walking through the evolution that motherhood was having on my sexuality and sex life.

So I just haven't blogged much since I became pregnant with the LM.

My readership has dropped by more than half, and I'm guessing it's in large part due to the lack of posts or a lack of interest in what I'm talking about.

I think I've been waiting for a return to the old DN.  Then the blog would fall back into place.  But I'm not the old DN and I never will be again.  I have to accept that.  As I have changed, so must DN the blog if I am not going to fade off into the world of mommyblogging, where it is impolite to talk about sex the way I do and it's shocking to have the opinions I have about relationships.

I don't know what that means in terms of the blog.  If you're just here for hot scenes to jerk off to...well, there's my archives.  I'm sure I'll do some of that here and there, but this blog has always about my sexuality and how it is changing and growing.  In order for me to process how having the LM has changed me, I'm going to have to talk about her.  This wont' be the place for cute anecdotes (for the most part) but it will be my journey from  post-partum mom of a sick baby to a woman who is just starting to masturbate regularly again. 

I hope some of you will come along for the ride.

Things I never expected to say in bed part 1 trillion

Take the gum off my nipple!

Proof the LM is my kid...and is going to turn out kinky

She may be only 7.5 months old, but let's call a precocious baby a precocious baby.

Proof that "Little Mistress" is an appropriate nickname for the baby...

-She constantly is pulling my hair...hard
-She likes to whap herself and others
-Just yesterday I had to explain to her about how spanking little boys in kindermusik isn't really appropriate

You may call it "normal development"...I say she's a top

This one goes out to the sexiest Dad I know...

Warning...there is bound to be sappy sentiment ahead...

Dear Sexyhusband

You are fast approaching your first Father's Day as an actual real life kid on the outside Dad.  On the outside, you seem fairly blase about this.  But I wonder if you've stopped and thought about how much our lives have changed by your taking on that title?

You were a Dad from the moment we conceived the child we lost to miscarriage.  But with the LM, it was different.  You made a connection with her different from every other connection in your life.  And from the moment of her birth, you have been a constant.

While I did get to hold her before she went to the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit), you were the one she spent her first hours of life with.  I had to rely on texts from you to find out what was going on, and how she was doing.  I wonder if you know that secretly I'm envious of those hours...you have a bond with her that I don't--you know what her first cries, her first movements, her first expressions were.  And while you are a little envious of all the moments I witness and you learn about second hand, I want you to take a moment to consider how meaningful that connection is.  When the LM asks about what she was like after her birth, she will need to ask you about those first hours. 

You were there in the hospital.  You were just as sleep deprived and in awe of her as I was.  I saw the love grow moment by moment, and the pride in her and in us.  In a way, over those first few days I saw you start to try on your dad persona.

It was when the LM got very sick and was hospitalized for those three weeks that I saw you step up and really become her dad.  You and I logged countless hours by her bedside, watching her breathe, waiting for news, researching the ins and outs of the all the medi-speak.  You ran interference for me when it became overwhelming.  In a way you had both of us to take care of as I was willing to run myself into the ground and then some...you had to force me to sleep, to eat, to remember that there was a world beyond the LM's hospital room.

Looking back, I can understand how medical drama can drive some couples apart, or create distance between parents and children.  But in our case, the opposite happened.  We tightly grabbed ahold of one another, and of our LM and our bond grew stronger.  How many fathers would go through the effort you did to share a football game with their child in intensive care when the game wasn't on the tv?  How many fathers would make videos at 5 in the morning to share a moment with their sleeping wife?  How many fathers would read Roald Dahl books to a two week old?  You did.  And in watching you do so, I fell more in love with you.

Many women in my various new mom support networks talk about having no sexual desire for their husbands.  I am puzzled by the women who talk about feeling repulsed by husbands.  I have nothing but desire for you.  It's omnipresent, and although it is tough to tease out, to find the energy to express it, to have the concentration to stay in the moment, I want you to know that it is there.

Our sexuality as a couple has had quite a few ups and downs.  My back surgery, the miscarraige, the horrible first half of my pregnancy, and the post partum period--especially when I find myself in the midst of depression.

I am very aware of how lucky I am to have a caring and patient partner.  You understand that my needs change and evolve and can be different from day to day.  That sometimes a hand job is a huge expenditure of effort.  That other times I need my back to be scratched, to be bitten, to be held down and fucked.  You understand, fundamentally, that sexuality is a fluid concept...and that it has an ebb and flow. 

You know what many of the things that affect my sexuality are, and you make a point of trying to mitigate them.  You have ensured that I get alone time.  Knowing that you will come home and do bedtime is sometimes all that gets me through the day.  And on those days, without even saying it, you seem to know that what I need is a long and loving cuddle.

You are respectful that my boundaries are less adventurous these days.  You also understand that it's not from a fundamental change in who I am, but rather that more adventurous sex requires far more energy and focus than I currently have available.  You also understand that as time passes, doors begin to re-open, and boundaries again become open to shifting and pushing.

I know how you struggle with the work life balance.  It isn't easy to be the provider for our family, an employee, a husband and a father (not to mention a son, a friend, and all the other relationships in your life).  Know that I think you succeed far more often than you fail. 

So, in honor of your first Father's Day, I would like to tell you all the ways in which you succeed...

-The look in our daughter's eyes when she sees you come home...she knows you're her Dad, and she loves you as fiercely as you love her.
-The trust she has in you is obvious to everyone who has seen you together
-Every mom who has met you and observed you with the LM has said to me how wonderful you are with her
-That you can sing a silly song to her one moment and whisper a depraved sexual suggestion to me the next is a testament to you
-That you have created a safe space for my sexuality to ebb and flow...and as time goes by, flow faster and freer

There are a thousand other things I could say, but I'll end, instead, with this thought...

Seeing you as a father makes my heart expand with love, and the breast it resides in tingle with lust...

Happy Father's Day Sexyhusband

The good thing about doggie style....

is that when your partner is holding you down by supporting his weight on your back and your hair is in your eyes, you can't see your 7 month old watching you have sex.

I'm just sayin'