Moms DON’T have sex!

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Moms do a lot.  Daily.  But one thing they do not do? Moms DON’T have sex! And they especially don’t think about sex.

Wait? What?

Let me explain.  After the birth of my first child, my former (very high) libido went down the drain along with copious amounts of Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo.  It was more than a drop in desire though.  My avoidance of sex went deeper than being tired or “touched out”.

I was young when I got married to my husband.  Without really planning, as the Laissez-faire kind of folk we are, we got pregnant almost immediately (joyfully).  I was 20.  Most of my peers were still imitating Kim K or maybe it was Britney Spears-I can’t remember exactly who was famous for their sexcapades. Pregnancy was simultaneously beautiful and horrific. I have an irreverent respect for typical college life now, having made the toilet my very best friend for the better part of nine months.

That aside, I began to feel different mentally. However, until I really started showing at 7 months, I continued to revel in my incessant need for sex. I was still ME.

Skip ahead to the birth and all that jazz.  At my six week checkup, I didn’t feel excited to be given the “go-ahead”.  While my previous self would have probably not even waited to “jump his bones”, my new self, The Mom, could not even visualize ANY intimacy without shame and guilt.

Birth had such a profound effect, but even more so, adding a new role to my repertoire as a human, changed my identity and shifted my ability to see myself as anything other than mother.  And moms don’t have sex. They care, feed, rock, watch, listen, change, sing, hold, hug, love, bathe their brand new baby.

I was so consumed with my new identity as mom.  I forgot how to be Heather. I loved this little human so much that I felt guilty if I even allowed a moment of dissenting thoughts.  My body didn’t let me forget it either, even if my mind would have.  It didn’t make sense to me that I could be a mom AND be a lover/wife.  I couldn’t conceptualize NOT thinking, talking about, or else holding my baby.  I was ecstatic to be a mom, but with that I had a hard time compartmentalizing, and so, felt shame (even borderline dirty) if I so much as considered thinking about sex.

So how did I fix it…and go on to have FOUR more kids? I embraced the many facets of what it means to be human and all the identities we can assume. I took a shitload of philosophy courses.  I listened to my husband who was experiencing something similar, albeit less severely. And that solidarity seemed to miraculously work magic 😉

And I realized that while my baby needed me almost 24-7, there were at least thirty minutes in the day he’d eventually sleep. Maybe.