Orgasmic Birth, is it even possible? The idea of smiling through the pushing while your ankles are in different zip codes? Of being caressed by your lover as you sweat through contractions that make you scream like a banshee with an ingrown toenail?
Just being able to think back upon the birth and seeing it as a time of pleasure would be a miracle for most of us. But to actually be orgasmic, while giving birth is about as possible to me as it is to wake up tomorrow morning and have a $1 million lying at my feet from the bailout elves.
My Orgasmic Birth Story Part 1
Twenty years ago I was pregnant with my son, my only child, and I was initially elated as I shopped like a fiend and spent like an All-American mom with an American Express card. This was certainly an orgasmic experience and I could actually still have sex and orgasm at this stage of the pregnancy.
The first trimester was all about buying the right baby book, continuing to exercise in some hope that my body would ‘snap back into shape’ as the goddesses in Hollywood seem to do fifteen minutes after the baby has arrived.
I cried over every single Johnson & Johnson baby commercial with the perfect babies doing the cutest things and the Mom’s beaming at their babies looking perfectly relaxed and rested. I always noticed that the nurseries were perfect, the Mom’s would smile and all was great with the universe.
I would later come to realize that this fantasy-land was all part of some evil marketing managers plot to gain revenge against his predecessors that conned him into having three kids.
My Orgasmic Birth Story Part 2
By the later stages of my Orgasmic Birth story some slivers of reality were trying to creep around the edges of the ‘perfect world’ that I had previously been cocooned in.
The entire bottom part of my legs now could be mistaken for summer squash, my panties could be mistaken for a really big tent cover and my fingers were so swollen that they could be mistaken for Yoda hands (Start Wars reference there).
I was so full of water that I swished as I waddled through a room. And Orgasmic? Are you out of your mind? I was happy to just find a position to recline in that didn’t cause some severe pain somewhere on my body that I didn’t know previously existed. So the thought of having sex and an orgasm was like the thought of ever seeing my feet again – not going to happen.
My Orgasmic Birth Story Part 3
I was overdue and had to be induced. I compared this to being an overripe melon and someone in the melon processing plant trying to decide whether to throw it away or to see if it would pass the next inspection station.
The first induction didn’t take. I watched the horror on my husband’s face as the doctor told him ‘take her home and come back tomorrow and we will try again’. I think my poor husband would have right then and there, given up his right to ever have another orgasm rather than take me home at that moment. But home we went.
Thirty eight hours later, at least six nurses, one suction cup, forceps, a lot of drugs, an insane grandmother, one very tired husband, and a lot of ice chips later….we had a 10 pound boy. But, no orgasm. Let me repeat that very clearly, no orgasm.
Not even close to orgasm. I was numb from the waist down with immense thanks to the kind doctor that came into my room and placed a needle the size of Chicago into my back and I welcomed him like he was an old friend coming to visit. I think I offered him sexual favors after the birth if he would just stop the pain. I offered to have his first born if he would just stop the pain.
My Orgasmic Birth Story Part 4
My son was ten pounds even. The very first thing that popped into my drug induced head was that he weighed exactly the same as a bag of potatoes. From then on we referred to him as The Spudman. Even the nurses caught on to it. We actually named him Alex, but he was really The Spudman.
I then discovered that my husband was 10 pounds and 2 ounces when he was born. This little tidbit of knowledge had been previously unknown to me. If I had known this then the whole idea of procreation might have been put in question. And I remind my husband of this on a regular basis.
So I had brought our son into the world, the room was cleaned, The Spudman went to the nursery, and my husband finally looks at me as says, “Well, I’m hungry. Everything looks good here, I’m going to the Waffle House.”
My Orgasmic Story – Epilogue
The Spudman is now nineteen years old and six foot, three inches tall. I am still married to his father and the entire family still laughs every time we pass a Waffle House.
I look back on that time period in my life as a learning experience and with all the humor that I can muster. But not at any moment of the entire experience do I feel pleasure, excitement, I do not consider it any type of foreplay nor do I think orgasmic is a proper adjective.
Nope, definitely not orgasmic.
