Exploiting My Baby (18 page)

Remember Angelina Jolie wearing Billy Bob’s blood in a vial around her neck and making out on the red carpet while insinuating that they had just had sex in their limo? Or “made love,” as they probably put it? You knew it was over.

Pam Anderson tattoos Tommy’s name on her person, and it isn’t long before she’s having to change “Tommy” to “Mommy,” which seems kind of sweet in light of my current condition, but I must say the success rate of gals who tattoo wedding rings on their fingers seems frightfully low.

What, am I British all of a sudden? Not just the fancy Anglican adjective, but also the prudishness.

It’s a beautiful thing when a man and a woman have sexual chemistry. I just don’t want to hear about it, and I notice that when I do, it usually seems like a message is being crammed down my throat about what’s being crammed down her throat.

So back to my awesome pregnancy sex and how I’m going to tell you about it.

I do this only as a public service, and I feel justified because most of what you hear about pregnancy sex is negative, and this might alter your expectations, or give you something to look forward to. Or just gross you out, for which I apologize. Besides, I think my surfeit of unfortunate pregnancy symptoms buys me a little leeway here.

Most women I know don’t care for pregnancy sex. They feel big, they feel queasy, they can’t find a comfortable position, and in some cases it creeps out their husbands to think of their penis going anywhere near their future child. For many, there is something psychological to be gotten over when it comes to pregnancy sex.

I was prepared to feel the stereotypical aversion, so I am shocked and kind of confused about the reality of second-trimester sex for me: It’s good. It’s really,
really
good.

I don’t mean because of the deep soul connection of two people who are creating a human life and preparing to share the mystical voyage of parenthood. No. I mean, all of that can’t hurt, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the physical. The “happy ending” is just
happier
, as if the purely physical part of the sexual pleasure equation has increased by orders of magnitude. At my last checkup, I even asked the doctor about it, just to make sure my girl parts weren’t going haywire. He said increased blood flow to the pelvic region and hormonal changes can make some women extra orgasmic, a word I vow never to use again, but look, there’s such a dramatic upturn in sensation that it demands mentioning, even if it makes me sound like the horny upstairs neighbor on
Three’s Company
. I don’t relish coming off like I’m toasting the sexual revolution over at the Regal Beagle with Jack and Larry, but there is no other way to put it.

At least for me, the physiological effects of carrying a child are making me feel sexy, cankles and all.

While the fog of my cognitively impaired baby brain has reduced my ability to do just about everything, it’s really helpful to be stupid sometimes, especially when it comes to sex. That ten minutes it usually takes my mind to wind down, stop making to-do lists and just focus on foreplay, that ten minutes when my brain is like a thought blender set on mince, that is gone. I can’t keep track of things, I lock myself out in my pajamas from time to time and I regularly find myself in a state I would describe as addled, buzzed and a little bit blank—in other words, a perfect way for a chronic overthinker to enjoy something as basic as human touch. Oh, no, I grossed myself out again.

There’s another thing.

I was on the pill for about five thousand years, and it strikes me that maybe those pharmaceutical hormones, while helping keep my cramps and flow under control, were messing with my sexual mojo. Now, I’m Yaz free, with no worries about birth control or even fertility. As a matter of fact, this is the first time in my life I’ve had sex without worrying about getting pregnant or not getting pregnant. Throw in a couple extra pints of blood floating around, chemical changes, ultrasensitive but not yet painfully enlarged boobs, and a frontal lobe that’s on pause, and you have a recipe for the best sex of your life. Or it could just be an awkward mess that skeeves you out. If so, I’m sorry.

Pregnancy sex is also an opportunity to learn something about men that you may have heard, but never truly believed. All of the little physical so-called imperfections that disturb you, the ingrown hair, or botched eyebrow waxing, or mismatched bra and panties, most men don’t notice, and if they do, they don’t care.

I once asked a male friend, “What is your type?” He gave me an answer that stuck with me.

“The type who will agree to have sex with me.”

Thus, when you are puffing up, with a linea nigra (that hyper-pigmented vertical line going from your belly button to your pubic bone), when you have greasy skin, when you are so huge you can no longer even see your own vagina, you will still be your man’s type, if you agree to have sex with him. He doesn’t care about the elastic giving way on your tap pants or even your lack of pruning down there.

If he is one of those guys who doesn’t want to have sex with you because your body looks different now, or because you are about to become the mother of his child, there is probably something wrong with him. Maybe a scarring religious background or some kind of down low gayness, which certainly isn’t “wrong” wrong, but it’s wrong if you were hoping he was straight.

That is overly judgmental and simplistic. I’m just trying to take the focus away from my bragging about my great pregnancy sex.

I totally get it if you’re one of these women who is just too distracted of mind or tender of body to bother with intercourse while gestating a baby. I’m not over here all “Look at me! I’m a goddess of sexual satisfaction.” If not for my fluke-y increase in responsiveness, I’m sure I’d be right there with you.

There is, however, one more thing to consider. While the science may be shaky on this, I stumbled across some information about pregnancy sex that doesn’t suck, but suggests that you do. I will try to be delicate about this, but let me pass along my two-bit research and tell you how, in a roundabout way, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, was responsible for prescribing not just oral, but specifically performing oral sex and swallowing.

One of my favorite pregnancy hobbies continues to be obsessively researching dangerous pregnancy-related conditions. I know, I know, I could knit, but that would be relaxing, whereas this is more congruent with my other top pastimes, which include rehearsing painful conversations I’m going to have in the future and raking over ones I’ve had in the past. Anyway, after I interview the actress Jane Seymour for my talk show on deep cable (that’s right, not only Dr. Quinn but an early Bond girl, mother of six, and one of the most gorgeous and forthcoming moms I have met), I have to look up preeclampsia. She said she got it during one of her pregnancies, and I figured I needed a new worry charm for my shiny bracelet of maternal concerns.

(She also whispered “get an epidural,” which I take seriously, because her dad was an ob-gyn. Plus, did I mention she has six kids?)

First, I go home and find a concise description of preeclampsia on the Mayo Clinic’s Web site: “A condition of pregnancy marked by high blood pressure and excess protein in your urine after 20 weeks of pregnancy.”

This merits a trip to Wikipedia, where I find all sorts of links to academic papers on the subject, and buried therein the suggestion that pregnant women should not only give oral sex but make sure to swallow the semen of their baby’s daddy.

After I do some digesting about ingesting, I have to stand up from my desk chair and say to no one in particular, “Really?” If I’ve heard about a new mother eating her own placenta in a panini to ward off depression, or chanting “I and my baby are experiencing immense joy and happiness” for ten minutes after doing Kundalini yoga, if I’ve scoured mommy blogs and parenting sites for every possible detail about a healthy pregnancy, how have I missed this gem?

Maybe small-scale studies from Dutch researchers in obscure medical journals don’t find a wide audience. Or maybe penises need a new publicist.

I’m no doctor, just a pregnant lady with an Internet connection, so maybe I’m horribly confused, but it sounds like if you’re thinking about conceiving, or certainly if you are already pregnant, there is some pretty convincing evidence that instead of just swallowing, say, folic acid, you might want to swallow something else. Here is what I found excerpted online, from the
Journal of Reproductive Immunology
: “The epidemiological indication that oral sex and swallowing sperm might have a protective effect in the occurrence of preeclampsia, fits with the concept that exposure to paternal antigens prior to gestation has a beneficial effect towards normal pregnancies.”

That is from a paper by a team of Dutch researchers with the catchy title “Correlation between oral sex and a low incidence of preeclampsia: a role for soluble HLA in seminal fluid?” Or as it should be subtitled, “Semen is your friend.”

Basically, the research says you need to be able to tolerate your baby’s foreign, paternal DNA, need to get your body accustomed to the stuff, need to cozy up to some daddy double helix for a while so your body doesn’t reject it.

I could not make this up. This study and several other jauntily titled articles from dense publications on obstetrics and immunology suggest that while any exposure to a partner’s semen is good, gastrointestinal absorption may be the best.
Gastrointestinal absorption of semen.
I know.

As far as I can tell, not only should you be having lots of oral sex with the father of your baby—even up to a year before conceiving—you should also make sure to ingest his seminal fluid. Sure, the researchers say frequent intercourse is good, too, but oral is better because it promotes that superior gastrointestinal absorption.

For the man in your life, this news should not be hard to swallow. Even if that joke is.

I just can’t figure out why the whole “blue balls” thing has gotten so much traction with men, but they haven’t gotten ahold of this medical morsel. Sure, the studies were small and who knows if they were ever replicated, but guys didn’t have much to hang their hats on with blue balls, and yet that one has been around forever, used to persuade women that having a prolonged hard-on without orgasm carried the grave danger of some kind of toxic testicular congestion. Or at least that’s how it was explained to me at Jewish summer camp.

While I’m sure it’s uncomfortable, even back in the day I was dubious about the dire medical consequences of not “finishing.” This swallowing stuff, though, I’m telling you, it kind of makes sense.

Now, to be fair, the Dutch researchers do warn that with a new partner, condoms should be used to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. However, they insist, a certain period of sperm exposure within a stable relationship, when pregnancy is aimed for, is associated with partial protection against the dreaded preeclampsia.

Again, I’m obviously not a scientist, so to conclude, I will fall back on the medical opinion I always have about things that are either Suzanne Somers-y or reeking of placebo-ness, but obviously benign: It can’t hurt, right? At the very least, your baby will have a happy, relaxed father and parents who are intimate.

You’re welcome, dads.

sixteen

Hey, Other Pregnant Ladies: Look My Way

 

 

 

E
veryone is so nice to you when you’re pregnant. Everyone, that is, except other pregnant women.

Listen, expecting girls, all I want to do is talk to you, find out how many weeks pregnant you are and maybe talk some shop—you know, where you’re delivering, what you take for heartburn, what you think of cord blood banking and the new iPhone app that times contractions. I just want to be friends, Pregnant Strangers.

However, it seems you gestational types aren’t really feeling me.

At first, I wanted to make sure you knew that I wasn’t just carrying my weight in a very unfortunate manner, that I was really pregnant rather than just someone who binged on scones and cans of frosting. I would rub my stomach in the gingerly way only pregnant women do, try to catch your eye, but no dice. To be honest, I’ve been a social disaster most of my life, so I’m not unfamiliar with the sensation of being snubbed—I just can’t figure out why this dismissal is so pronounced.

I’m always hoping we’re going to see each other and, you know, have a moment. I mean, if we ran into each other carrying the same L.L. Bean tote bag, we would probably at least chuckle and say, “Nice purse.” A richly hued and hilarious interaction it would not be, but a human connection, yes.

If I were walking a beagle and so were you, wouldn’t we stop and have a chat about our beagles? Arguably, an entire friendship could spring forth from this one shared characteristic. If we were both wearing Phillies hats, or driving Mini Coopers, or reading
Eat, Pray, Love
at the Coffee Bean, there would likely be warm dealings, but both heading into childbirth (big deal) and motherhood (biggest deal ever) and nada.
Nada?

Important point: This pregnant girl snubbing only pertains to complete strangers.

I need some home girls. Sometimes I’m euphoric and sometimes I’m sweating pit stains through my muumuu. I have vivid dreams about epidurals and blinding surgical lights. When you’re lost on the subway in a foreign country, you look for anyone else who speaks your language, because either they can help you or you can be lost together.

You pregnant ladies who walk right by me on the sidewalk and turn away like I’m about to make you sign a petition about saving marine life, I know you can relate.

So I can only imagine there is some sort of animal kingdom thing at play here.

Maybe this is insane, but it’s almost like I represent a threat, another mother bear that might somehow compromise your safety or shrink your available resources. Is there something evolutionary going on, as in,
That lady better not get more shelter, berries, attention, or protection from strong males in the tribe
?