International Women's Month: Celebrating Strong Mothers Who Endured COVID Pregnancies

Ahh… March. It’s a special one! The beginning of Spring, Daylight Savings (for some of us!), and of course, that special week you get extra time with kids- Spring Break. On top of all of this, in the past few years, women have come together more than ever to fight for women’s equality.

As you may know- March is International Women’s Month. Today, we wanted to feature a couple of moms who were pregnant throughout COVID, and in our eyes are absolute superstars. Pregnancy was already hard enough; throw a pandemic on top of it and now we’re in uncharted territory. Women are going to appointments alone, not having the opportunity to celebrate with family, and some aren’t even able to have their partners in the delivery room. Suddenly, the days where we struggled to pick out items in our nurseries are overshadowed by much larger problems.

If you’ve had any part of your pregnancy during this pandemic, we want to start by saying: you are incredible and we are in awe of you. So what better way to celebrate Women’s Month than to feature a story of an incredible mom who went into lockdown the week after she announced her pregnancy to her family? Below is our conversation with Bobbie Marlow, a 35-year-old mother of two beautiful boys.

Before we talk all about your pregnancy journey, I wanted to first congratulate you on your beautiful baby boy, Harry! What do you think has been the most surprising thing about being a mother this past (five) months?

Thank you, thank you! Well, there’s certainly one thing that hasn’t changed with this pregnancy: I haven’t had any sleep. Babies are just programmed to keep us chronically awake, I think.

But yeah, obviously we had baby Harry in the middle of a pandemic so pretty much everything has changed this time around. There are definitely silver linings, as well as drawbacks. I think the thing that’s been the most different this time around is that I’ve had my husband at home so much these past 5 months since he’s working from home. He’s still on calls the whole day, but having him be able to take a 15-minute break here and there, and do lunches at home has made a huge difference. I work from home too so it’s allowed me a little extra work time, or a quick ride on the Peloton when he can watch the baby.

So take me back to the very beginning. It was February of last year, and you found out you were pregnant- how exciting!

Yes! I found out we were pregnant in early February, so I was due in November. I only had a month of my pregnancy before we went into lockdown. Not to mention, we didn’t even find out until a couple of weeks before California shut down.

 You had just told your family you were pregnant, and a week later, suddenly the world was on lockdown. Most of us were fighting for toilet paper and food. What did that time look like when you were just starting your pregnancy?

Oh, gosh. It was nothing like I was expecting my pregnancy to be like. We’d just gotten back from a trip to Mexico when we found out we were pregnant, and of course, in those two weeks, I had so many things going through my head. What gender was the baby, how would we tell my family, what would the gender reveal look like, how would I decorate their room, and of course- where would I go for my babymoon?

So then, a week before the pandemic, I told my immediate family I was pregnant. My parents, my sister and her husband, and my little brother. I’d been wanting another baby for so long. Obviously, I’d heard about COVID-19, but I didn’t think much would come of it. Then, on March 16th, California went into full lockdown. I had no idea what to think. I was terrified. We were lucky enough to find a grocery store that had a good amount of things that my husband went to, and he stocked up on some diapers and Lysol. We wiped everything down and he immediately took a shower and we bleached his clothes. Luckily we had a couple of paint masks in our garage because I called 17 stores around us- no exaggeration- and they were all sold out.

The pandemic has been an unprecedented time for everyone, especially mothers-to-be. The thoughts and challenges traditionally associated with pregnancy have been exacerbated ten-fold, bringing on waves of stress and anxiety and leaving expectant couples with more questions than answers. But, we have you covered in our article, Coping with Pregnancy Anxiety During a Pandemic, where we speak on ways to overcome these negative feelings by offering a few simple daily changes that have the ability to alter your pregnancy experience for the better.

That must have been terrifying. Once the shock settled in and you realized, okay, we’re going to be shut down for a while- what went through your mind?

Of course, my main fear was somehow getting the virus and something happening to my baby. On a smaller level, I was concerned about getting food, diapers, and sanitizer for the house. I had no idea what was going on or what to think, and pretty much went into panic mode. Not only was I providing for myself, but also a tiny baby who certainly couldn’t fight off a virus-like what I was seeing on the news. I was also afraid for my 3.5-year-old, and my husband. This was when we were watching the news hourly and hearing devastating stories of young families who were getting the virus severely enough that they were on ventilators. It was devastating and the scariest thing to watch- I mean, we were all watching it unfold just waiting for answers.

What do you think were the main differences between your first and second pregnancies?

I think any person that was pregnant at the beginning of the pandemic can acknowledge there are so many things we’ve taken for granted in our perception of pregnancy. With my last pregnancy, my biggest concerns were the color I’d paint the nursery, or how I’d announce my pregnancy on social media. Now, I was just praying my husband could be in the delivery room to see our baby.

Was your husband able to go to all your appointments? Was there any talk of him not being able to be present at the birth?

Oh gosh, yes. There was so much uncertainly in the beginning. I just remember hearing stories about women, specifically in New York, that weren’t able to have their husbands in the delivery room. I had nightmares about it, wondering how I’d do it on my own. I couldn’t imagine having him drop me off and not being able to be present at the birth. I was extremely lucky though because he was able to be at the birth.

I think the saddest moment we had is when we realized he wasn’t going to be present for the gender reveal appointment. So that’s when we decided we wanted to keep the gender a secret until the baby was born, so we could enjoy that moment together. It also gave us something to look forward to during such a dark time. 

How did your support system work throughout covid? I know you have a pretty close family that was very present during your other pregnancy; this time around, were they able to support you from afar?

Again, really lucky in this department because my family lives very local to me. My parents had hired a shopper for themselves, my sister, and I (my parents are in their 70s, and my sister is in a high-risk category). The choices at the store were nonexistent; it was like, take whatever you can get.  We also live near some farms, so I was able to coordinate a few pick-ups. My family tried to make the best of it. A couple of nights a week we would all make the same dinner and send each other photos and eat at the same time. That really kept me going and made me feel like I wasn’t alone.

My parents also have a backyard, so we drove over and sat on chairs about 30 feet from them and talked to them once a week. I recognize how lucky I was to have this experience though because a lot of my friends didn’t.

What was your secret to keeping such a good mindset through such a dark time?

To be honest, seeing how the world was coming together during such a terrible time gave me hope. I was so convinced that someone would find a vaccine soon. I was also tremendously inspired by healthcare and frontline workers. I thought to myself, if they can work on the front lines and risk their lives to keep our world running, I can get through this pregnancy that I have the privilege of sitting at home for.

Were there any silver linings in having your pregnancy at this time? 

Absolutely. I definitely had more time to focus on important things like staying in tune with my body and my baby during the pregnancy. I had more time at home with my husband, more time with my 3-year-old before there was a new addition to the mix, and was constantly surprised by how everyone continued to show up for me. I felt like the world was going through it together, and I wasn’t alone.

A Male Perspective On Birth Work: An Interview with Austin Humble

Austin Humble, the recent founder of Compa Doula, is a young man with a vision and passion for birth work beyond his years. His sense of curiosity for the divine feminine as well as his eagerness to spread his birth philosophy radiates a sense of comfort, humility, and lightness that is exactly what we would want in a doula. Not to mention, his beautiful newborn daughter, Willow, joined us for the conversation, chiming in with various baby noises that made us all smile. 

Before we talk about your new business, I wanted to ask you about being a new father! Congratulations. What has surprised you most about fatherhood?

Oh, man. What has really surprised me is that I could just put her [Willow] on the ground and watch her for three hours and still be invested and inquisitive. Usually, I flit from thing to thing, but with Willow, she requires a lot of attention in a cool way. It’s like, I WANT to give her all my attention and she’s easy to focus on. And of course, they say, you’ll never love something like your child. And that’s surprising, even though you know ahead of time that that’s coming. 

You’re also a new father in the middle of a pandemic. What anxieties and stresses have you experienced with everything that’s going on in the world right now? Pandemic aside, your wife also went into labor during the Black Lives Matter riots here in LA. 

Britta Bushnell in her book “Transformed By Birth,” talks about how the birthing partner needs to be the banks to their partners’ river so they can be free to change and move and embrace the wild nature of labor. And Casie [Austin’s wife], had to remind me while all the news was happening and the helicopters were hovering, that it was time to turn it off. She said, “I can’t have that energy around this birth space right now.” And so that’s been one thing. Just that mindfulness that I want to be the protector of this space, the cultivator of this garden. And with the pandemic, I actually started doing a lot of cooking. I really fell in love with cooking really nourishing foods for Casie. I felt like, if I’m giving Casie a bowl of warm, nourishing food, then I’m, in effect, helping the baby. And as for staying at home, all of those peaceful homebody things are also great for a pregnant Mama. So there’s some alignment there. 

So tell me how you got interested in birth work. How did you begin Compa Doula? 

Even before the pandemic, our doula and midwife would always say, “Woah Austin, you seem so curious about this process.” This was news to me because I was just acting like myself. But I was getting these positive affirmations and it felt good. Then after the birth, I heard of DONA [doula training], which is like, the most official sounding place to get your credentials. I took a weekend course with Ana Paula Markel and I was like, this is awesome. I saw that there’s a sizable amount of female doulas, but not a lot of men who have doula practices. Then it was our lactation consultant that suggested I check out this Dad’s group for some support during the postpartum period. That’s when I realized that, a lot of the time, the things we need ourselves are the things we want to teach others. I wanted to be able to support partners so that they can support their birthing partner. Doulas are truth seekers. It feels like, I don’t know… this is transformative work I guess. 

How has being a doula changed or deepened your understanding of the female experience?

Wow. I’ve learned so much about the female body. I mean, my wife is a pelvic floor physical therapist, so we have a yoni model over here and a vulva model over there. I feel like I’m surrounded by the divine feminine that lives in my wife and my daughter at all times. I see [women] as so powerful and brave. My wife, from the beginning, has always been the type of woman who, like, uses a diva cup and gives her menstrual blood to the plants. I’m not just gonna sit here and watch her do that stuff and then not ask questions about it. Being a doula, in a way, is historical work, anthropological work, and anatomical work. There’s so much storytelling in birth. 

What’s your perspective on home birth versus hospital birth?

It’s all about informed consent. Preparing them for whatever is gonna happen. You’re acting at this beautiful liaison in this big world of birth. A lot of the time, what we see depicted in pop culture are things being done to the mama instead of her saying, “Yes, I want that.” Mama’s are already grappling with losing their autonomy by carrying a child, but then when things are getting poked and prodded and adjusted, they feel even more out of control. But between a home birth or hospital birth, one is not better than the other. You need to have all the options available to you. 

What’s it like being a male in a predominantly female line of work?

So sick! I love women. I love that, kind of, “tend and befriend” vibe that women have. In my very first doula course, it was me, one non-binary person, and forty women. Most of the women were actually black, which was awesome because we need more black doulas and midwives. Nothing about it makes me feel insecure about my masculinity. I think the world could benefit from more female OBGYNs and more male doulas. We need to balance some of these imbalances that we have in the world. 

What is your trajectory for Compa?

Well, I’m starting my own dad’s group. It’s gonna be a little bit more geared towards the spiritual nature of being a dad. I want to have a group where men can come together and talk about the emotional nature of their lives. So that’s next. Then, I’m working on making a curriculum to teach a birth prep class just for the dads. I mean, I googled top pregnancy questions from men, and I realized there needs be more education and there needs to be a safe place for them to ask those questions. 

How has your doula experience informed your role as a husband? 

I think that’s what’s funny about being a doula. A lot of the stuff I was already doing for Casie during the pregnancy are the things a doula recommends. Foot rubs, belly rubs, and eye gazing meditations. Connecting so that oxytocin can flow. That kind of behavior that helps your partner feel supported is also good for the marriage.

The pregnancy journey often focuses on the mother’s role - her responsibilities, challenges, and emotions… However, we know that often times, she isn’t alone. Read more about some of the obstacles men face in their transition to parenthood in our article here!

So talk to me about the postpartum meals you offer! What’s on the menu?

Every little bit of knowledge I’ve acquired about food over the last few years, I throw it in the pot! I’ve learned from a traditional Chinese medicine person about having more warming foods with pregnancy. I can make a really good kitchuri, which is basically this savory porridge with vegetables and lentils. When it comes down to pregnancy, you really want to eat things that are a net gain of energy and nutrients. I also make a bone broth and lots of soups. Not a lot of smoothies though, because they’re cold. You want to be drinking things like teas and broths because they’re warming. 

That all sounds delicious! I was excited to see you offer that.

Yeah, we also encapsulated the placenta and Casie’s milk supply has been amazing. We can’t pinpoint that as the main reason, but it definitely helps. And that’s what’s incredible about birth, really. It’s such a pyramid built up of so many little choices and decisions. If one thing goes awry, you also have 70 other things that you did right. Pregnant people need to be reminded that, “Hey, this is a ten-month process, and all these books that tell you to do this and that are great, but check in with yourself to see what feels good.” 

Sex After Kids: Talking Postpartum Sex with Midwife Leopi Sanderson-Edmunds

Leopi, what do we need to know about the postpartum period that will help us understand the libido after baby?

Perhaps the most important thing to learn about postpartum sex is the role hormones continue to play in the postpartum physical experience. The breastfeeding hormone prolactin will reduce a woman’s libido, and even make her mucosal membranes dryer, including her vagina, which makes sex uncomfortable without adding lubrication.

For people who are highly sexual, the shift can be quite a shock, but know that it’s normal! It’s very rare that someone is highly sexual when they are postpartum and breastfeeding. The shift is so dramatic that it can be scary for a woman if she really identified with her sexuality prior to pregnancy. She can feel really lost without that natural desire. She can feel numb.

How does this new physical reality impact the relationship dynamic?

It’s so important that both partners are totally aware of the hormone shift involved with breastfeeding, and the physical impact of those hormones. Don’t feel threatened by these changes, or insecure, it’s a necessary process that will change again when breastfeeding ends.

Partners often feel like the new mama doesn’t love them as much as before she gave birth, and that she’s spending all her time with the baby. Meanwhile, the mother starts to feel unsure of herself because she’s always rejecting her partner since she doesn’t feel affectionate or sexual. The hardest part of the postpartum process is not knowing how to talk about all the changes in the core relationship, how to express these emotional and physical feelings.

Your doctor will almost always say that after six weeks, or sooner, you can resume sex if you’re not bleeding. That’s the typical expectation: at six weeks we’re going to get back to it! I’m going to have my body back and we’re going to be so in love, and now our little baby is here! But this high expectation that there’s going to be normal sex happening again soon after birth, especially on the part of the person who didn’t birth the baby, is often met with disappointment. Lo and behold, most people get to six weeks, and sex is just not happening the way they anticipated.

For the mother there is a sense that the six week healing “deadline” is approaching, and she’s like, “oh my gosh, we’re going to start having SEX?! I’m not ready!”  Her body is being held onto and touched constantly by the baby. She’s tired, but it’s also the prolactin hormone that’s driving her brain and body to be focused on this little baby, and not her own desires or the desires of her partner. From another perspective, the perspective of evolution, it’s actually kind of perfect!

Both parents are going to be exhausted, and the partner also might not always feel like being sexual. Heterosexual couples live with the reality that the male partner has testosterone and still has a sex drive, that didn’t go away with the birth of their baby. So, here we have two partners, one with testosterone who is desiring sex, and one with prolactin who does not desire sex- it’s not a personal thing, it’s very important to understand that it’s purely hormonal. This does not exclude same-sex couples from a similar conundrum: one partner does not have prolactin, and is desiring affection and sex, while the other does have prolactin, and isn’t in the mood.

Most mothers are feeling more love than ever for their partners after birth, they’ve just had this child together. She’s hopefully feeling safe and protected by her partner, even though there are totally new dimensions of each other that they’ve never experienced before. This newness in the dynamics of the relationship can be really tricky to navigate.

The mother is so tremendously devoted to the new baby, and the partner can easily become threatened by this bond that is growing outside of his relationship with the mother. It can be disorienting, both emotionally and physically, due to exhaustion. Hard nights and tough feelings can mean that sometimes a couple just needs to look away from each other for a time, and go through their huge growth curve as human beings; there is a lot happening for each of them.

How can couples work together to maintain intimacy during the postpartum phase?

Women need to stay connected to their sexual selves. Enjoy your beautiful body that’s just given birth, your full breasts that aren’t sexual for the time being, but they are feminine and life-giving. Let your romantic and sensual understanding of what you’ve just achieved with your body take the place of sexual desire. I remember feeling extremely romantic and sexy, I just did not feel sexual, and that’s a big distinction.

It’s important for her partner to look at her, not just at what she’s doing, like a cow milking all day. She needs to feel attractive to her partner. Her partner is responsible for continually reminding her how beautiful she is with words and welcome touch that can be sensual rather than sexual, like kisses on her neck, or pulling her in close for a meaningful kiss, things that make her feel desired as a woman, not a caregiver.

It’s hard work being touched all day by a little being, and sometimes a partner’s touch isn’t the thing that will bring her back into her own body. Sometimes it’s some form of body therapy like massage where there is no reciprocity expected, where you can just go within, de-stress and fine tune, and listen to the details of what you need, and then you feel sexier. Also, having really high quality, delicious, medicinal food and eating enough every day is great for the libido.

Maybe most importantly, both partners need to have some explicit agreements in the new paradigm of postpartum sexuality. For instance, “We will be sexual and affectionate regularly without the expectation of sex every time we reach out.” It’s OK for the mother to stipulate, “I just want to be held by you, but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to try moving this into sex every time, because then I’m going to stop reaching out to you. I don’t want to reject you, I hate having to reject you.”

This typical approach-rejection back and forth around postpartum sex sets up a terrible dynamic of isolation from one another. It’s so sad to see this happen, derived solely from the confusing postpartum hormones and exhaustion. It’s so much easier to avoid the isolation if there is open discussion of what’s going to happen postpartum, and agreements made about behavior and communication before it’s an issue.

These agreements can include something like a cue: “When I really want sex, I’m going to give you this sign, and then you’ll know that we’re in that zone.” Which I know sounds silly, but the closeness and the sensuality and the affection and the friendship and the humor are so much sexier than sex to a woman in the first 3-5 months. When a partner changes diapers, makes dinner, wakes up early with the baby so mom can sleep, when he washes the dishes and puts everything away and makes the kitchen beautiful, these are things that are sexy to a woman in this phase.

I know that sounds really dumb, and housewifey, but it actually makes a lot of sense! She needs to feel taken care of, she doesn’t need to feel like just a big mama, always bossing people around or organizing people. And she definitely doesn’t want to be a nag; that feels so unsexy. She wants to feel like she’s being heard and that she’s really respected and appreciated for the hard work that she does all day and all night with her baby, that’s really sexy.

The body does change postpartum, particularly with the breastfeeding hormones. It’s fair to assume that the first few times will be a little awkward, because mom’s like, “Whoa! I can’t believe I had a baby through my vagina!” So let’s assume the first 3-6 weeks you can enjoy sexy touching, kissing and foreplay. This type of sensual interaction can be really lovely for a women who has just give birth and wants to feel like her partner really wants her, really loves her and her body.

When it’s safe to have intercourse, which is usually around 6-8 weeks depending on the birth, mama will be dry due to the prolactin hormone. Use a lot of lube! Many women think it’s because they had stitches, or are damaged from the birth, but this is rarely the case. Often it starts as real fear, then the awkwardness around sex sets in through the repeated attempt and rejection, then it becomes a kind of excuse: “It hurts too much, I can’t do it”, when really it’s just uncomfortable interpersonally more than anything.

Once you start actually having sex, you’re going to realize how good it is for your own body and mind, and for your relationship. At first many women resist sex because it’s really confronting. It’s hard to commit to working with your new body, and with your partner, to overcome what feels like an insurmountable task: rebuilding your sexuality after birth. As a postpartum mom, frankly, it’s such a beautiful, compassionate gift to give your partner sex and in a loving way, because they need it! They really do! If you are able to give your partner sex with joy and lovingness, you will probably end up realizing how much you needed it too.

Do you have any do’s and don’ts for this sensitive time?

DON’T GO FOR THE BREASTS. Just don’t go for the breasts. That is such a turn off for nearly all postpartum moms. Their breasts are being touched and sucked all day, in a non-sexual way, and that’s what they exist for in this time and space. But of course, they’re so beautiful and round and full, they’re very attractive, of course the partner wants to enjoy them! But no, just don’t.  So, where can the partner touch a new mother’s body? Down the spine, the butt, the legs, anywhere the baby hasn’t been touching all day. Rediscover erotic zones besides the breasts and vagina.

DON’T COMPARE PRE-KIDS SEX TO POST-KIDS SEX. Before, there was time, you could just linger. But now, you might just have a quickie, or some foreplay, and then get interrupted by the baby or the kids, and then get into it again later. Sometimes you get into it just enough to get turned on, and then you just have to enjoy that feeling until you can get back into it, and that’s ok! Even if you were turned on and you guys didn’t have your orgasms, it’s so deeply beneficial to turn up that sexual dial again. It’s a great beginning!

BE FLUID AND HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR. Laugh about how long or short the sexual interaction is, or when you’re interrupted by the baby crying, or when your milk starts leaking mid-sex. This postpartum phase is precisely why I suggest working on your communication early, before birth, so you can flow through this new territory comfortably, because it’s tricky!

EXPRESS YOURSELF. I can’t tell you how many of my mom clients have told me that they are so sick of their partners wanting sex when they’re just exhausted; maybe they’ve been up with the baby all night, it’s 11 am and she hasn’t even gotten any breakfast yet, and her partner is awake and has some free energy and wants to have sex. Resentment easily builds when these two people are living in such different worlds together. The mother needs to feel comfortable explaining her needs instead of repressing it all, hiding her feelings, and possibly becoming depressed.

How do you commonly see couples sabotaging their sex lives after kids?

Physicality, whether it’s sensual, sexual or affectionate, is necessary for both parents’ health and wellbeing. I’ve seen modern parenting evolve so that the baby is getting all of the affectionate love, leaving little between the couple, and this is unbalanced. Parents can sabotage their sexuality and their relationship by over-parenting.

We all read so many books about parenting, but how many books do we read about healthy sexuality or a happy marriage? It’s all about being this ultra-perfect mother and father, and that’s really what we become, this ultra-mother and ultra-father. In this process, we lose a little bit of our identities with the parts that we were initially attracted to.

Be mindful when you are choosing your parenting philosophy; are you making room for your primary relationship? Attachment parenting, the family bed, prolonged breastfeeding, these are great philosophies in theory and sometimes in practice. But, a couple really needs to be educated on the postpartum hormones and make informed decisions about their parenting style with a full understanding of how it may impact their relationship. I actually think that in a lot of ways, the relationship is the primary concern, and the baby secondary, because the baby really needs the couple to be happy and connected and in love and close to one another.

So, really assess what you need as a couple to foster your intimacy. Do you need to get the baby to bed by 7:30 so you can have evenings together for adult conversation? Are you able to sleep in the same bed even with the pressures of night-feeding? Can you make it a goal to be in bed together, touching one another, not with pajamas on but skin-to-skin?

It’s OK to have boundaries with your parenting and with your children in a loving way. It’s a wonderful thing for a child to see that their parents’ relationship is important; there should be no guilt about that. It’s so positive for the child to see that the parents matter as much to each other as the child matters to them.

There is so much guilt around parenting right now: the pressure of perfectionism, all the books, the intellectual inundation. My blanket advice is to be in your body and in your heart. Say “no” when you want to say “no”, you don’t always have to explain everything. If you’re an affectionate, loving mother, then you can say “no” at any time without any guilt.

Leopi, you are the sexiest woman I’ve ever met, please tell us your sexy ways; we need your help!

I’ve always loved to decorate myself in some way, I love to take care of my body, to be in my body. I love being sensual and having beauty around me. I indulge in creating a peaceful space filled with symbols of beauty that help my heart and soul. 

I love giving myself treats like body care therapies and occasional nice meals out. I actually love taking myself out to dinner and being served, especially when my kids were younger. I love to sit in a beautiful restaurant, daydream, eat slowly, and observe people.

I suggest you also indulge yourself when eating at home. Have your treats, a little pot or wine or a mixed drink, of course not too much. We need to have our treats, we are women, we need to enjoy relaxing. Eating your chocolates, along with your healthy diet.

Lingerie! I come and go with that, but after birth, and especially while nursing, having some lingerie that’s fit perfectly to your new body, even if it’s under your clothes and you don’t show it to anyone, it’s a beautiful feeling.

Decorate yourself! Wear some beautiful earrings, get your nails done, fine-tune the things you enjoy and treat yourself. I like having liquid eyeliner on, lotions and oils on my skin.

Nurture your relationships with adults other than your partner. Invest in a variety of  relationships that reflect all of your essential things in life.

MEET LEOPI SANDERSON-EDMUNDS 

Leopi has been a licensed home-birth midwife since 1985, supervising and caring for over 1300 families. In addition to her midwifery practice, she offers care for prenatal and non-natal clients through orthobionomy, a slow and beautiful form of bodywork focusing on bone and soft tissue alignment. Unique in her field, Leopi offers prenatal counseling for women and couples to reach a deeper experience of pregnancy, and birth, no matter where and with whom they are birthing. Leopi also has a BA in Art Therapy and creates phenomenal masterpieces of figure painting. Leopi can be reached via the web at Sanctuary Leopi.

The S Word: A conversation about Prenatal Sex with Leopi Sanderson-Edmunds, LM

As a midwife, Leopi, has a unique view into the sex lives of modern couples. Her approach to midwifery is holistic, incorporating the psychological and social transformations people experience when they are expecting a child, including their sexual realities. I interviewed Leopi on the topic of prenatal sex, expecting her to lay out the best sexual positions to work around the belly, and all sorts of other concrete details. Instead, she got to the core of the issue: change. Below, Leopi discusses how and why your sex will change, and what to do about it. Hallelujah!

-Sara Lyon

Sexuality in a pregnant relationship is totally the other side of the coin from being in love. This stuff is really important to talk about because many people who are newly pregnant are also newly in love. Sometimes they are already at a very evolved and mature relationship, but often it’s the beginning and a romantic sense of one another predominates. They’re making love all the time and exploring sexuality together and relating powerfully to one another this way. For some newer relationships, it’s the opposite, maybe they’re newly discovering each other and they’re shy and they’re not showing their bodies entirely yet. Either way, pregnancy will change the way sexuality is experienced for both partners. 

Be Prepared

Couples benefit from being prepared for the ebbs and flows in their pregnancy, and the shyness that the mother might start to feel with her changing body. I recently spoke with a couple entering this phase. They fell quickly in love, then suddenly she’s pregnant, and her body is changing very, very quickly. Almost immediately, she’s very shy even though their sexual connection is amazing, but now she wants the lights off, for instance. It’s very hard in our culture to not feel fat, but instead to embrace the curves and softness, so I’m trying to help her see the beauty of the softness and the changes of the body in this super ultra-feminine state that it is.

Often the partner is totally into the newness of her pregnant body, but women can actually project on themselves that it’s not beautiful. Don’t get me wrong, many women also feel quite sexy, even in their first trimester of ups and downs physically. In the second trimester, the body feels more feminine: breasts plump and a little round belly pops out. So, it’s an important place to be curious about rather then shy away from: going from being really in love and really confident in the relationship because the sex is good, to accepting the physical and emotional changes that have come. Those are often big shocks to a relationship and this is where intimacy really potentially begins.

I feel that one of the most important things I do for couples is prepare them for this surprise, because they can so easily feel estranged from one another if they aren’t warned. Suddenly, the pregnant woman’s like, “My god, I’m crying all the time!” or “I feel really insecure.” or “I don’t even know who I am anymore, and I don’t even want to look in the mirror, and does he still think I’m beautiful; am I sexy??”

The Murky Time

Up until 16 weeks, you don’t really look pregnant, you just look softer and a little pudgy, and no one really knows what to say to you because they’re not sure that you’re pregnant. That first trimester is the most sexually and emotionally challenging period for most couples.  After about 20 weeks, things can really improve sexually, because you get over the physiological hurdle of the first trimester. There are no certainties, but normally the first trimester’s emotional and physical symptoms last until about 12 - 18 weeks. Women can feel pretty funky until then.

Emotionally, a woman becomes much more internal. She slows way down due to the pregnancy hormones, she may be nauseas, and exhausted. All she can really think about is the reality that she is pregnant. She’s seeing her life changing, she’s becoming more vulnerable and more dependent on her partner, instead of this rich sexual experience they may have connected through previously.  Her body image is changing and it can really rapidly change.

A woman’s changing body image can be very difficult. If that’s not enough, her hormones cause physiological changes in those first weeks, and the things she used to find sexually arousing will often be a turn off: her nipples can be super tender, her vagina is swelling and in a constant arousal state which can be hyper-sensitive, actually making touch uncomfortable. She may also find that her vagina looks different and she may not feel comfortable with this.

Remember, the first 12 week period can be tough and quite shocking.  The depth of complex emotions, even when the pregnancy has been planned can be surprising! Life can be put at a standstill due to hormones and nausea. This uncomfortable experience usually lasts longer than the first trimester and it can be quite disappointing when you’re still sick and you’ve passed 12 weeks. So, of course this is all a shock on the relationship! You’re partner is like, “Well, I’ve never seen you like this!” and you’re exhausted or tired or crying; it’s really difficult for both partners. Some women don’t have these symptoms, and feel great all along, but that’s not typical.

I believe this is nature’s way of helping us to slow down in this modern and pretty crazy world that’s going very very very fast, especially with technology that makes everything even faster, and then there is Googling! Helpful, yes, but it can really put a lot of fear into pregnancy, too.

The first trimester requires you to put the brakes on, so you can feel yourself as just being, slow way down, appreciating everything moment to moment. Sometimes you aren’t able to deal with life as you did before: making schedules, being strong, or super social, and “having it all together”.  The state of pregnancy is a non-linear world!

It’s nature’s way of helping a woman to rest and go within, which is where the baby is, it helps her connect with the baby. The first trimester hormones reset the nervous system, and the way that we settle into the pregnancy.  So that’s a positive to all of those murky feelings.

These primordial feelings can feel dreamy, and sometimes a little scary and unknown. The partner usually doesn’t get it, because he or she isn’t pregnant and can’t possibly understand it; that’s really hard on a couple in those first weeks. Understanding that this is a normal and helpful process in securing the pregnancy can alleviate some of the confusion or judgment between partners.

The second trimester usually, not always, but usually starts a shift into a beautiful space. Around 18-20 weeks, a woman often starts to feel better, more like herself. It’s very important that mama has been taking great care of herself, so that she can come back into her body and move out of the murky, defeated place.

Health and wellbeing are extremely important for sexuality, for coming back into your body, and for getting a hold of the pregnancy and enjoying it. With good eating, resting, slowing down in the world, and having time for yourself, sexuality can be amazing, especially when the baby bump finally comes out. If your nausea is gone, this new evolution can be exciting, and sexy.

Pregnant Femininity

There are many ways of being pregnant. Many many women feel very sexy when they are pregnant, but there is absolutely no judgment if you do not. If you don’t feel well, it can be extremely difficult to enjoy your sexuality. For some, prenatal sexuality can feel really spicy and almost even tribal: here is a couple making a family, whether they’re married or not, they’re bonded and connected like never before. They’re bringing in this life; it’s very romantic and it’s hot, really. It’s a beautiful time to see your sexuality as a woman being ultra feminine. If you can notice it, embrace it, and savor it, there couldn’t be a more feminine time which empowers you forever.

The feminine potency of pregnancy is so seldom discussed, and that’s really unfortunate. It’s the crystallized power of feminine energy. We have this uterus that is finally doing what it was born to do, and the power of that feeling inside a woman, to hold a creative act of life-force inside her body that is coming from love… that’s very sexy. Wear beautiful clothes, feel it, enjoy the silhouette of your body. I love how many beautiful clothing lines exist today to show your shape. Indulge in it!

Sexual Satisfaction

This is a really important time for old love, new love, whatever love, to embrace the changes. There are a multitude of complex feelings, as we discussed, and physically there are many body changes: the breasts can be very sensitive, they plump up and press out, which can be a lovely feeling, or an uncomfortable one. You are really budding everywhere.

You may need to work around certain areas of the body, and give more attention to others; your partner really has to explore. Your blood plasma has doubled, so everything is fuller, fleshier, a little swollen. Even our lips plump up on our face and our vagina. This can be more sexually arousing, but it can also be uncomfortable. In order to accommodate the fleshier pregnant body, you may need more lubricant, or, none at all. Most women are really wet throughout pregnancy, really mucussy; don’t be alarmed. If sexual exploration is done with consciousness, it’s a fantastic time to reinvent everything, and relearn each other: “What do you like now? What does this feel like now?”

It’s an important time to take all of this newness and practice communication with curiosity and gentleness, especially if you’re a couple that tends to be shy. If you begin talking about these sensitive topics now, then you’ve begun something that’s going to be so important for the rest of your lives, for your whole relationship. It’s time to develop friendship, humor, affection, conversation and cuddling. Begin talking about things that are unknown, out of your control, and very raw. Don’t avoid being vulnerable and intimate, and learn to talk about it without judgment of self or other; it will always serve you.

Partners

Emotionally, partners are also shifting. They’re developing into caregivers and providers, even in a dual-income household. They tend to become more protective of the pregnant partner, wanting to spend more time with her. They want to get their lives together and often put a lot of pressure on themselves to do so.

Sexually, some men have difficulty having intercourse with a pregnant woman; mentally, some men can’t put their penis in a pregnant woman’s vagina. It’s like, “Woah! There’s a baby in there!?” They still want to be super affectionate and increasingly attached, but they simply cannot have sex with a pregnant woman, and that’s their truth. However, they can be affectionate and sensual without intercourse, like kissing and oral sex.

Sensuality should never go away, it’s probably way more important than sex. Not just affection, but sensuality; the eroticism of connecting to your partner that way, exploring in a surrendered space together. Just being turned on and having orgasms is so important for our nervous systems, for both the mother and the partner. It’s an irreplaceable space of wordlessness, connecting in hearts and bodies and breath. Its also really, really good for your body! The movements we make with sex are very hard to get anywhere else.

Make it Happen

So, let’s say the pregnant woman is growing and she doesn’t know what to wear, and she’s looking at herself, wondering what will make her feel good- and her partner comes up and gives her lots of kisses along her shoulders and neck and breasts, or playfully grabs her ass. She needs to feel that her partner is attracted to her, not like she’s just carrying their child. But, of course, this is only half of it; more than anything, she needs to feel attractive herself, not just to others.

How can you cultivate your own sexuality?

Take pictures. Really observe yourself and appreciate what’s changing instead of shying away from it. Wear beautiful clothes that make you feel like you’re showing your pregnancy instead of hiding it.

Take really really good care of yourself. Focus on your nutrition, your bathing rituals, the things you find pleasure in.

Surround yourself with the right support people. Talk about what’s going on with your body image, your hopes and your fears. 

Choose positive healthcare providers.  How do your healthcare providers look at you? Make sure they are reflecting back how healthy you are and how normal pregnancy is. This is especially emotionally important if you had IVF. Be sure your provider includes your partner in conversations around the pregnancy, if that’s what you would like. It’s very sexy to a woman and to her partner when the partner is included in her prenatal care, it’s bonding.

Seek meaning in your experience. There are many ways to access the spiritual and emotional side of the prenatal experience. In addition to your primary medical care, make sure you are getting complementary care that reflects the health and vitality of pregnancy. This can come in many forms like yoga, massage therapy or adjunct support like a doula or a prenatal guide. 

It’s really important to me, as a midwife, to help my families keep connecting and exploring in these unknown spaces, not just being functional, but enjoying, having pleasure with one another. We cannot let go of all of ourselves, just to become a mother and a father. We are sexual human beings, and we are brilliant human beings, we are creative human beings; we are so interesting. We need to keep reflecting the magic and the attraction back to one another.

MEET Leopi sanderson-edmunds 

Leopi has been a licensed home-birth midwife since 1985, supervising and caring for over 1300 families. In addition to her midwifery practice, she offers care for prenatal and non-natal clients through orthobionomy, a slow and beautiful form of bodywork focusing on bone and soft tissue alignment. Unique in her field, Leopi offers prenatal counseling for women and couples to reach a deeper experience of pregnancy, and birth, no matter where and with whom they are birthing. Leopi also has a BA in Art Therapy and creates phenomenal masterpieces of figure painting. Leopi can be reached via the web at Sanctuary Leopi.

0 Likes

Toddler, Much? An interview with Dr. Jill Sulka, PsyD

Jill, as a mother of two and a psychologist specializing in 0 to 8 years old, you are uniquely qualified to give your opinion on toddler matters. In your personal and professional experience, what is the most difficult aspect of parenting a toddler?

Perhaps the most difficult part of toddler parenting is keeping your own emotions in check. It’s so easy to become frustrated with a toddler who wants to do more and say more than they are capable of developmentally, and losing your cool will only fuel a tantrum.

Toddlers are coming into a newfound sense of themselves as differentiated from their parents. In this crucial phase of development, toddlers are navigating their emerging autonomy while needing the security of their relationship with their parents. When toddlers come up against their own limits and the limits of their parents, frustration and disappointment can be overwhelming and seem very out of proportion to the situation.  While this sometimes intense phase can feel like a train gone off the rails, your toddler is tackling essential and normal developmental tasks. 

As a mother of twins, I have certainly fallen into the traps of a frustrated parent. One of my twins has the temperament of what we commonly call an “easy baby”, and even as a toddler this child’s feelings didn't lead to an extended loss of control.   He easily accepted the comfort and assistance I offered, the ups and the downs weren’t so extreme, and all of my professional and personal parenting strategies worked. These interactions were gratifying and rewarding.

With my other twin, the same strategies  didn’t result in the same outcomes. This twin, constitutionally, came into the world much more fiery and intense. It gave me the opportunity to feel the humility of learning to navigate that relationship and our fit.

All children bring their different and unique selves, and self-blame is such an easy trap to fall into as a parent. When you compare yourself to others, it's impossible to win. As a professional, observing the number of children I have in my career, I can assure you that there is so much variation in what babies and toddlers bring to the relationship. It’s about meeting your children where they’re at and knowing that they’re all going to be different, and what you need to do to meet the specific needs of your child and your relationship with them may look different than how another parent learns to be best respond to their unique child.

Ah yes, parental judgment, my favorite aspect of the job. That’s such a brutal one, because you can be judged by others, sure, but the judgment you place on yourself follows you home.

Exactly! I believe so strongly in compassion for ourselves. We are all going to be thrown by what our children present us, so it’s about having compassion when we fail over and over again. "Success" is weathering the storm as you show up in the best way that you can. It’s about striving towards how we want to be in our best selves as a parent, to each unique child.  That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t want to reach out for help to learn more effective ways to parent and to manage your own triggers that come up, but be easy on yourself in your self-judgment as you strive to learn more about your child and yourself as a parent.

The act of parenting is your opportunity to learn who you are in this evolving role and even to revisit your earlier history from a different perspective.   Your worth as a parent is not  dependent on what others think; know that kids are different, and it’s very easy for others to judge what they haven’t personally experienced.

Remember that your role as a toddler’s parent is to do your best to assist your child to calm down, to manage their big, irrational feelings and eventually those experiences of help in managing their feelings will result in the child developing the capacity to soothe themselves. As a part of healthy development, toddlers do need to push their emotions and your limits to the very edge sometimes, and just being present to help them calm down is doing the necessary work.

When dealing with a tantrumming  child, remember that the tantrum will end, and that your value as a parent is not determined by whether or not your child throws a tantrum and for how long.  You can neither reason with your child toddler about their upset, nor force the tantrum to end. No matter how “perfect” you are as a parent, your toddler will still have tantrums; stopping them isn’t the goal, staying emotionally connected with them  through their ups and downs, while calming yourself, is. In fact, tantrums are normal and important work for toddlers.

Important life lessons about emotions and relationships come out of a tantrum:

• Big feelings are survivable;

• Feelings shift and change;

• Their parent is still there, a real separate person who didn’t fall apart or retaliate.

• Relationships can recover from hardship, their parent still loves them.

Know that after the toddler years, your child will have more capacity for reason, for being rational and for being socially and emotionally available in a different way. This phase does not last forever.

We all make “mistakes,” we all overreact at one time or another. Always remember that there is power in repairing the relationship with your child when you haven’t succeeded the first time (or the 10th time);  it teaches your child that big emotions are survivable and that the love remains intact even when we have a disruption in our connection. 
 

Acknowledging that every family is unique, what are some common ways you observe parents contributing to the sometimes brutal frustration of toddlerdom?

Trying to control the toddler’s behavior in order to manage your own emotions.

When your emotional state is dependent on how the child is behaving, that is often how power struggles begin. If you feel the emotional pressure building inside of you because of what your toddler is doing, it’s easy to become more insistent and controlling of your toddler in an effort to shift your own feelings and reactivity. When you are feeling upset, frustrated, saddened or angry, notice your reaction, take care of it separately, independent of what the toddler does. 

Taking responsibility to manage your own feelings and not take your child’s oppositionality personally is a primary part of parenting during this period, especially because toddlers have embraced the experience of saying the word “no” as a way to experience their newly emerging personhood, as an individual separate from other people, testing out how their world and relationships work and hoping to find it predictable.   While it may be greatly frustrating for you, your toddler is doing something utterly necessary for their growth as a human being, and it has nothing to do with good or bad behavior. And it has nothing to do with disrespect.

In the December 2015 newsletter you explained that “time-out” is counterproductive for most children. Can you please explain briefly what time-out does to the child mind at 18 months to 4 years of age?
 

Thinking of your child as behaving badly disposes you to think of punishment as the answer. Alternatively, thinking of your child as struggling to manage something difficult encourages you to help them through their distress.
Even if we were to consider the merits of time-out  as a productive form of discipline, it would not ever be valuable for a child younger than 3.5 because the parts of their brain that are necessary to make any use of something like that are not yet developed. A toddler is not yet able to go sit and think about what they did, that is not part of their capability  and is not be part of the experience of being a toddler.

In general, connection with their important adults is the primary thing that helps toddlers calm down. Being forced to separate from their parents and to be alone can have the opposite effect, children become even more distressed and dysregulated.

So, in addition to whatever the original disappointment or frustration was, they now have to manage the disruption in the emotional relationship with the parent. Consequently, they can become so overwhelmed with that disruption in the relationship, that the likelihood of learning from the experience decreases dramatically. Now they are distressed by being isolated, but they are not aware of the cause.
 

Are you saying that toddlers are not yet capable of understanding consequence? 

Often parents will designate consequences that have no relationship to what was going on with the child. The closer the consequences are to what actually happened, what we might call “natural” consequences, the more likely a child will make a connection between the consequence and the behavior. Then, the child doesn’t view the consequence as punishment, but part of a natural sequence of events spurred by the problematic behavior. The child then learns that there are rules, and that they can expect that the rules will be upheld, as opposed to learning that they are “bad”.

For example, your child is throwing a shoe in the house, and this is against your house rules. Firstly, say a few times,  “We don’t throw shoes in the house because they are hard and can break something.” Then offer the toddler an acceptable object to throw (i.e. a little foam ball or a small stuffed animal), and simply say, “The shoe is going away”, and take the shoe away. Do not allow the shoe to be part of the equation any longer, as opposed to saying, “Now go on timeout!” or “No dessert tonight!” which is entirely unrelated in time and in associative connection to what actually happened. The timeout or the withheld dessert are independent of throwing the shoe, and this type of punishment undermines the learning of why the shoe was taken away because the consequence is not meaningful to the toddler mind. 

Your child’s job is to be a scientist in the world--they need to push limits in order to understand the boundaries of the world. They will test the hypothesis that things will or won’t respond as they expect over and over again and this includes testing their social relationships. This is how the child learns that they are secure, that their relationships are lasting and strong. They are going to push and push and push against the limit in order to understand what the world is, and that it won’t be destroyed, and that they won’t be destroyed, . They will actually feel safer after pushing a limit and having it enforced in a way that is meaningful to the toddler mind.

It would be tremendously helpful to have some toddler parenting guidelines both for self-management and for child-management, please give us a shortlist of parenting tips.
 

I know it’s popular to publish clear “Do’s and Don’ts” on parenting, but I so strongly believe in compassion for ourselves, that I have a problem with this style of education. Here are some basic guidelines to help you through the toddler years; let’s call them “Try to’s” and “Try not to’s:”

---

Try to…

• Find your calm. Your own managing of your own feelings in the moment is the number one thing that is going to be helpful. When you have stress hormones coursing through you, it has an effect on the stress hormones coursing through your child. Remember, you are needed as the secure base that anchors your child’s world, and if you collapse or get angry or hurtful back, your child’s anxiety—even devastation--about the rupture between you intensifies their distress and out of control behavior.

• Validate your child’s feelings. Even when we’re ignoring the behavior, we don’t ignore the child. We speak to the distress, “You really wanted the purple cup, and it’s not here, it’s so disappointing.”

• Give your child the words to express what they’re feeling. “I think you’re feeling really mad and you can say ‘I’m mad.’” That’s how they are going to learn to express themselves through words instead of through their bodies.

• Give your child reasonable choices. “The purple spoon isn’t here, so would you like the red spoon or the yellow spoon?”

• Offer physical comfort. The child may not be able to verbally express that they need comfort in the form of affection.

• Express reassurance. After the tantrum, reassure your child that you love them, that the relationship will be ok.

Try not to…

• Think of your toddler’s tantrum as misbehavior or disrespect.

• Reason or argue with your toddler. Logic will not work, a toddler is not capable of logical reasoning, even if they are verbal, so we often forget this and then feel manipulated, or compelled to negotiate.

• Give your child false choices: “Would you like to use the red spoon or go buy the purple spoon”, if you don’t intend to fulfill the promise.

• Punish your toddler for their out of control feelings. Try not to yell, scream or scold the child. Don’t put them by themselves and expect them to manage their distress on their own. Try to remain connected to your toddler through the tantrum: they are needing your support while they navigate their own intense feelings.
  **Exception: If your own stress leads you to feel like you are no longer effective in the interaction with your child, if you aren’t able to calm down by remaining with your child or if you feel you might harm your child, put your child in a safe place, tell your child that you are going to calm down and that you’re going to come back,, then go take of yourself so you can come back and be more helpful to your child.

• Don’t collapse or retaliate. Don’t be so scared of the toddler’s feelings or behavior that you are willing to do anything to appease them, that shows the child that their feelings are more powerful than anything else, more powerful than you are. Don’t retaliate by getting angry and returning their aggressive or destructive behavior. For example, by hitting them if they hit you, or an older children will often say “I don’t love you” or “I hate you” and it is only destructive to say it back to them.

---

MEET JILL SULKA

Jill Sulka, Psy.D. is a licensed psychologist who specializes in infant and early childhood mental health. She provides parent consultation, infant-parent and child-parent psychotherapy, and child play therapy in her office and at home, depending on the needs of the family. Dr. Sulka has been providing psychological services for 20 years, and has directed several programs for parents and their children birth to 8 years old. She believes that every child and parent deserve the opportunity to develop a relationship together that best supports that child’s potential to grow well and love well. Jill regularly contributes to the Glow newsletter and her articles can be found in the Parenting section of our Resources page. She can be reached at (510) 326-2002 and jillsulka@gmail.com.