You'd be wrong.
Much like babies and toddlers, teens don't like to sleep.
Ever.
But even after all these years, you still do. You really, really do. So because your kids stay up later than you and are totally onto the whole door being closed thing, you and your husband find yourselves sneaking around like you're . . . well, teenagers.
It's actually quite impressive the moments you and your husband can find to "reconnect" after a long day, not to mention the locations. It can even be fun in a weird, subterfuge kind of way, and makes it easy to pretend you're in a Bond movie (with Pierce Brosnan, though, not Daniel Craig).
You'd think by this time, you could just say, "Hey, we're going to bed now. Door will be closed. Put on some headphones." I mean, shouldn't they be thrilled that their parents still love each other enough to want to hug naked?
No. Definitely no.
Remember how you felt thinking about your parents doing it? Gross.
And knowing that your teenager has a firm grasp of sex ed. thanks to the talks you've been having with her since she was eight, as well as just about every magazine in the grocery store check-out lane, it makes what you're doing infinitely more awkward - on both sides of the door. So you hide. And sneak. And make damn sure that when you're taking a ride on the love train, no one blows the whistle.
Listen, while it's true that once you have kids your sex life will never be the same, it's also true that your entire life won't ever be either. Is it harder? Of course. Is it more rewarding? Absolutely. Because with all of the peaks and valleys your sex life goes through in the years after you become a parent, if you can "hold onto that feelin'" that got you there in the first place, it makes all the rest that much more worthwhile.
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Michelle Newman wears many hats - wife, mother, maid, cook, vet, therapist and personal assistant to the other three members of her household (a job she doesn't remember applying for). She holds a master's degree in Elementary Education that has been gathering dust in its frame for the past 17 years while she's been making grilled cheese sandwiches and stepping on Barbie shoes. When she's not napping, she writes about her family, the absurdity of celebrity life, and whatever else she can find hidden humor in over at her blog, You're my favorite today.
Potty Training and Prostate Exams
By Stephanie Giese
Binkies and Briefcases
When I became a mom I figured we would have one or two trips to the emergency room over the course of our parenting career. Maybe someone would jump off the playground and sprain a wrist or get hit in the face with a softball. I was not prepared for just how weird emergencies really are when you have children.
The first time we had to take a child to the emergency room was when my oldest was two years old and potty training. My husband and I had gone away for a weekend anniversary trip and left the kids with my mom. She called and told us we should probably come home early because Little Dude was in a lot of pain and might have appendicitis. He was screaming and holding his belly. Of course, we cut our weekend short and came home right away.
We called the doctor and left a message. He heard Little D. screaming and called back right away to confirm that we should take him to the ER. My husband stayed with our younger daughter and I drove him to the hospital.
It was not appendicitis, but we waited for four hours through x-rays, blood work, and physical exams for them to figure out what the problem was: My son needed to poop. He REALLY needed to poop. The stool was so impacted that it was causing colon spasms and had slightly enlarged his prostate.
"Excuse me? My toddler has an enlarged prostate from refusing to poop?"
"Yes, we think so. Here's the name of a pediatric GI specialist. In the meantime, change his diet to include more fats and sugars (to hopefully loosen his stool) and give him the following medications . . . We're going to have to dis-impact him now and then give him a prostate exam."
"How do you do that? OH!"
My poor little man had to have two different doctors invade his very personal space in the same night just so we could get him to poop. And by the way, the smell of impacted feces being vacated is one that will stick in your memory for all eternity.
Then we had to wait three months (THREE MONTHS!) to see a pediatric GI specialist. Apparently those folks are in high demand. We learned that this is actually a really common problem, especially in little boys who are starting to potty train.
In the meantime, we were charged with the task of performing periodic enemas because the kid was still refusing to poop. I had never even seen an enema before, so the first time Little D. needed one I had to call a friend who was in nursing school to come over to help. That is one awkward favor to request, let me tell you.
"Hello?"
"Um...Yeah, hi. It's me. I need a really big favor. Are you free right now?"
"Is everything okay? What do you need?"
"I need you to help me give an enema. Wait, it's not for me. It's for the little guy. I know he's only two. The doctor is the one who recommended it. Yes, we do have latex gloves."
The more we tried to help, the worse it got. He associated pooping with scary doctors sticking their fingers naughty places and hoses in the bathtub and other unpleasantries, so he still refused to poop. The more he refused, the worse it got because he would just continue to get more impacted.
It was a vicious and smelly cycle.
I even took him to therapy.
If you ever find yourself in that situation, good luck finding a licensed therapist for a toddler who refuses to potty train. Most of the professionals I talked to clearly thought I was just another over-protective whack job of a mother and refused to take him on as a patient, but I kept at it because it really was a serious medical problem. I found a local play therapist who was willing to work with such a young child. She gave us a book called "It Hurts When I Poop" about a boy with a similar problem, to read while Little Dude sat on the potty.
Eventually, we got to see the GI guy. Do you know the kind of advice that months of waiting, several hundred dollars, and a third prostate exam for your child will get you?
"He's fine, it's too early to potty train him. Put him back in a diaper."
So we did.
And eventually he was finally potty trainable, at age four and a half.
He still has some problems in that area. For example, there was the time he got impacted while we were living at my in-laws house. He sat on the potty with a lot of pleading and coaxing from my father-in-law and was still REALLY struggling. It was becoming abundantly clear that this was not going to happen without some sort of medical intervention. We knew we were going to have to give him a suppository. My mother-in-law and I both disappeared in different directions, preparing for the worst. We rendezvoused back in the powder room, each of us holding our own bottle of vaginal lubricant.
Great minds think alike?
If I have learned one thing in my motherhood journey thus far, it is this: There is no greater awkwardness in all the world than standing idly by as your mother-in-law compares the vaginal lubricant that you use with her son to the one she uses herself, trying to determine which one will work better on your five-year-old's rear end.
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Stephanie Giese is a wife and mother of three who spends her days sticking out like a sore thumb in the middle of Amish country. She might have a badge and educational background that declares her a professional parenting specialist, but her children didn't seem to get the memo. Stephanie's work can be found on her blog, Binkies and Briefcases, or on her personal website,stephaniegiese.com.
The Tale of Two Vaginas
By Susan McLean
Divine Secrets of a Domestic Diva
I had a birth plan.
One thing was certain, that plan did not involve two vaginas . . .
Something caused me to wake suddenly in the early morning hours of July 6, 2005. Glancing around the dark room at the still slumbering do
gs and my snoring husband, I realized that it must have been my bladder again, so I fought against gravity to pull my swollen body, nearly forty weeks pregnant, out of bed to waddle quickly into the adjacent bathroom.
Sleep hadn't come easily in these final weeks of pregnancy, so it actually took me a moment to realize that the sudden gush was not just one of my bladder's frequent releases, but rather my water had broken - it was finally time to have this baby!
I had wondered what my reaction would be to this moment for so long - would I panic? Could I do this?
Of course I could.
I had been meticulously planning this day for months.
I'm a list maker.
I'm a double-checker.
I was a four year veteran of the Girl Scouts for Christ's sake.
And I had a birth plan.
Finally in the moment, I found myself instructing my husband what bags to put in the car and who to start calling while I paged the doctor from the toilet. The constant gush of fluids surprised and somewhat frightened me, and I half expected to see my belly begin to shrink as I sat there like a virtual Niagara Falls in the first stage of my labor.
It was minutes before a shift change in the maternity ward when we arrived at the hospital an hour or so later, and I literally begged my nurse to start my IV before she left for the morning.
An epidural was absolutely part of my plan, and an IV was one step closer to checking that off the list.
"I know this is my first baby, and my delivery may be a long time away, but please, please, please start my IV so I can get the epidural," I practically cried.
Maybe my nurse had some foresight, or perhaps she was just taking pity on me, but her decision to start my IV instead of handing me over to someone else was something that I will never forget.
She started my line in triage, a doctor confirmed my water did in fact break (you wouldn't need to have an MD after your name to have made that determination), and I was admitted to Labor and Delivery.
Things were going smooth until the contractions kicked into high gear.
I must have asked every nurse, doctor, and janitor that walked past my room for an epidural, and after about an hour of the worst pain I had ever felt, the man of the hour, a tan, bright-toothed anesthesiologist, walked into my room and I felt a wave of relief. Whatever was coming next, I could handle it.
My plan was in motion and everything was as it should be.
After administering my long-awaited medicine, he stayed in the room, scribbling away on my chart. At the same time, a doctor from my Ob/Gyn's office came into see me. My doctor, it turns out, was vacationing in Italy.
How nice.
No need to panic though, I had a plan that I would just have to quickly explain to this other highly qualified medical professional.
"Okay, well, you should know that I told my doctor I wanted an episiotomy," I instructed him as he was nearly elbow deep between my legs examining my cervix. I half expected him to start tickling my tonsils, and I marveled at how little of this visibly intrusive exam I could actually feel thanks to the magic epidural I had just received.
He nodded as I spoke, and told me that although I was over 6 cm, that we likely had plenty of time before we needed to worry about all the details before quickly leaving the room to attend to another patient.
I was worried that he wasn't being fully attentive, and I also I noticed that as he left, he wasn't wearing a watch anymore.
Although his response was not exactly what I wanted to hear, the fact that I still had plenty of time, I thought it best to try to rest as much as I could before we got down to business.
The anesthesiologist glanced at his pager and noted that due to the 4th of July holiday just a couple days before, he had a large number of patients coming in for scheduled C-Sections and inductions. "Good thing you were so persistent," he smiled and patted my arm, "otherwise you would have been waiting a long time for your epidural."
About four hours had passed at this point, and the anticipation of becoming a mother did not allow for much of the rest I was hoping to get before my pushing began. It was also about this point that I began to feel really physically uncomfortable.
Assuming I already had a reputation on the floor for being a pain in the ass, which is what comes when you arrive and ask for an epidural before even giving your name, I tried to ignore the enormous pressure I was feeling.
When my nurse, who was both skilled and accommodating came in to check on me, I informed her of the odd feeling of pressure that I was experiencing. Since the doctor had checked me just thirty minutes ago, she first tried adjusting me in the bed stating that sometimes the epidural medication needs to be evened out.
No, that wasn't it.
Did I need to pee perhaps?
Since I was unable to get up, I was given a catheter and the nurse remarked how little was in my bladder.
Better double check my cervix even though the doctor had really just been up there . . .
And there was the baby's head.
Suddenly things felt a little rushed.
The nurse told my husband to grab a leg and since his plan was to be at the head of the bed - not the business end - he lost most of the color in his face and appeared to lose consciousness for a second.
Were we deviating from the plan?
The nurse called for a doctor - any doctor - and even though she had told me to "push" and "don't worry, with this being your first child, it will probably take an hour," suddenly she's firmly telling me to "stop pushing."
For those of you who have been through a vaginal delivery, once you are there - as in moments from actually passing a human being - there isn't really a way to stop the pushing.
When the young woman came into the room, I thought perhaps she was lost. When the nurse called her "Doctor," I became thoroughly confused.
She appeared to be around twelve years old.
How could she have graduated medical school?
Had she gone through puberty yet?
Forget about delivering a human child, I'm not sure this chick would even know how to put in a tampon yet.
Fuck.
Where was my doctor?
Oh, that's right.
Sipping wine somewhere under the Tuscan sun.
Where was the other doctor from the practice?
Delivering another baby.
In fact, half the of the labor and delivery floor seemed to be delivering babies simultaneously, which left me with a middle-schooler, who had hopefully paid attention in health class, to deliver my first child.
During a quick mental run-down, I knew this was not in the plan.
As the nurse struggled to dress the miniature doctor in the oversized delivery gown, I felt panic set in.
There were several more key pieces of the plan that needed to be laid out for my staff to ensure a smooth and successful delivery.
"I want an episiotomy!" I called out much louder than I had intended.
The young girl dressed as a doctor looked me in the eyes, then at my vagina, then at the nurse, then at my vagina, and finally at my face again and said, "I don't like to do those . . . "
What. The. Hell?
The urge to move this child through the birth canal, my husband's semi-conscious instructions to "Push!" and the female Dr. Doogie Howser standing at the foot of the bed all caused me to let out a primal scream as I pushed with all my might.
Oh my God! Who made that sound? Was that even my voice?
Before I could argue with my pint-sized OB over the episiotomy and whether I wanted to take the chance over a few stitches, I heard the soft, beautiful cries of my son.
In that moment, when both a child and mother are born, the plan, the pain, the twelve year old girl standing in between my legs - none of it mattered.
I paid little attention to the doctor doing the rest of the post-delivery things at the end of the bed, and I just marveled at the beautiful boy the nurses were cleaning up and assessing.
&
nbsp; He was perfect.
My vagina, it turns out, was not in great shape.
And by shape, I mean, it surely wasn't shaped like or resembling anything even close to a vagina any longer.
My nurse and the child-doctor exchanged hushed remarks, and by the way the nurse was pointing at the spot between my legs formerly known as my vagina, it almost gave the impression that she was trying to instruct the pre-teen on what to do next.
Another doctor, one of proper age and stature, came in the room next. First, he took a look at the beautiful baby and wished me congratulations. His happy demeanor gave way to a troubled look, however, when his eyes fell on my busted lady parts.
He raised his eyebrows in a manner that both confused and worried me.
"Well, my dear," he began in a sullen voice, "it looks like you had some tearing."
No shit.
"We'll get you stitched up, but you're probably going to have some additional discomfort once we take out the epidural. Just let the nurses know how your pain is, and we'll give you some stool softeners too."
Stool softeners?
I didn't have time to process that before he gave a squeeze to the pretend doctor's shoulder and a thumbs up to her before leaving the room.
Was this her first delivery?
Good God!
But God is good. I held my healthy, new son and thanked Him for such a speedy delivery - labor lasting less than five hours and only pushing for 16 minutes - and for my perfect baby boy.
My newborn baby, and my maternal need to get up and feed and care for him is the only thing that kept me moving over the next several days.
Once in my post-partum room, I was informed that I had 17 stitches from end to end.
That's vagina to anus for anyone that may not have fully understood "end to end."
Motherhood was not going to come without a price.
Of course, I knew that from the beginning. I had suffered through weeks of all-day vomiting with hyperemesis, constant trips to the ER, and finally an IV at home until 17 weeks into my pregnancy when my medications finally began to kick in, and I started to keep down food.
In fact, my "morning sickness" was so severe that I threw up every single day until delivery. The medicines, although safe for use during pregnancy, caused constipation as a side effect. This was bothersome during pregnancy, but sitting on the toilet in the hospital with 17 medical sutures being the only thing keeping me from having one giant hole between my legs, and the need to push to go to the bathroom was utterly terrifying.
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