Pleasure, After.

I had my baby on Sunday, July 30, 2023.

Before my son was born, I was very much conscious of how my body, my being, sought to experience pleasure. I had a beautiful morning ritual: on my balcony filled with plants, I would brew my tea and sit, smoking hand rolled lavender (and other herbs), and I would pray. There was pleasure in that. In the ritual. In the breathing of God into my lungs. 

Before my son was born, pleasure for me was dancing to Anita or .Paak or Chaka or Outkast in my kitchen as I prepared a meal for my spouse and I. It was my daily yoga practice on the mat, moving my body with my breath. There was pleasure in the union. If I attended church, the singing would float me up, making the hairs on my arm stand up, electrifying my whole self. 

I sought pleasure in the everyday—it looked like a coordinating outfit, sneakers and handbag matching. It felt like the fresh pages of a new notebook and an uncapped-for-the-first-time pen, a hot shower running over my body first thing in the morning or the afternoon or twice at night. Tasted like collard greens and my mama’s hot water cornbread. Sounded like the bass in my car drowning out the lyrics to “Look Ya.” My entire being was loud and took up the most space everywhere I went. 

Before my son was born, I saw myself as a free sexual being. I could never be shamed for the partners I enjoyed in the past because I enjoyed them. Each encounter an indulgence. An exploration of some unknown space. And I never had a problem with self-exploration and self-pleasure. I always loved myself enough to give myself what I needed. 

Once I married, the exchange of pleasure felt like a revelation. The feeling of my wife’s fingers interlaced with mine on the couch, us spooning at night, our lovemaking at home and on vacations, our laughter at the jokes between us when no one was around or even if they were. There is and always has been pleasure in the exchange of our energy.

 I learned through loving her that pleasure is heightened when you’re with the one you’re made for. 

The two of us became three. To prepare for his arrival, my good friend became my doula. At my house, I squatted, rocked forwards and backwards on all fours, held a peanut ball between my knees, and had my belly lifted with a ribose. I replaced every chair I was supposed to sit in with a yoga ball. But labor didn’t go the way we planned it in our sessions. I was in labor for over a week, every day surer than the last that this would be the day and every night going to bed still pregnant, surer that I would be pregnant forever. 

The last time I really experienced pleasure before my son was born was my last-ditch effort to get him out. My friends who had become moms before me suggested I get a massage and a pedicure. The masseuse’s hands up and down my body, kneading in places balled up with tension, pulling me back whenever I pulled away. She lulled me into a nap on that table. 

My pedicure was absolute heaven—the feel of her fingers laced through my toes, the running of the water on my feet, the cold condensation from my ice water glass barely touching the back of my wrist, my ankles being rolled left, right, and all around. Once I got home, I laid down. 

About 8 o’clock, I felt the first strong contractions. I was in denial that labor was even really starting—I had been trying to walk him out and raspberry leaf tea him out and squat him out for over a week. But by 11 p.m., I was in the lobby of the hospital, contracting every two minutes, nauseated to the point of constantly dry heaving. I was already exhausted, and I hadn’t even started pushing yet. 

I was hooked up to monitors, given an epidural, and started to relax into laughter. I could hear and receive humor. But—

The nurse with the full sleeve of tattoos left the room. When she returned, she brought a doctor—a black woman who immediately gave me both ease and concern. She watched the monitors; my baby’s heart rate dropped.

Then

dropped

again.

And then,

again.

“We may need to take him.”

Then:

I was being rushed down a hallway, through double doors and into a room crowded with more doctors waiting for me. So many bodies in one space—one small operating room.

I was in and out. Seeing the swirl of people around me. Hearing voices crash and blend and swirl over me. Nothing but black for a while. Then I kissed my son’s head for the first time. And then, there was nothing but darkness for another long while. 

I came back alive in my room, and someone put my son on my chest. 

Instant pleasure. The warmth created in the space where my skin and his new skin found each other filled up my whole body.

It was a good, gooey, delicious all-over feeling, but it felt foreign. I was in the hospital longer than expected. I lost blood during the cesarean and had to have a blood transfusion. That warm-flooding, all over blushing feeling interrupted, deferred.

Most of me feels foreign now. My body used to crave pleasure. Now, it doesn’t recognize it. My nipples used to love being teased and pulled and tasted. Now, they are always sore from the pull of my son’s mouth or the breast pump. My belly hangs over the scar created by the scalpel. I try to hide my body when I used to find pleasure in showing it off. My body, which used to love to be touched, is on most days touched out. 

There is nothing sexy about the labor of motherhood. It is hard to create or find moments of pleasure after blowouts and spit-ups and teething and tantrums and bottle washing. It is hard when my mind and body feel overwhelmed by postpartum depression. I wasn’t prepared to experience sadness and disconnection eight months after my perfect baby arrived. But I am trying.

I am learning to accept that pleasure is and must be different now. There is no point in trying to get back what once was. The past, the version of me who is not a mother, is gone now. I miss that girl, but I am getting to know the new one that was born the same day as my son. 

Pleasure now sounds like my son’s laughter, and feels like allowing it to fill me with joy like breath. Melting into the safety and warmth of my wife’s arms at the end of a long day. Sounds like silence. Sounds like rare moments alone in my car blasting “I’m That Girl.” Tastes like my Thursday latte after my son’s playdate. My body under the showerhead, hot water washing the day’s dirt and anxiety down the drain. 

I am learning to give myself permission to want pleasure from my partner again, even when my body does not feel wantable. In the process, I am trying so hard to see my body as the resilient vessel it is: one that stretched and transformed to create something—someone—new. The power of that, of creating a new life, is sexy and sensual, and I am trying to remind myself of that daily. I can tap into power I have already cultivated at any time. 

I am trying to feel at home again in a body that feels like foreign territory. And it is tough some days. But some days are beautiful. I am learning to trust and to relax and to fall in love with myself again. 

I am learning more and more that pleasure is like love. It gets to be made in the rhythm and blues of every day. 

I am originally from Charleston, South Carolina. I am a three-time graduate of Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and I am currently a PhD candidate in English in the field of African American literature at the University of South Carolina, Columbia campus; I expect to graduate in May of 2025. My research involves examining contemporary African American literature to find links between it and Gullah Geechee language and culture. I am also an educator of college students. I love to read, eat, and spend time with my family. I currently live in Rock Hill, South Carolina with my wife, Rae, our son, Major, and our dog, Kilo.

NEXT >