A mother reignites the home fires after a baby

After seven racy and passionate years of courtship and marriage, who knew marriage and kids would completely destroy a woman's sex drive? In “Confessions of a Naughty Mommy: How I Found My Lost Libido,” Heidi Raykeil, author of online column “Sex in the Suburbs,” talks about her experiences in life, love and sex after having a baby. Here's an excerpt.

Sex in the Suburbs
Here’s the thing. You’re young, or not so young. You’re in love. You’re naughty. You have sex madly — wherever, whenever, however you can. You read poems about being each other’s missing piece, about completing each other. You fit. It’s two against the world; you’re a pair, a set, partners in crime, two in the hand, the double whammy, soul mates. Two sides of the same coin, two sides of the story, 2 hot 2 handle. Just the two of us. You are clean, efficient, parallel lines; your passion is direct, unfiltered, raw.

And then, literally overnight, two becomes three. “Husband and wife” becomes “mother and father.” “Lover” becomes “other” — other roles, other priorities, other loves. Your love life becomes awkward, unbalanced, tipping and toppling: a terribly uneven, unseemly triangle. Bye-bye, parallel lines. Bye-bye, partner in crime. Naughtiness as you know it is over. So long, leisurely mornings in bed; so long, carefree nights carousing; so long, spontaneous summertime sex. Hello, sex in the suburbs.

About five years ago, a hot summer hike turned into hot sweaty sex for my husband, JB, and me: hiked-up shirts and hiked-down shorts and us roughing it in all the right ways. Just off the trail, in the cool shade of a tanoak tree, we risked contracting poison oak in all the wrong places. Hearing other hikers headed our way only added to our heat, and with the snap of a branch, boom! Our daughter was conceived.

Seal Press

Although I’m mostly a quiet person, I have always had a naughty side. A fun, risk-taking, whiskey-drinking, dance-on-the-table side. A do-it-in-the-bushes side. A lap-dance-for-my-husband side. Even as a kid I had it. My imaginary friend, Herina, didn’t come to play dolls and have tea parties, she came to wreak havoc, be nasty and crude, loud and mean-spirited. Then Heidi would come back and be sweet and perfect and quiet again.

Naughtiness, to me, is not just about sex — although that’s certainly a big fun part of it. It’s about the little imp that sits on my shoulder and tells me to push the limits, bend the rules, take a chance. It’s the Why not? side of me. It’s about fun and excitement, chills and thrills, the feeling of being alive. Of course, that’s not exactly compatible with the image of mothering out there: the angel on the other shoulder, sugar and spice, everything nice, careful now, careful.

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