Some women have orgasms during childbirth.

*crickets*

Let me repeat that: some women, as the baby is exiting the birth canal, can experience a tremendous orgasm.

Updated: I just talked to my mom about this, and she told me she had an orgasm when birthing my younger sister. OMG.

On January 2, ABC’s 20/20 will air a documentary called Orgasmic Childbirth, where women share their experiences of having an orgasm while their child is exiting their body.

In a brief story in the New York Times, Tamra Larter, a woman featured in the documentary, describes how pleasurable her birthing experience was.

“The phyical touch and nurturing was just really comforting to me,” Larter said. “It was happening, and I could hardly breathe, and it was like, ‘Oh, that feels good.’ That’s all I could say really.” During her labor, Larter and her husband were kissing and caressing each other, as seen in the documentary. Here’s the movie trailer:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG_6IVmXvr0]

Researchers say it’s a mix of the chemicals that go through the woman’s body during labor, coupled with the position of the baby, that can cause orgasm.

I don’t know about you, but during my labor, all I wanted was a bullet in the head. It was beyond the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. My mom later told me she thought I did a good job managing the pain, but it was only because I laid on the bed in the fetal position and just cried silently to myself that God would eventually end this suffering.

The women say the documentary is meant to show women that childbirth is nothing to fear and that the pain is tolerable ( I call bulls#%@ on that). I don’t mind the point of this documentary, but I do feel almost like they’re telling women who suffer through their labors that they’re not good enough moms. Like it’s unnatural to hate to be in that kind of pain for that long. Like something must be wrong with us if we didn’t have an intense physical connection with our child.

I hated every almost moment of my labor. Maybe the fact that both my kids were born by C-section contributed to that. But I’m happy that my kids were born healthy, however they got here. A hundred years ago, I probably would have died during childbirth, as my kids were too large to pass through my pelvis.

I’ve very happy for all the women who were able to have a “natural” childbirth, and even the ones who enjoyed it so much they were able to have an orgasm.

How about you all? How was your birth experience?

Once I got to the halfway point of my first pregnancy and realized,” Holy hell, this kid has got to come out of me somehow,” I’ve been freaked out by labor and delivery. A 7 or 8 pound human has to come out of your…down there? How will it ever be the same? How will it look?

A new Psychology Today article discusses the (what else?) psychological and physical effects childbirth has on new moms’ sex lives. It doesn’t paint a pretty picture, but it does discuss the effects a vaginal birth has on sex versus a C-section. With C-sections becoming an ever more popular choice (one it’ll looks like I’ll be visiting twice), it reports that 55% of new moms who had a C-section were dissatisfied with their sex lifes, while 70% of new moms who had vaginal births were unsatisfied.

I bet this is one of the most popular questions women ask their doctors or their other mom friends. How does childbirth affect your sex life? Does it get better? Will it ever be the same? I have to say that after having a C-section, I was kind of happy about it. I got to have a happy, healthy baby, and I didn’t have to squeeze a human through a pipeline that’s as big as a straw.

What about you? Was your sex life one of your biggest worries about having a baby? Did your sex life change at all? Tell me about it in the comments. (And feel free to be anonymous! Let’s have an honest discussion about what REALLY goes down after a baby.)