There’s a before and an after to this story.
As many stories in this time of life the before is before my body and my life turned baby making into a way of life. The after, well, the after is obvious.
The topic, also obvious if you read the title.
This is about cannabis, pot, marijuana, mota, hierbaor however you want to call it.
Part I
The before babies part is easy and short and not that unusual. I used to smoke every so often, for fun. In part of my life it was for pain, but for the most it was for fun.
I always bought from “the guy” and had whatever he had.
In Mexico (where I am from), it came in large quantities in a piece of newspaper. It had a lot of seeds.
In New York “the guy” had a bag with vials and different strains.
Again, for fun.
Part II
I haven’t smoked or ingested anything with cannabis in a really long time, over four years. I’ve been pregnant or nursing or both in those years and I thought there was nothing scientific that could tell me it was ok to partake while my body was being shared by tiny dragons. I heard and read anecdotally about women who ingested for terrible morning sickness, or for post partum depression. Anecdotally kids were fine. Are fine. Thriving. And yet I didn’t give myself permission to participate.
So here I was, without consuming in what feels like an incredibly momentous moment in history, legalization in Canada!
I saw people commenting here and there and everywhere about oils and vapes and I looked with longing to that old green friend who wasn’t really my friend anymore because she hadn’t really been with me in this new period of my life, right?
Until, yes, there’s always an until, until I went to a Cannabis panel for moms by MomsTO, and there it was, the unicorn, the holy grail, the one and only doctor who actually knew what he was talking about. Here was Dr. Jack Newman a pediatrician a specialist in breastfeeding, the director and creator of a breastfeeding clinic and here he was telling me if anything of the cannabis was getting into my milk it would be a nanogram. Want to know more, here’s the link to the article he wrote on it.
Part III
So here I was, with permission and with oils in the house.
My husband had gotten a prescription for them before legalization and I was oh so eager…
I was also going through a really rough time, three kids are a lot of kids. Especially when the eldest is not even three and a half and the youngest is a newborn. Three kids is a lot of kids when you have no family around, the few friends you do have in this new city also have very young children and it is the dead of winter.
Three kids is a lot of kids and I was not doing well, at all. I was feeling really overwhelmed, I was weepy without cause or with cause (like when I couldn’t soothe my baby), I was irritable and overall having a really hard time.
My naturopath said I did not have post partum depression per se because I had no trouble sleeping (oh sweet exhaustion) and I didn’t have self-harming thoughts.
But this was the closest to post partum depression I have ever been and I was not being able to deal, or feed my kids, or be the mom I want to be.
So here we come again to cannabis oil.
Part IV
The first time I took it was .1ml, start low and go slowis what they say, and they are right. I had no idea what my body’s reaction would be. I hadn’t had any cannabis in years and I had never had such pure concentration of it. The oil was pure CBD with 1% of THC. With .1ml I was flowing. I had a tiny high and I was doing ok.
I also really loved the flavor. It proustianly took me to way back when another life was mine.
I have since taken that oil here and then, when I am having a really hard time, or when I know it will get really tough. It helps me move forward, it helps me detach in an attached way so I can better take care of my children without melting down into a ball of irritation or sadness.
I wasn’t expecting this but I was.
Part V
This is what I wasn’t expecting.
Part of the mild post partum depression, part of being absolutely overwhelmed with three children, my body that hasn’t been my body for forever, the clothes that don’t fit, the winter that won’t go away, the absolute loneliness that is early motherhood… was a complete disconnect with myself.
I just couldn’t be with me. I couldn’t reach me.
My loving, supportive husband kept saying how far away I was and how he couldn’t connect with me. I tried, without words, to tell him I couldn’t connect with myself, so how could I connect with him, or with anyone?
So one night I took the THC oil we have in the house, also a very low amount, like .2ml.
And it was incredible.
I wasn’t high as I have been before, but I wasn’t in my normal, overwhelmed state. The laundry list of things that usually overpower and weigh on me was gone. The worries and stresses of every day had been tuck away for later.
I could feel me.
I was laughing. I was laughing louder than I had in a really long time.
And I felt horny. I was hornier than I had been in a really long time.
I was feeling my body not with it’s flaws and lacks, but with the sensations it had. I was connecting with my body in a way I hadn’t in ages. I felt me.
And then I wanted to feel him too.
I straddled him and kissed him, I nibbled at his neck and had his hands all over me, without me pushing them away. I wanted him, all of him all over me.
We made out in that couch like we hadn’t made out since before I started making babies.
It lasted hours and delicious sensations. I was floating and feeling. I was touching and being touched without expectation and without anything else emerging into the present moment.
We were both present.
I had connected with myself.
I was able to connect with him too.
It was bliss.
The orgasms I had by his hands and mouth were miraculous and (wishfully, because children in the house) loud. His orgasm was a full body experience in which he lost his breath.
I am only three months post partum and I am still figuring out this new version of my body so penetration is not always necessary or a crave, and it wasn’t that night.
Part VI
Getting stoned with my husband was the best thing we have done for our marriage in a long time.
It took down a wall we didn’t even know had been built by the fact of parenting such young children so close in age.
It took down a wall that wasn’t allowing us to connect and to just be with each other, despite stresses and exhaustion and overwhelming child rearing and life hustling.
It took down the wall I had within myself which did not allow me to see me, to touch me, to be with me and simply breathe.
I had no idea that getting stoned with children would be so incredibly different than before having them.
I am not sure if it was a lack of memory of what it was like, or perhaps I hadn’t even thought it could be so very very different because life is so very very different.
Epilogue
I will continue experimenting with cannabis and myself as a woman, as a mother. I will probably recommend it to certain clients I think will do well with this kind of experience.
I am awed by the possibilities (and I am on vacation now, but when I return I have cannabis infused lube I am super excited to try!)
(photo by Elliana Gilbert)
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