Hump is a chronicle of the sexual renaissance in her relationship, and "its effect on me, on my family, on the lovely sassy moms who gamely joined in." According to Ford, "It's also a look at how other moms—older and younger, less and more sexually satisfied than I—have survived the challenge of maintaining a sex life while also attempting to raise children well." Check out our exclusive excerpt from Hump.
I love to swear. When I labored for 30 hours, pushed for four-and-a-half, then had a C-section, I wasn't shy about using my favorite expletives, according to my husband, Bill.
When my son Lucas was under a year old, and "pre-verbal," I felt little need to refrain from profanities. An angry "Goddamit!" satisfied a need I hadn't anticipated—a need to preserve the youth and edge that diaper bags and nursing bras suddenly threatened.
Then, one sunny afternoon in my kitchen, everything changed. I was hoping to stave off the stultifying tedium of 10 hours alone with my toddler. I planned to treat myself to an old comfort: Grape Nuts with half-and-half and copious sugar. The bowl slipped; zillions of Grape Nuts pinged against tile and hardwood. It was as if my whole lousy day hit the floor along with cereal: the fact that my toddler had completely failed to nap, that my husband, Bill, had called to say he'd be late, and that I hadn't spoken to an adult all day, combined with the reality of six more hours until bedtime.
"F*%$!!!" I yelled.
Predictably, my cherubic 14-month-old son, Lucas, looked up through the rain of cereal and happily echoed, "F*%$!"
From my third child this would have been funny. From my impressionable first, it felt dire.
All my life I had assumed that I would love mothering, and that I would mother well. Some professional or academic pursuit would sit politely on the backburner while I reveled in self-defining, immensely fulfilling maternity—just as my mother had. But there I stood, bored and depressed, in a Grape-Nuts-strewn kitchen. I was 28 and earning a doctoral degree, and motherhood had me utterly blindsided.
I cleaned up my gutter-mouth, but I still struggled with motherhood. I became convinced that Bill's long hours were subterfuge for the affair he was having because I had become such a bitch. I never slept more than a few hours. I got pregnant with a second baby just after the Grape Nuts debacle and was bitter about having to read my esoteric French plays in the sandbox while my colleagues luxuriated in libraries.
But giving up the F-word didn't mean any shortage of the act in our miserable little household. I love sex. For me, sex means trust and intimacy and unparalleled physical pleasure. In the years when my three children were very young, it became far more crucial to have sex than to talk about it or make profane references to it. In those dark years, Bill and I discovered new positions and vibrators and couples' porn, even as we were exhausted by the happy trio who always wanted to be held, wouldn't take bottles, ate pickily, and never ever napped. Sex was me, clinging to a semblance of self not entirely eclipsed by maternity.
Then our littlest turned two. I got an IUD and a real hairstyle. Bill and I took a trip to Las Vegas that began what we deemed "The Renaissance." Renewal meant tattooing Bill's initials into my lower back, planning a trip for two to Paris, committing myself to a nightly glass of wine with my husband, and hosting a series of erotic dance classes in my living room. Renewal ultimately meant evolving right past my old self; Bill and I having sex now that's more interesting and frequent and satisfying than it was pre-kids.
