Even though the panelists are depressing in their honesty, the commenters offer a ray of hope in a post-baby sex world. A commenter named greysons_mom says:

After an episiotomy and additional tearing, I could barely walk, let alone think of sex. But within two weeks, I was climbing the walls, trying to seduce my husband. He literally had to pull me off of him. I never made it to 6 weeks. I got him to cave at around 4 1/2.

Another commenter named Alex says:

I have found that the baby has increased our creativity - location and timing has become extra interesting. I credit my increased sexual desire to being confident in my body, although it has returned to pre pregnancy size, I still have war wounds - stretch marks (which I am learning to accept). I also credit my desire to a supportive and loving partner. I do think that this is different for every woman.

But then some of the comments were even more depressing than the video:

Here's some brutal honesty: after my first baby, I felt no desire for sex. Like many of you, I thought 'WHOA! Something's wrong with me.'

He's now two, and sadly, the mojo has not yet returned. I thought this was supposed to be my sexual prime! I am beginning to think I'm an outlier on the sexual bell curve. While it's reassuring to know that some other women are also experiencing a lag in a return to their pre-baby sex drives, I fear mine may be gone for good. I know that can't possibly be true, but it's been TWO YEARS, and we've only had sex maybe ten times! I seem to have lost even the ability to fantasize.

However, at the end of the day, it seems that this mom has the correct idea when she says, "It's different for every one, and every baby, just do what feels comfortable for your body."

Sex After Baby [Momversation]
Sex After Baby: "Objects Shift During Flight" [Babble]

Earlier: What Should Jezebels Really Expect After They're Expecting: Sex Edition

"It starts when you feel that first unmistakable twinge that something is totally wrong. It continues through the rough days of sorrow and deep cramps, and then it meanders through every single day of the rest of your whole stupid life. I will probably mourn about this miscarriage in some outwardly unremarkable way until I either have a healthy baby or die," Moss bravely admits.

Mom blogger Dooce linked to another mom blog called Flotsam, where a woman named Alexa talks about the baby she had who died at 22 weeks. "If McCain had his so-called 'culture of life,' and if my condition had progressed just a bit earlier, I would at least have lost my uterus, and I might very well be dead. All this in the interest of a baby who could not possibly have lived, because while an extremely few 23-weekers do survive, a by-then-severely-infected 23-weeker would certainly not. 'Culture of life,' indeed," Alexa rages.

"I can tell you that I want people to know. I don’t want it to be a secret or a shadow or something that is endured only alone," Moss writes, "I want people to know that I have been through something, that I am tired but optimistic, that I’ve been knocked down but don’t help me up because I can get up myself." And these stories are precisely the brutal and vivid things we need to hear so that people like John McCain will never dismiss the idea of women's heath with soulless air quotes ever again.

[Image via Ulla Pugaard, NYT]

A Planet of Pain, Where No Words Are Quite Right [NY Times]
Why Any Woman Who Intends To Vote McCain Should Reconsider [Dooce]
More Wounded Than Eloquent, I'm Afraid [Flotsam]

Earlier: Memo To Senator McCain: My Health Is Not An Extreme Position

Earlier: Heather "Dooce" Armstrong Makes Kathie Lee Uncomfortable
Dooce: Proof That Not All Our Pregnancies Need To End In Abortion?

Earlier: Dooce: Proof That Not All Our Pregnancies Need To End In Abortion?

• We were so into the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints and their Yearning For Zion Ranch, where girls in their early teens get married off to gross molesty old men with multiple other wives, none of whom are allowed to wear red because that's Jesus' color.
  
• Are those teens better, or worse off than the brave 8-year-old Yemeni girl name Nojoud Muhammed Nasser who was married off by her crazy homeless father, but has now successfully filed for divorce.
  
• A study in contrasts: the marriage of Nojoud Muhammed Nasser versus the insane Southern belles of MTV's True Life who call themselves "old maids" at age 24.

• OMG I almost forgot about that Australian father and daughter who fuck and have babies. Oh ew.
• Can't some people just have a nice, normal wedding that doesn't involve incest, polygamy, statutory rape, fake boobs or Botox?
• Mommablogger Dooce appears to be a fairly reasonable person whose wedding probably didn't involve any of those things.
• Karl Lagerfeld hates Dooce's kid, though. Actually he hates all children. And also fat people!
• You know who probably had kind of shitty moms? Those horrid teenage cheerleader bitches who beat the living hell out of their friend and may now face life in prison.
• So make a bonfire out of Cosmo's "Sexy" issue, and rip off that bandanna you've been wearing. Let it all hang out this weekend!

She's had to learn to draw boundaries on what she writes, to avoid hurting loved ones. An "aching and bleeding diatribe" she posted a few years ago against her parents' faith, Mormonism, alienated them so badly that "it was like a bomb had gone off in my family," she says. "My dad didn't speak to me for several months, and my mom was devastated." She took down the posts, thinking, "OK, this is a little bit more powerful than I'd thought it would be," she says.

Maybe because he's been taking Prozac, or maybe it's because of all that HOT HOT SEX, but when I told Jon what I wanted the wall to look like, he said something like, why aim for perfection when approximation is so much easier? Which is the most romantic thing that has ever come out of his mouth, so I pushed him down on the floor and ripped off all his clothes.

The Blogger Mom, In Your Face [WSJ]