Latest Developments
Welcome to November. Is it just us, or has November seemed to spring from no where?
Both Annie and Jodi are super busy this month working on their novels for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The premise - that everyone has a book inside them, they just never find the time to get it out. NaNoWriMo is the antidote to that! It’s a writing frenzy of 50,000 words in 30 days (that’s 1667 words a day in case you’re wondering). If you’d like to follow Annie and Jodi through November you can find their projects in the following locations:
Mistress Moon Annie’s feminist speculative fiction novel.
Blue Melissae Jodi’s post environmental apocalypse sci-fi novel.
Personal plugs aside - lets take a look at what’s happening with Reclaim in November
Sex After Birth Survey
Annie and Jodi are conducting their first sex after birth survey. You can fill in the simple 10 question survey here, hosted by Survey Monkey. Our aim is to collect between 250 and 500 responses and we need your help. Some of the ways you can help us get all those responses is to:
- email the link on to friends, family and work colleagues
- post the link on your favourite forum
- create a link on your blog or website
- create a link to the survey on your FaceBook profile
For those of you who are curious, some of the multiple choice questions we are asking (there is also provision to make extended comments if you wish) are:
· When did you and you partner have sex for the first time after your last birth?
· What guide did you use as to when you were ready to re-engage in sexual activity again?
· Many women return to their primary care provider around the 6 week mark for a final check up. At this appointment did your care provider discuss with you, or provide information or support for returning to an active sex life?
We will share the results with everyone in December. Thank you to those who have already dived in and taken the survey.
Christmas comes early!
Limited Edition Reclaim CD & Orgasmic Birth DVD
Looking for a Christmas gift with a difference for yourself, a friend or family member expecting a child in the new year?
We have a small stock of limited edition CD versions of our ebook Reclaiming Sex After Childbirth:the survial guide that are signed and numbered. They are priced at $25.00 which includes postage and handling in Australia only.* If you are purchasing the CD as a gift we will hand write a card for you, with your chosen message to accompany the disc. Purchases can be made on this page.
A reminder of what people are saying about Reclaiming Sex After Childbirth: the survival guide:
“WOW, I love your ebook!! I am a mother of 2 and didn’t really understand all the physical and hormonal changes that happened after birth, I do now! We all know how tiring having a new baby can be and this is usually blamed for our lack of sex drive. This book has given me some great strategies to implement today!! I am going to book in a night with my husband right now and go back to basics with him.”
*If you are interested in having a CD posted overseas please contact us here and we’ll do our best to accomodate you.
We also want to tell people about a wonderful new documentary called Orgasmic Birth. Annie and Jodi had the good fortune to see it a few months ago at a Maternity Coalition fundraiser and were both blown away by the powerful message and images that it contained. Yes there was a woman birthing in water and orgasming. It was profound and challenging - and it will make you rethink your assumptions about birthing! Orgasmic Birth should be in the hands of every pregnant couple. You can purchase the DVD in Australia from here or else check out the Orgasmic Birth site for a distributor in your country.
Premium Articles are LIVE
Premium Articles are short, downloadable articles written for you to save to your computer or print. We encourage everyone to share their printed versions or email the electronic copies to anyone they feel would benefit from the information.
Premium articles will continued to be added each month and we’ll let you know as we do it. They are currently priced at AUS$2 each.
Currently on offer we have:
Healing Helpers
Karen van Harskamp’s three page guide to a natural and empowered birth, and a safe and gentle healing afterwards. You can purchase it below.
Recipes for Passion
If you are challenged finding the time and place to reconnect romantically as a couple, Annie Evett’s recipe mini eBook is a great place to start. A simple guide to creating a romantic and delicious meal three course meal that indulges all the senses.
Women’s Wisdom Circles
Evening circles have been added to our list of scheduled circles in the Brisbane area. Below are the dates and times. You can find more information including how pay the $5.00 booking fee via PayPa here
Thursday 13th November (evening)
Sex After Birth
Tuesday 19th November
Women’s Experience of their Post Birth Bodies
Thursday 27th November (evening)
Reclaiming your space, reconnecting with yourself
And yes - we’re continuing to work towards a number of options to hold circles in the Ipswich area in 2009. We are also encouraging women in all areas in a two hours radius of Brisbane to consider hosting their own circles. If you interested book a spot and bring a talk a friend into coming with you.
Ipswich East BaBs group
Thursday 27th November we will be speaking at the Ipswich East BaBs group about sex after birth. We will have copies of the eBook available for sale as well as copies of the awesome DVD Orgasmic Birth. If you live in the Ispwich area come along and say hello. You can find more about the wonderful BaBs programme here and the Ipswich group here. Thank so much Cas for the invite!
We are happy to come and speak to your group. Contact Jodi to organise a date and time in 2009.
All About You Expo
We had a wonderful time at the All About You Expo hosted by the wonderful women at All Pampering. We spoke on the subject of reclaiming your space and sensuality after birth. The key messages that we hammered home were:
- YOU need to decide to claim that space … and then ask others to facilitate it for you. That is you decide you want to do something for yourself and then you ask your partner, friends, relatives if they will care for you baby/children to enable you to do this. It can be as little as half an hour to spend time doing something you love!
- YOU time is time that you take for yourself and it directly benefits you, and you alone.
- You should never feel guilty for wanting or need time to yourself.
- resentful, angry, harried and depressed women do not want sex.
- to create a list of ten simple luxuries and indulge in one each day. It can be as simple as a quiet cup of tea in a favourite china cup!
There will be at least one new free article appearing this month on teh sbuject of reclaiming your space.
Thank you to Kerri for videotaping the guest speaker slot. We’re in the process of editing it to share it with you all via YouTube.
New look free articles
We have finally completed the redesign of the website. You will find on the free articles page that there is a menu with a short paragraph introducing you to each article and a guide to finding that article. This will make navigation easier for you as we add more articles to this section and avoid an unwieldly long single page of information. We’re also in the process of adding Stumble On and Propeller buttons. If you like our articles and feel they would benefit others, please take the time to stumble or prop our articles once the buttons are in place.
New Article in DTB
Jodi will have her article The Path Less Trod published in Down to Birthmagazine’s December ‘healing after birth’ issue. The article focuses on the immediate changes in a womans body post birth, how she feels about them and will be available here shortly as a downloadable premium article. In writing it Jodi realised that there is so much more to say and hopes to write more articles on the topic in the near future. If you are interested in sharing your experiences of your post birth body email Jodi to find out how you can share via email or Skype. If you are interested in finding out more information or would like to subscribe to Down To Birth you can find more information here.
Reclaim & Google Rankings
When we began this project back in June we dreamt of one day being number one on Google. And we imagined that day to be somewhere off in the distance. As we write this we’re currently ranked four and twelve on the ’sex after birth’ search phrase.
We finished last month at number seven! Also - last month we clocked the first 1000 unique visitors in a month, which included the site being down for a whole day due to technical issues with our hosting service. Thank you for your support!
We also apologise to all the Internet Explorer browser users who see the site skew wiff. We have no idea - but then again, we’re not web designers! We recommend Firefox if you want to see the site as it was intended.
Revamp the Blog
We need your help! Is there anyone out there who could assist us in creating a word press theme that resembles the colour and layout of our website template? We want to get the blog up and functioning again ASAP, because we’ve got a lot to say and we know that you do also! So we thought we’d ask. After all, you’ll never know, if you never ask. If you can lend a hand email us here
Are you a fan of Reclaim?
If you are a Facebook fiend you can join the Reclaim Sex After Birth group or add the Reclaim Sex After Birth blog to your blog network also on Facebook. We want to see 100 people joined up before the end of the month! You can also join our email list.
Reclaim’s mission is to end the silence around sex after birth - so we encourage everyone who stops by to not only read our articles but to link to us if you have a website or a blog, digg,prop, flock, stumble on or bookmark us on any of the other social networking sites and pass our website on to friends, family or work colleagues. It is through shared wisdom that we really find our deepest and most life changing information. Be part of the change, rather than standing on the sidelines.
Keep happy and connected,
:o) Annie and Jodi
