Mojo

(This is a post about my sex life, so if we're going to be making eye contact with each other in the next few days you may want to skip it to avoid an uncomfortable situation.)

  Like with so many new relationships, when my husband and I first started seeing each other we were consumed with physical and sexual attraction for one another. If I'm going to be completely honest, our connection was based a lot on sex.

Obviously things progressed and we fell in love, moved in together, got engaged, I got pregnant and we married.

Before I gave birth, the thought of having to wait six weeks postpartum to have sex seemed like forever. 

 When you're trying to make a baby you have sex every chance you get. So much so that it can stop being fun and seem more like a chore. Still, it was something that happened frequently and I didn't think it would be possible to abstain for so long even with the stress we would face as new parents.

 Once expecting, I read all about how my pregnant hormones would rage and the desire to make love would go through the roof. I had also heard of men who are really attracted to and who lust over pregnant women in a creepy fetish way, so I figured Matt and I would want to do it as much as possible before the baby was born.

This wasn't the case for either of us. I wasn’t a glowing sex goddess like I envisioned but for a while our sex life continued without much hindrance, other than my lack of energy and occasional constipation getting in the way.

Once I got further and further along in my pregnancy though not only did my sex drive decrease but Matt's did too. I remember going to my doctor's for a routine prenatal checkup, maybe around 30 weeks, and as I was being checked out the midwife said she could feel the baby's head down there. I was a little bit freaked out. I told Matt all about my doctor's visit and he questioned how safe it was for us to be intimate. I assured him it was completely okay, but I felt weird about it too.

The only thing I could think of was how nonsexual sex felt while carrying a child inside me and being so close to delivery. Things in the bedroom slowed way down because it just felt wrong and awkward to both of us and I'm sure to the baby too.

After Natalie was born I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly my libido returned. Once it was time for my post baby checkup my doctor gave me the green light I was ready to resume a sex life. We definitely made up for the time in between. Maybe it was the long break, or maybe it was the new bond and closeness that Matt and I now shared due to becoming parents together, but things were amazing. Natalie slept a lot when she was a newborn and this gave us plenty of opportunities to have some "alone" time multiple times a day/night.

I don't remember what age it was, but she got older and slept less and less. She needed more stimulation and attention, which we gladly gave to her. We were still having sex multiple times a week but the flame was starting to dwindle as parenthood took its toll on us. Longer and longer periods of time would pass without sex. A week, two weeks, three weeks and so on.

And then here we are today.

The older she gets, the harder it is for us to do the deed. I'm not going to get into the different stages we've gone through in order to get her to sleep (i.e. rocking her in her car seat, going on an hour long drive every night...) but know that it is exhausting. By the time she is asleep neither of us are in the mood. We get lazy and just want to veg out and enjoy personal free time to ourselves. Plus dealing with a cranky baby minutes before isn't exactly an aphrodisiac.

I guess I'm writing this to see if anyone else has had a similar experience and if you have any suggestions on how to boost the desire to get down? I know the Internet is full of advice but I want to know what works (or doesn't work) for real couples.

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