Sexual Healing

Sex used to be something I really enjoyed partaking in. The Hubby and I had quite a lot of it before I got knocked up, and I assumed that we would be back to our old habits not long after the Muffin Man arrived.  As has been the case with most of my ideas about childbirth and parenting, I was seriously delusional.  I am here to tell you that the whole post-baby sex thing has been an epic fail.

Just as no one tells you how tough the recovery from a natural birth can be, it turns out that everyone also keeps you in the dark about how hard it is to get back in the saddle, so to speak.  It wasn't until I went to see my OB for my six week post-partum checkup that I found out that ones lady parts don't just bounce right back to their pre-pregnancy state.  Pushing a small human out of your vajayjay causes the walls of the aforementioned lady part to thin out, thereby causing sex after baby to feel akin to sandpapering your nether regions.  Oh, and if you happen to be breastfeeding it's also dryer than the Sahara Desert during a heat wave, so it's not like you have any lubrication to help get the party started.

Apparently, the best way to speed up a return to ones former self is to use a hormone cream twice a day. My doctor prescribed one for me but the combination of me being a dirty hippie and not wanting to use something unnatural, combined with my cheapness (the copay for the stuff was $60) has me leaving nature to take its course. Plus, as if childbirth wasn't unsexy enough, using a hormone cream normally reserved for menopausal women has me feeling about as sexy as a nun in full habit. 

It turns out that sex after baby hasn't been the easiest thing for my Husband either. Aside from the fact that he's still severely traumatized from seeing me give birth, he hasn't been able to reconcile the dichotomy of "sexy wife" with "baby's Mother". I'm sure the fact that my body feels and looks different and that I'm leaking breast milk don't exactly help matters.  

The good news is that my OB, thoughtfully, tightened everything up down there when he was repairing me after birth, so I got vaginal rejuvenation and childbirth services for the bargain basement price of my $900 insurance co-pay. I'm happy that I don't have to do 5000 kegels, and I'm sure that Chris will be thankful when we finally resume having sex again. Hopefully sometime before our son turns eighteen.