I hate pregnant sex. Always have, always will.
Sure, I’ve heard the stories of women whose libidos increase with the size of their gestating bellies, but the pendulum swings in the opposite direction for me. In my last post many of you chimed in with comments about your steamy pregnant dreams and how you’d have to wake your husbands up in the middle of the night to make those dreams a reality and I have to admit I felt a few pangs of jealousy. I wish I were one of those horn-ball preggos, but I can barely muster the desire to hug my maternity pillow,for fear it will get the wrong idea and try to make a move on me.
For a long time I felt like the exception, like every other pregnant woman out there was jumping their man every night and I was the lone, frigid whale. But after talking with some close friends I realized that there are just as many of us as there are of them and we can’t really control the way our bodies react to the hormones flowing through us.
I have read all the articles on how to make pregnant sex more do-able (pun intended) but for me it comes right down to that same old, pain-in-the-rear issue: body image. As someone who grew up overweight, then struggled through a decade of eating disorders, and who will probably always have issues with food and weight, it is downright hard to feel attractive and sexy when I feel like a cellulite-stricken manatee.
But I also know that my husband loves me regardless of my looks and that sex is a healthy and vital part of our marriage. So I will slip off my muumuu, turn the lights down low, close the blinds, ram a towel under the door, (hey wait, there’s still some light coming in here!) and try to enjoy the ride (again, pun intended).
What about you? Did you struggle with a low sex drive during your pregnancy? If so, how did you deal with it? Or were you blessed with the hormone levels of a teenaged boy? Do tell!
i count myself with the very lucky ones going at it like crazy. i have two boys, the first time i just couldnt stop thinking abt it…i was sex obsessed…i lived and breathed sex…dreamt and woke upturned on…..couldnt wait to find and jump him, it was so bad that my hubby started complaining, but enjoyed it a lot coz we didnt know what would happen after the birth. second time i was still sex crazed but had to look after a two and a half year old (which we all know sucks the life out of it, what with playing all day with a huge belly) so didnt leave any time for it except for at night, which i made the most of. for me pregnant sex was the best time ever both times coz i had c sections and couldnt get back to having “real sex” for quite some time(not that didnt want to). now my second son is 5 months and again i count myself with the lucky ones coz sex couldnt b any better. mayb its a combination of having a good sex life to begin with to hormones to body image.
I think having always had a high drive helped. I did feel a little more sexed up …but to honest it was even more so after our daughter was born. I was unable to breast feed (my milk never came). I also had a C-section as she was breeech. So we had to go to the bottle almost from the get go. My hubby also took materaity leave for 4 months. So we both had time to rest and enjoy our daughter. And seeing how gentle and loving and attentive he was actually made me want sex with him like crazy. To me there was no bigger turn on than seeing him in full on “daddy” mode. I actually think we had more sex those 3 months( I had to wait the first month) than we did the first 6 months of marriage! And she slept so much it made it so easy to have time. I miss that infant stage.
No sex drive. Whatsoever. Not even any dirty dreams. First it was the nausea, then the exhaustion, then it was the fattness and overheating – all of these things totally killed it for me both pregnancies. Don’t feel bad, we are all different!
Mine was NON-EXISTENT. Also, I felt like a whale.
And, just so you know, this post made me laugh out loud more than thrice.
Well I have the dreams, so sometime my DH gets lucky. But most of the time I’m a grumpy, get out of here don’t touch me, gorilla! (Ok I was trying to figure out an unattractive animal that starts with g to go with my alliteration). I go to bed early and often sneak out of bed early too, just to avoid any wrong ideas. I feel bad that I am such a pendulum, swinging from hey honey you should hear the dream I had to back off! Get your own bed! I’m sure my DH doesn’t know what to think half the time, so bless his soul he tries every time and ends up turned down 95% of the time. Sucks to be him. Things definitely improve once the kids are over their 1 year mark. So it pays to have a patient hubby I guess.
For me, I was less interested in sex when I was pregnant. I felt fine and I loved my belly but it wasn’t as comfortable. Sadly, I think this created a rift in my relationship with my boyfriend and we were never quite able to recover from post baby. It’s a lot easier to have a healthy sex life when you don’t have a baby, among other things.
I commented on your dreams post, saying that I had some pretty STEAMY pregnancy dreams, but maybe should have specified that THEY WERE ONLY DREAMS NO WAY DID I WANT TO HAVE *ACTUAL* SEX OH OH OH HELL NO. With my first pregnancy, I would tolerate sex, mainly just because I felt *bad* to say no (totally MY issue, I was in NO WAY PRESSURED to have sex, just wanted to get that out there) but with my second pregnancy, I couldn’t even force myself to do it. Maybe once a week I would give it up, but that’s no where close to the 4-5 times a week we were doing it while pregnant with our first. My daughter is 6 months now, and I STILL barely have a sex drive. Probably because I have yet to lose 30 lbs of that baby fat. And like Christine said, nursing sex is horrible for me, too. Nothing is sexy about getting sprayed in the eye with breastmilk 🙁
I was lucky enough to have an icreased sex drive with all 3 pregnancies.
Thankfully it wasn’t until I delivered that couldn’t help but be grossed out at how much sex we had while I looked like “that”.
Nursing sex is WAY worse for me than pregnant sex. Ginormous boobs flailing around. Sometimes leaking a drip here or there, sometimes a full on stream swishing out…ugh…keep the bra ON!
My first pregnancy I was a horny, horny woman – the farther along the more sex we had – all the way through to the night before labor. This time around it’s a chore. I have no desire at all. Last time, it was FOREVER before I had any kind of sex drive after the birth – a good 6 months of no interest whatsoever. So, I’m hoping that my interest will pick up sooner after this birth (which will happen sometime in the next 9 days!!)
My libido kicked it up a notch…until week 7 and morning sickness came. Then I lost it entirely. It was so bad I actually cried in the middle of it once. And there wasn’t the slightest spark until I got my period 6 months after she was born. And I felt like a blimp. I can hardly bear to think of going through it again…but I will….someday….
Sex? What was that? Yeah, nine months of almost no interest. My poor hubby. Although it was somewhat due to poor body image image and the fact that my belly got in the way later on it was mostly the hormone change that ruined it for me.
Some poor guy missed out on one horny pregnant person with me. Let’s put that one on the ‘con’ list of going this route alone…
For me, pregnancy was a high risk time where doctors couldn’t decide whether sex was okay or not. My hubby loved my pregnant body, the bigger I got, the more he couldn’t keep his hands off me. Towards the end, we compromised on non invasive activities that satisfied both our needs. Pregnant sex can be good for sure if the time is right and you are not either exhausted, suffering from heartburn or hemmorhoids or too big to find a comfy position…and despite all it’s complications it was the only time in my life that I could orgasm in two seconds flat. Something to be said for all those hormones.
I am expecting #2 early December and although “S” is still great now that my belly hasn’t gotten in the way yet…I am not looking forward to the manatee months! But, BUT! after #1 we only waited three weeks after birth to resume normal activity -mainly because I felt like I was a teenage boy! Amazing it was amazing!!
I think a big part of it is definitely body image. I loved being pregnant and felt very sexy despite my huge belly and major weight gain. This along with crazy hormones made me one of those sex-loving pregnant women. Aside from the first few months when I felt nothing but fat and nauseous I was all over it. However, once the baby was out and the weight was still on it was a looooooooooooooooong time before I was willing let alone interested!