When you’re a couple going through infertility, your sex life changes drastically, and a lot of the time, it’s not for the better. In fact, infertility is pretty stressful, and unsexy, and, well, there’s not even a lot of sex involved anyway.
We used to do all the romantic stuff. We started dating when I was eighteen, so the red teddy bears and over-the-top bouquets are kind of behind us. When we want to celebrate our partnership these days, we tend to give each other a new kitchen gadget or a gift card for Mexican food. And of course have the sex.
But this year, that isn’t in the cards. Let me paint you a picture: It’s 9 o’clock, the night before your embryo transfer. You’re freaking exhausted because the hormones you’re on are at a higher dose than normal, since your estrogen levels weren’t cooperating according to the fertility doctor. You want to go to bed because your procedure is at the ass-crack of dawn the next morning, but you can’t because your progesterone injection is due at 9 and your partner still needs to give it to you. You can’t drink wine during fertility treatments, so you’re even more irritated than usual. You slowly lower your pants* as your partner gets behind you (*pajama pants in the next size up because you’re bloated from the medications). There’s a poke of the needle, and pain and you grit your teeth to keep from hollering out some choice words. You can’t have sex because it would mess up the procedure to have semen sitting around in your vagina. You fall asleep in each other’s arms.
Yes, conceiving a baby can be really sexy, or really awkward. Having gone through infertility since 2009, I can definitely remember having and enjoying baby-making sex — it didn’t work, but it was a nice gesture.
Read the rest of this article over at Romper.
