I can't remember if the crack was intended for my husband's or my midwife's benefit, but when my midwife went to do a sweep (a sweep is where the midwife inserts his or her fingers into your vagina and moves your cervical membranes, the idea being this will stimulate hormones to inspire labour) to get things moving on our overdue baby, she apologised that it might feel uncomfortable with her fingers up there. My unhesitant response, to my own surprise, was:
"Don't worry, everything except a penis has been up inside me to have this baby. I'm used to it."
She laughed. I laughed. My husband looked like a beet. But it was the absolute truth.
Through our fertility journey and rounds of IVF, I have been poked and prodded from my waist down, inside and out, with more foreign bodies (human and material) than I ever imagined.
I was thinking about this the other day, seven months post-partum. Not while staring lovingly at my wide-eyed, smiling chub of baby — who is a bundle of sleepless joy — but while lying in bed alone, blinking at the ceiling, trying make sense of how our attempts to conceive shifted our sex life into temporary oblivion yet we still ended up with a gorgeous baby.
Isn't it ironic?
It certainly wasn't for lack of attraction. My husband is a beautiful man. I still get butterflies when I catch a glimpse at him across the room at a function, let alone if he is stepping out of the shower right in front of me.
Despite edging up in age, he's as sexy as the day he jumped through my office door nearly 20 years ago, mistaking me for a former colleague.
Watch: Meshel Laurie- on going through IVF alone. Post continues below.
Back then, it took a while for our sex life to take off (probably much to his dismay), but he was forever gracious, patient and respectful about it because I was nervous and less experienced. But one it took off, we were on a roll, literally. And it continued that way — except for stints apart for work — until our baby-making efforts began in earnest.
Then, after months of unsuccessfully trying, sex was no longer fun. It was just necessary. And mechanical. A rollercoaster of emotions where the thrill of anticipation was soon replaced with dread. And, finally, when we realised we needed help to have our baby, the sex stopped completely. It had to. Our sex life was caput.
IVF necessitates abstinence for the most part. Better chances, they say. Healthier sperm. Lower risks of multiple births. Each cycle we would retreat to our respective, independent duties. Him to have his 'fun' (we used to joke about it) and me to poke myself with hormone-filled needles (I preferred to stick myself!).
In all our efforts to have this baby, my husband and I have probably touched each other less than ever. Instead, I have been touched by more people, in more places and with more things than I care to admit.
It's an interesting thing, IVF. Striving to have a baby but not having sex to do it. And, if you do several rounds, as we did, abstinence becomes the new norm.
Even as tuned in to each other as my husband and I were with the process, it was scientific, not romantic. And it was more nerve-wracking than exciting. Like being a virgin all over again, minus any eventual pleasure.
Then, if you are fortunate enough to get pregnant, by the time the lethargy and morning sickness hits in the first trimester, you don't feel at all like having sex. (At least I didn't. I could barely make it to 7pm without zonking out, let alone gyrate my body).
And, even if you are a bit horny due to raging hormones in the second trimester (as I was), everything down there is dry and uncomfortable. And, by the time the third trimester hits, let's be honest, there is no comfortable way for a whale to have sex. And, yes, I felt like a whale. My husband would tell you I was a beautiful whale, but all I felt was beached and bloated.
Then there is the birth of the baby, which is a miraculous thing when you think a little human comes out of you, but it is not without pain or stretching or the need for recovery. We've all heard the watermelon out of the pea-hole joke. But it's true.
There is no point trying to sugarcoat it. A big thing comes out of a tiny hole. And, by the time baby has arrived, you are too sore down there to even think about sex. Next, the breastfeeding and sleepless nights take over and you're too tired to think about sex.
Then, maybe, like us, you're juggling rooms so one can sleep while the other is on soothing duties until the baby learns to self-settle, which means you're in separate rooms.
How in the world will we ever have sex again?
And so, there I was, alone in bed, thinking about that comment I made to the midwife and how true it was. I'd had more internal and abdominal ultrasounds than I could count, several egg retrievals, further investigative procedures and then a few embryo transfers. All sorts of gadgets and tools and many hands of various nurses and doctors entered my vagina. My husband's penis, I am sorry to say, did not.
Immaculate conception.
I wouldn't change it for the world, though, because without IVF, without the medical miracles that exist today, our family would not be what it is. I do, however, laugh at how many times we had sex trying to get pregnant only to be forced to stop having sex all together just to get pregnant.
I know one day our sex life will resume. I have no doubt. But it's definitely on hiatus and I'm okay with that.
It just reminds me of a certain old song that could do with an updated lyric — something along the lines of "It's like a free ride, when you've already paid / It's like having a baby, when you've never been laid / Isn't it ironic, don't you think?"
Feature Image: Getty.