I was 23 years old, I had just been married and had come off my short-lived life on the pill. I thought may have been ovulating on my wedding night, so there was a chance I would become pregnant. I hadn’t thought too much about it as I was young and naive. I would sway between believing pregnancy could happen overnight as a total accident to remembering that many, many people struggled. I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to have a baby just yet, but I didn’t not want a baby either, so i just went with the flow.
That night of my wedding, I felt certain that I’d become pregnant. To my surprise, I didn’t. Wow, maybe I really was one of those that didn’t become pregnant so easily and creating a family would be hard. I stayed in my bubble of mixed emotions and went on with my youthful married life. Then I became pregnant the second month after we married. I was shocked, but excited that we didn’t have to “try” to have a baby. We just had a baby.
After a year of being a mum of one, the focus started to shift from our daughter to questioning when we would have our next child. Do we space out two years, three years, eight? We knew we wanted more that one child and we debated the age gap dilemma for a minute or two. But I don’t usually mess around with thinking too much, so we went for it. I had to get pregnant now, like right NOW!
It’s amazing how your mind shifts from your usual casual sexual encounters to a “let’s get pregnant this month” lifestyle. I don’t do anything half arsed, so knowing that I was on a mission, I took that mission very seriously. I researched the most successful time of the month to conceive, when ovulation was most likely to occur for me (like, down to the second). Even though you can be fertile for up to a week around ovulation, there’s an optimal 48 hour window to actually get pregnant, so you need to hit it in that time period for it all to work. Plus, and this is important, regular sex aids in fertility.
So it was easy, we just had to have sex at least every 48 hours… whatttt?!? EVERY 48 HOURS???
Yes, I know what you’re thinking. When you’re a parent, it’s ridiculously difficult to fit sex into the calendar a few times a week, let alone actually feel like it. But it was the commitment I was happy to make to get just the perfect age gap for my two little children.
Sex is fun right? How could it be that hard? (No pun intended!)
Well, it’s crazy how the mind works when the focus goes from actually enjoying sex with your partner, to trying to make a baby. Sex wasn’t about us. There wasn’t as much love anymore, it was more like, quickkkkkk we need to do it before the egg isn’t viable, just in case I’ve ovulated.
A man that loves sex and enjoys the thrill of the chase (luring his tired wife into bed for a quickie just before she passes out from the stress of the day) quickly turned into a man begging one night off.
“Please not tonight, can’t we have a break?” he would say.
Yes, a man actually said that. Turned out, trying for a baby was the ultimate contraception in our relationship. Nothing killed our passion faster than trying to conceive a baby.
Making a baby is supposed to be fun and it sure is when it’s an “accident”. But when you’ve got a baby in mind, sex can create so much stress and tension in a relationship. We were lucky, our plan worked and we became pregnant and could go back to tired sex on the weekends. But it made me start to think of all the amazing couples who may be “trying” for months, or even years. How stressful that would become and how much pressure it could bring to a relationship.
So when making babies, let’s start focusing on each other, enjoying each other and enjoying the moments spent together! Because as most of us know, when that baby does arrive, it brings a whole new dimension to our relationship.
