Our sex life has not been going well for about 16 months. Firstly there was the pregnancy. For one thing, when I am pregnant something changes for me chemically and I am not capable of experiencing the same fireworks as usual. As I have said to my husband many times ‘It’s like the choir is missing the soprano section, and without the soprano section the best conductor in the world can’t make the Halleluiah Chorus sound like it should.” But more importantly I get severe nausea when I am pregnant. Those of you out there who have done 9 months of nausea down the dehydration / hospital admission end of the spectrum would know that it does not make for fun times in the bedroom. For me, the nausea is like a stinky green screen between me and the rest of the world, and taking the time to connect with how I am feeling in my body is not advisable. When I am pregnant, my sex drive disappears. When I am prepared to attempt sex, my husband operates within strict guidelines: “You must be quiet because loud noise makes the nausea worse. You must not touch me more than is necessary because too much touch makes the nausea worse. I can only lie on my back absolutely flat and there must be no rocking motion of any kind.” Happy times, as you can imagine. When I have looked at books about managing severe pregnancy nausea, if they do mention sex at all they have it under a heading like “Maintaining Intimacy and Staying Connected” or some such thing. If I wrote a book chapter like that I would call it “Sex With Severe Nausea: Light My Fire but Don’t Rock My Boat”.

So we had the pregnancy (our third) which went full term with no problems (or so we thought) and then a standard 7 hour labor (with great support) and then our baby’s heart rate dropped and although she was out with 10 minutes it was too late too late too late. Our third daughter Salome lived in NICU for 3 days and then died (early onset sepsis + meconium aspiration + perinatal asphyxia). As has been stated many times, the heartbreak that followed was / is beyond words. The grief has bent the boundaries of who we thought we were and what we thought life was like. I have at times felt intense shame about our baby’s death and anger at my body for betraying me and for killing our baby. I have felt lost and at sea in the sadness, and I pined for my daughter when I should have been sleeping. The wrenching that occurs, the magnitude of the suffering, I don’t know how to put it into words. Then there are the more pragmatic effects of the grief; the lack of sleep, the lack of time alone as a couple as our 2 bigger girls mourned their sister (they needed to be sleeping our bed again), the emotional pendulum swinging from angry to sad to numb, the need for time separately and the different pace of the busyness for myself and my husband. Also initially my body needed care. I was recovering from my third vaginal delivery. I had expressed throughout Salome’s life, and then Salome died 8 hours after my milk came in. My poor confused breasts went from C cup to E cup in 24 hours and they were enormously painful. For a long time after Salome’s death any stimulation produced breastmilk , the smell of which upset me. I was distressed by how my body looked and I remember shopping for a dress to wear to Salome’s funeral as a desolate experience. As I said to a friend the day before the funeral “I would have been fine with my 11 day post-birth body if I had the 11 day post-birth baby to go with it. As it is, every time I look at my body I am reminded of what I don’t have”.

What then did this to our sex life? If I was going to write a book chapter on it I would call it “Sex in Times of Babylost Grief: Is This Contraption Still Turned On at the Switch?” Where tha HELL has my sex drive gone? Has anybody seen it? I mean I have never been a highly sexed person, but since our daughter died my sex drive has gone missing without a trace. These days I can put together a reasonable sexual response, but I hardly ever initiate the sex anymore. I am sad about this. That was a part of my personality that I used to like.
The problem has not been the ‘intimacy’. I came out of hospital 2 days after Salome’s death craving skin on skin contact with my husband (I did not get that joyous moment of post-birth skin on skin with Salome because she was so ill that she whipped away into an incubator, and we didn’t get to cuddle her at all until she was dying and they started disconnecting the tubes). In my grief I have needed my husband physically more than I ever had before and in a different way. Most mornings I wake up clinging to him not out of lust, but more like a lizard clings to a stick in the middle of the ocean. We are more conscious now of the need to touch each other. The intimacy side of things is all fine and dandy.

But the sex... that’s another matter. I don’t think that a lack of sex will make or break us a couple, but I think sex can be one of many things that functions as a ‘relationship glue’, and let’s face it, when you’re going through the death of your child, you need all the ‘relationship glue’ you can get, right? And sex can be so consoling in times of grief I think, especially when it is with someone who you love and respect and who loves and respects you. When my husband treats my body as something worthy of respect and love, it does shove my opinions of my body a little in that direction as well.

I’ll tell you one thing that I have found helpful in this regard, since you asked (you didn’t but I’m going to tell you anyway). A few months ago, when I had a big increase in grief-driven comfort eating, I consciously tried to swap comfort eating with comfort sex. I made a big effort to be aware of when I was reaching for yet another packet of biscuits and reach for my husband instead. This was helpful, in that it got me back of habit of occasionally initiating sex. It had the added bonus for my health of being a calories-burned activity rather than a calories-consumed activity. When this occurred, it wasn’t the best sex I’ve ever had, but it was certainly more consoling than another packet of biscuits.

Here’s to all of us trying to scratch together a reasonable sex life after the death of our precious children. Here’s to the many attempts at Getting It On that fall flat, to the amorous feelings interrupted by sadness, anger or guilt, to the everyday hard work of staying sexually alive when every part of you feels dead. Here’s to the honest no-frills sex that comes from sifting through the ashes. That's where it's at for my husband and I these days, and now that I think about it, I think we are doing OK.

First off, Sophia, your post really made me laugh. I love to see that, in spite of everything, you haven't lost your sense of humor. Retaining that ability to laugh at the world really is healing. Anyway, thanks for starting my day off with that.

Second, you are a lovely writer. I hope that you find healing through your words.

As for sex, what can I say?? Nine months later, we are back to an enjoyable place (although I suspect my husband could take issue with the frequency). Getting to this place hasn't been easy. Allowing for intimacy without sex helps. I think that so much a part of good sex is the ability to let go. For me, there was a fear of letting go because I was terrified that what would come flooding out would be the sadness. And, at times, that is what happened. I am relieved to be mostly beyond that place now.

Sophia, this was so beautifully written. Heart wrenching in places, funny in others. So much that I recognise, I've certainly reached for the biscuits far too many times over the past couple of years.

Here's to all of us and here's to you. x

Sophia - like the others say, this was beautifully written and put things into words I couldn't. I remember clinging to my husband in the early days as well.

Like Steph I think a big part of the problem is that good sex is about letting go and in the beginning I just couldn't stop thinking about Matilda and what had happened. Also, the first few times we had sex, the actual sex was OK but I had huge emotional breakdowns afterwards.

My DH has pretty much given up on sex at the moment - my pregnancy with Matilda got complicated from 20 weeks last July so no sex then. Then the devastating grief from November. Somehow we managed to have enough to get pregnant in January but the stress and anxiety has pretty much ruled it out since then. Luckily he has a sense of humour about it - we got married last February and he says 'my friends told me my sex life would be over once I got married but I didn't expect it to be quite this bad'.

Maddie x

Steph, what a beautiful, funny post. Everything is tricky and hard to negotiate in a grief-ridden world but it sounds like you and your husband are muddling through which is all we can do. Thanks for writing. xo

Sophia, I think this was an important post, and something I need to think on intensely. But I too am glad that there can be a sense of humour in all the ugliness. Love to you...