Welcome to How I Do It, the series in which we give you a seven-day sneak peek into the sex life of a stranger.
This week we hear from Sinéad*, a 42-year-old who lives with her partner of four years Chris*, and who is six months postpartum after giving birth to their son Ollie*.
The couple, from Merseyside, also live with Chris’s daughter, May*, 8, who they parent full-time.
While Sinéad and Chris had planned to have a baby, the timing of Ollie was ‘a little unexpected’.
The couple used to have sex several times a day but, during her pregnancy, things changed.
‘I experienced a downturn in my sex drive during my pregnancy, where we dropped down from having sex whenever we could, to having sex once every few weeks,’ Sinéad says.
‘As soon as I became pregnant, my nipples (usually one of my primary erogenous zones), suddenly felt extremely sensitive and I didn’t want them being touched.
‘As my pregnancy progressed, vaginal sex felt uncomfortable. It was probably thrush (yet another ailment that pregnant women have to deal with) but it meant I didn’t want Chris going anywhere near me down there.’
Sinéad found it hard to keeping turning Chris down, as he still had the desire for her, and for sex.
‘He coped with it well and tried to be supportive once I had explained that it was the physical symptoms stopping me, not my lack of desire, but as time rolled on his libido seemed to shrink to match mine, which concerned both of us,’ she says.
‘I didn’t realise how much we had struggled with the new dynamic until he voiced it to me, and I don’t think either of us realised how much we had missed it until our sexual connection came back.’
For Sinéad sex is ‘fundamental to [her] sense of self’ and despite the fact her and Chris are back to doing it two times a week, at six months postpartum, she would like her sex life to be more frequent.
‘The “love” sex that I have with my partner is very fulfilling. I’ve always been body confident and sex positive. I try to maintain this positivity, even though my body has changed substantially since giving birth via emergency caesarean section.
‘I now have a tummy shelf, one of the many changes to my body. At the moment, sex tends to be fast and frantic, but I would prefer more time to be slow and enjoy each other.’
Without further ado, here’s how Sinéad got on this week…
The following sex diary is, as you might imagine, not safe for work.
Monday
My day starts by being woken up by Ollie*, our seven-month-old, wriggling next to me. I pick him up and feed him in bed while Chris snores.
When his alarm goes off half an hour later, we lie in bed snuggling, this time with just the three of us is precious.
I look at a sleepy, half-naked Chris across from me and feel a twitch of arousal.
It’s a new feeling, being turned on, after a major drought. But it’s the start of a working week and he needs to get May up, and I have to get breakfast ready for Ollie.
He takes both kids this evening so I can go to the gym. It’s great to have some alone time and the exercise is helping me feel better about myself and my new body. I’m finally starting to feel sexy again.
I am self conscious that I have put on weight, I have very visible stretch marks, I don’t feel as physically fit and limber as I was, and my boobs are now saggier than they were pre-breast feeding.
It does depress me a little but I’m able to mentally overcome this when I’m having sex. I’ve always tried to be body positive and even though my body isn’t the same as it was, my partner still makes me feel very desired.
Tonight though, Ollie is teething, so although I put him down in his cot, he wakes up crying and won’t stop until I bring him into our bed. That means no sex tonight.
Tuesday
Last night was a disaster with a very broken night’s sleep. Ollie was awake every couple of hours until just before the alarm.
We are both tired this morning and I don’t even hear Chris get up. He wakes me with a coffee and we barely have time to chat because I’m late.
It is Ollie’s first day in nursery and, although I’m dreading it, I hope to be able to claw back some intimate time with Chris.
I’m working today and Chris commutes into the office. May has after-school activities which means we don’t get much time together once we’ve put both kids down. We snuggle on the sofa, share some wine and watch TV for an hour, but then it’s time for bed.
Ollie is back in with us tonight: after today I can’t bear to be apart from him so I fall asleep cuddling him close. Tonight, that physical and emotional satisfaction is enough for me.
Wednesday
I wake up with a sore back from sleeping on the edge of the bed, with Ollie splayed across the middle. Now that he’s bigger, co sleeping is getting uncomfortable. I miss the physical closeness of just me and Chris in bed together.
I make a mental note to ask if he can put a ‘meeting’ in his diary so we can steal a shag while he is working from home, but my hopes are dashed when I see his calendar is crammed full.
At the beginning of the year, we set a goal to have more sex. The reality of this means scheduling it around work, children and our other commitments. It sounds unsexy, but if we don’t prioritise it, it won’t happen.
Although we haven’t got time for a quickie, we have as much physical contact as we can throughout the day. He smacks my bum while I’m bending over in the kitchen and I climb onto his lap when I come in to give him a cup of tea and feel him go hard through his jeans.
Tonight I put Ollie in his cot and vow to leave him there. I slip in naked next to Chris and the feeling of my body pressed to his is so good. I breathe into his chest hair and we fall asleep, bodies entwined.
Thursday
This morning, while Chris gets ready for work, I look at his naked body and think about what I want to do to it.
To feel my desire coming back feels great, because my libido had plummeted.
The sudden shift was distressing for both of us because we’ve always had a great sex life – we joke that it has been the only thing that held us together at points.
Chris told me one day that, although he was happy about our new dynamic as parents, he felt sadness at the loss of our sexual connection. I felt guilty.
I wanted to keep our connection alive but there was so much going on for me physically during pregnancy that it was actually a relief when we didn’t do it.
It took about three months for me to heal after the c-section and the first time we had sex was not long after that. We did it during the day, while Ollie was awake in his Moses basket.
I rode on top until we climaxed together (our favourite way to come) and it was incredible to have my explosive orgasms back. Thank goodness the baby stayed calm – although Chris said that if he had cried, he wouldn’t have even heard it!
Friday
I greet Chris at the door when he returns from an errand during the day. I offer him sex – now, right this minute – as May is in school and the baby is asleep upstairs.
He thinks about it for a second then grabs me. We go for it twice on the living room floor and it’s loud and wonderful, although I’m slightly worried that our neighbour has heard the whole thing. We both come at the same time and it feels so good. Afterwards we both lie on the carpet enjoying the post-shag glow.
Later I have coffee and cake in a garden centre with my mum friends, who all have babies the same age as Ollie. I mention the sex with Chris and the reaction is generally one of hilarity and disbelief.
One of the mums jokes that she and her husband only have sex to make babies! I get the feeling I’m one of the only ones having regular sex at this stage postpartum.
Friday night is movie night for May, which means she goes to bed late. We start our own movie after that. After a few glasses of chardonnay and cuddles on the sofa I’m asleep before the film ends.
Saturday
Although there is no alarm going off this morning, I wake at 7am when Ollie stirs and needs feeding. On Fridays Chris does the night shift, so I don’t feel completely exhausted this morning.
May is going to her aunt’s house today and she will be leaving straight after her afternoon dance class, which gives us the day to be naughty.
As soon as the house is free, and Ollie is asleep in his cot, we get on the bed and have sex. It starts off gentle but I find myself wanting it to be harder and more aggressive, so I suggest we go on the landing and he takes me from behind with me bent over the banister.
It’s a bit logistically difficult, so we end up on the home office leather chair. I’m turned on by how dirty that is and I have fantasies about him coming on it, and later thinking about us while he’s working.
But, again the logistics aren’t quite right and we move back into the bedroom for the finish. I don’t come this time during sex – I don’t know if it’s because we’ve had interruptions or I’m in my head too much. So instead he finishes me off with his hands.
Tonight we go for a rare ‘date night’ with the baby, which is two pints in a local bar we like. Back home we cook a lovely meal and share a bottle of wine but we’re both too tired for sex at the end of the day.
Sunday
A lazy Sunday lie in would be lovely, but Ollie is up at the crack of dawn and that means I am too. After I’ve fed him and he’s been awake a couple of hours, he wants to go back to sleep which means that three of us cuddle in bed together.
After, we decide to go off to a nearby village for coffee and an English breakfast. We pootle around with the baby in the pram, looking in estate agent windows and dreaming about buying a bigger house.
It’s the first sunny day of the year so we sit with our notepads and review our goals. We check in on the sex goal and decide that we’re doing OK but we could do better.
An outcome is the decision to get some options for babysitting to give us time to have proper dates and intimacy.
There’s time for one more quickie when we get back, before he goes to collect May and the new week of duties and chores begins.
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