Week #7: Breastfeeding Is Making Intercourse Uncomfortable

After last week's blog post about not knowing whether to carry on with this Six Month Sex Challenge, I had to sit down and do a lot of hard thinking.

Actually, it was three days of bouncing between bouts of crying and angrily asking myself, “Why does this have to be so difficult?!?!? I just want to have sex.”

I had some heart-to-heart chats with my husband. We cleared the air and decided together how we wanted to go forward.

But then later in the week it came time to initiate sex and I didn’t know if I was going to face rejection, unresolved couple issues or what. So, as per usual, I held off until the very last minute.

Advice from Sue Naylen-Sorrell
To help this challenge along, I will be asking other people in the sexuality field for their best advice for new moms. Sue Naylen-Sorrell, mother of five, is the owner of my favorite Calgary based mom-friendly sex store, A Little More Interesting. She gave me her top three mommy sex products. [Sue has since sold her stores]
Here’s her list:
1) We-Vibe
2) Jimmy Jane Massage Candles
3) Pink Water Lubricant
(She also likes Tracy Cox’ Sex Decks, and anything LELO.)

Because I’m breastfeeding full time, lubricant is an absolute essential as intercourse can be uncomfortable. I decided to go with Sue’s recommended Pink Water lubricant first.

A Vaginal Trip Down Memory Lane
I’ll never forget my six week postpartum checkup after my first son was born.

As my OBGYN inserted fingers lathered with K-Y Jelly she said, “The might feel uncomfortable. Sometimes women’s vaginas go into a menopausal-like state if they are breastfeeding full time. This may make intercourse uncomfortable.”

You see while a woman is breastfeed her estrogen--which makes for a nice juicy vagina--is being suppressed by the hormones prolactin and oxytocin.

Before having my son, I dolled this information out to hundreds of new moms.  (And I will keep shouting it through a megaphone because somehow this integral piece of information to help new moms enjoy intercourse does not get enough press.)

Even though I knew this information, ironically, I didn’t expect intercourse to be so darn uncomfortable. And for the first six months intercourse was, at times, unpleasant until I stopped breastfeeding full time. Not surprisingly, it affected my will, want and desire to have intercourse as there was very little in the sexual experience about my pleasure.

So as excited as I was to initiate intercourse this time around, I was just as anxious about if I would have to endure another six months of it being uncomfortable.

On To The Main Event
When the time came to get down to business, I had both bottles of Pink and Pink Water lubricant out. Both lubes are really lovely. I can see why Sue recommends them so highly. The lube is light, not sticky and feels similar to my own lubrication. That said, I knew Pink Water just wouldn’t cut it for my poor old vagina. So I went straight to Pink which is a silicone based lube.

How Was The Intercourse?
This time around intercourse was...uncomfortable. Sigh. I was quite disappointed but realistically it will only be a few more months of full time breastfeeding.

I used A LOT of Pink and it seemed to help. It simply means we can’t/ won’t have wild, hanging off the chandeliers intercourse (like that happens anyways) for a while.

The Best Part...
Afterwards, as we lay in bed it felt so good to be wrapped around each other; it has been such a long time since we’ve done that.

For one moment, I had a feeling of complete peace. I truly felt like all this icky couple crap we’re going through is going to work out. That we are going to be okay; not perfect but perfectly okay. Best of all, we’re well on our way to getting our sex life back on track.

My Husband’s Rating On Pink
He gives it an 8/10—high praise indeed coming from him. He really liked how the product worked but felt it wasn’t as slippery or lasted as long as other silicone lubricants we’ve tried. (I told him it was a trade off because this product doesn’t stain sheets like some silicone lubes do.)

Next week we’ll be trying the Sue recommended Jimmy Jane candle.

Originally published on TrinaRead.com