First of all, I'm talking about sex for sex. Not sex for baby making. If there is one thing I appreciate about IVF it may be that it gives you back sex for sex. Admittedly, this took a while to reclaim sex from infertility. I also really want to acknowledge how difficult sex can be during infertility. It definitely was for me. For 2 years, sex was exclusively about baby making and while this was fun at first, it eventually ruined my sexuality. This was temporary, however, because somehow, during the last 6 months of our IVF process, I was able to get my sexy back.
It is so nice to have separated sex from reproduction once again. Except for miscarriage.
The last time I had sex was in early May, sometime before the frozen transfer. Then there is the no sex rule for 2 weeks after transfer. Then, if you are lucky enough to actually get pregnant, after a positive beta there is the fear of sex in early pregnancy, not to mention the cramps that come with orgasm during that time (I only know this because for some reason, early pregnancy causes me to have sexy dreams. It is painful!) No way did I want to risk uterine contractions during early pregnancy or experience pain. Additionally, sex only reminded me of the fragility of pregnancy. So no sex.
Finding out that we were going to have another miscarriage killed my libido. Duh.
Then the bleeding started. I had a natural miscarriage on June 17. The nurse told me we shouldn't have sex until all bleeding stopped. Pregnancyloss.info recommends not having sex within 2 weeks of the actual miscarriage or d&c. I was still spotting on June 28. Barely spotting when I wiped on June 29. On June 30 I thought I was finished bleeding and so on July 1, two weeks after the miscarriage, we had sex for the first time in 2 months.
Thinking about it now, we probably should have used a condom, just to be cautious. But seriously, what infertile has condoms on hand?
Because now I am spotting again. It started pretty much immediately after sex and it was red. I am probably being overly cautious but I think maybe we should have waited a few more days. The risk is infection due to the cervix still being open. Could my cervix still be open after 2 weeks? I also have not gone in for another post-miscarriage beta to check my
levels yet (I go in on Thursday of this week) so I'm just not sure where
I am as far as this being complete.
I'm sure everything is fine. Today I only see a tinge of color when I wipe and the blood I had yesterday was probably just sitting on my cervix or something.
Sex after miscarriage isn't a topic I've come across too often on pregnancy loss sites. Like, if it is normal to spot afterwards. Fertile questions tend to concern "when can I try again," which is useless and irrelevant to me. But sex also isn't really talked about on IF blogs either. It seems to be one of the only processes we hold back as "TMI." Maybe it is because sex is separate from our reproduction and what we come to blog about is our treatment, not our sex lives. Or maybe it is because sex can be difficult to enjoy during infertility treatments, for both emotional reasons and due to all the restrictions and 'no sex' rules while we cycle and recover. Maybe it is a combination of both, but in my experience the quality of my sexuality tends to reflect where I am emotionally.
After my first miscarriage I called to ask the nurse two questions about miscarriage: When can I resume swimming and when can I have sex. She acted surprised by the latter as if no one had asked that before.
Any thoughts on sex after miscarriage? How long did you wait? Recommendations for others? What about sex during IVF and ways to reclaim sex from infertility?
3 comments:
Oh I could have written this post in so many ways (actually I probably will soon here)! I completely hear you. For me, I was itching to have sex once this blasted miscarriage finally came. I didn't miscarry until almost 12 weeks and we knew that we were going to from week 5 onwards... so that was a long time. We were scared to have sex during that time (though I don't know why, I would have gladly started the show a bit easier). Once I stopped spotting (about a week after it started) I waited the recommended 2 weeks and then we went for it! I had slight delusions that maybe we'd get pregnant right away (you can find stories of everything online). 2 weeks later my period came. For my first period after the miscarriage, the bleeding was similar to the miscarriage - heavy and lots of clots. I am sure there was still blood leftover from the pregnancy. My guess would be that is what you are seeing and I don't think it's cause for concern. I think the risk of infection isn't that great, and from what I read, you would know if you had an infection (there would be pain, swelling, etc.). Hope that helps! Oh, and I totally know what you mean about the painful sex dreams during pregnancy. That had never happened to me before and wow was it intense. Made me scared to do anything after getting pregnant too. :)
After our first IVF cycle/miscarriage it was hard for me to get too excited about sex. By the time we were back in the swing of things it was time to start another IVF cycle and the subsequent no sex rules. Then came a twin pregnancy, which has us both basically terrified to do anything.
We were actually just talking last night, wondering if sex would ever be like it was before infertility- less purposeful more spontaneous.
I don't talk about sex on my blog because my blog isn't anonymous and family members, including my dad read it =)
We had a unique situation in which my grandma was dying in the middle of my miscarriage and then died about a week after the miscarriage actually happened. Neither of us were even kind of thinking about sex during this time, too emotional. I spotted for another week after the miscarriage and once the turmoil from that and my grandmother settled down we resumed sex pretty easily and almost excitedly because just as you say, IT WASN'T ABOUT MAKING A BABY, for the first time in a long time and it was just a nice way to connect to each other after all the shit we'd been dealt.
I didn't have any spotting issues after sex but even if I did I wouldn't worry about it. After my first period I had 3 weeks of spotting so there was obviously some "stuff" left over that my body was still getting rid of. And then, speaking of condoms, we ended up pregnant 8 weeks later, so you just never know!
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