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No sex please
'You've got to be kidding,' shudders my friend Jacqui.
'You are joking, aren't you?' winces Sara.
We are talking, of course, about sex (or, more precisely, sex after childbirth). All three of us have new babies ranging from three weeks to five months. We are awash with nappies and bottles and permanently dribbling breasts. Our underwear is sturdy and forbidding and none of us are feeling particularly frisky at this moment in time.
It's true: once you've produced a dimple-cheeked babe, you will never have sex again. Correction: of course you will (after all, lots of children have younger siblings. But that's sex for procreation's sake; I'm talking the naughty, messy, enjoyable kind. I mean sex for sex's sake).
Your partner wants to, of course. Here lies a crucial difference in men and women's experiences: while you were acquainting yourself with a giant set of gleaming forceps, your lover was perched on a stool, filching snacks from your hospital bag. He would have finished the Guardian crossword if you hadn't started thrashing about and making that Godawful screeching noise. I am reminded of a friend, Henry, who recently called to announce his baby's safe arrival: 'How did it go?' I enquired, anxiously. 'I'm exhausted,' he panted.
When wife and baby arrived home, Henry was perturbed to be whittled off to the spare room. 'It made sense because Mel was breastfeeding so I couldn't help with night feeds,' he says quickly. 'And we decided that one of us may as well get a full night's kip.' But now, six months down the line, Henry suspects the arrangement is 'more to do with Mel avoiding all bodily contact with me. Let's face it: we're unlikely to start up our sex life again if we're rarely in the same room.'
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