Just a word of warning, this is a brutally honest blog post. The author shares all the gore and tiny details of postpartum sex, so please read at your own discretion.
Now for those of you that have decided to stay and continue to read, thank you. Here is my completely honest about MY experience with postpartum sex. I have decided to write about this and share my experience openly because I don’t know anyone going through any of the difficulties I have had or are having. And hopefully if there is someone out there going through the same thing, then you are not alone.
So where do I start?
When I first had my son, sex was 100% the last thing on my mind, in fact it wasn’t on my mind at all. I had been torn badly, been to theater to have my placenta manually removed, and I was still bleeding heavily. There was no chance anything was going near my nether regions, it even hurt to clean myself.
After I’d say 5ish weeks, the lochia started to stop and with this my stitches started to heal a lot better. I think this was because I was able to fully air them out, whereas before when I was still bleeding I had to keep a triple maxi maternity pad shoved in my knickers.
My 6 week appointment
I went for my 6 week check and honestly, what a load of crap that was.
I turned up to the appointment hoping that I would be examined as I noticed I had been tightly stitched on the inner right side of my labia, but as I was still healing, I didn’t know if this was completely normal or not.
Well, when I got there the nurse thought the appointment was for my son. Once I told her the appointment was for me, she then proceeded to ask me why, she had no idea why I was there or the fact that I had only had a baby 6 weeks ago. For some unknown reason there was no record of me ever having a baby on her computer.
So now that we had established that I was there for my six week check, her words were, “So if you have been feeling okay, there isn’t really anything else I need to ask you”.
I was gobsmacked.
I had just sat and explained to her in detail, my labor, delivery and how I had been feeling for the past weeks and that was the reply that I got from her. I decided to just fire the questions I had on my mind at her anyway, but she believed I didn’t need an examination of down below even though I raised my concerns to her.
I asked her about my stomach muscles, as they had split and the same happened to my mum when she was pregnant, and she was advised not to do any core exercises, so I wanted to know if this was the case and she had no idea. In fact, she said it would be a physio I would need to speak to about that, but didn’t offer to give me a phone number or leaflet on who to talk to about it.
I left there feeling so disheartened. I did raise my complaint with the health visitors as they have all been really supportive, unfortunately there was nothing they could do about it as they aren’t involved with that doctors (I live on a county boundary it makes some things really difficult).
I tried to put aside what had happened at the doctors and just focus on getting out of the house with my son and start play groups.
7 weeks postpartum
When I was about 7 weeks postpartum, we decided to try and have sex, the stitches had dissolved and I wasn’t feeling as tender.
What a big mistake that was, my body really was not ready. Everything felt like it had been sewn so tight, there was no chance anything was getting in there.
We didn’t let it bother us, we just put it down to me still healing and just needing a little more time. I was still quite uncomfortable down there and it was still quite sore to wipe myself when I had been to the loo, but as a first time mum I just thought this was normal and thought nothing nothing else of it.
10 weeks postpartum
We did have sex successfully at 10 weeks postpartum, it surprisingly didn’t hurt and we both enjoyed it. But we then tried again a week later and it was excruciating, to the point I was left in tears. Crying isn’t exactly what you want to be doing when your supposed to be getting in the mood, is it.
15 weeks postpartum
Then at 15 weeks my period started, which was completely unexpected and you can read my experience of that here.
So that threw things out of whack for us, yet again. My hormones then decided it would be a fun idea to try and balance themselves out, which resulted in me having ZERO sex drive. I have heard that breastfeeding can contribute to a lack of sex drive but I’m honestly not sure if that was a contributing factor or not.
4-5 months postpartum
For the next few months our sex life has more or less been a pattern of attempt and failure. Sometimes, it would work and it was good, sometimes even better than what it used to be before. But that happens very rarely as the pain still appears almost every time we try.
It has really affected our relationship.
My man has at times told me he has felt like we are loosing closeness and I do have to agree with him. I know there are many other ways to be ‘close’ to each other, but when you both want to do the deed and be intimate there really isn’t anything that is equal to that. He even did some research and most websites, articles suggested that there should be no pain after 5 months postpartum and that if there is then it should immediately be checked out.
Of course, I wanted to be seen by a doctor and make sure I had healed okay and there wasn’t any sign of there being anything wrong but after the poor experience I had at my 6 week check, I was apprehensive and nervous to be seen there again.
The verdict (thanks to a new doctor)
Now to the present, yesterday, I finally saw a doctor.
And on the plus side, it was a female doctor and she had children too, so had experienced the pain after birth as well. As soon as I told her everything, she asked to examine me before I even had chance to ask her if that was a possibility. She put me at ease straight away and as I laid on the bed with all dignity out of the window, she told me that if I felt any pain I had to tell her straight away as making people hurt isn’t the profession she is in.
Once I had put my pants back on, I sat down with her and she discussed what she thought has happened.
Basically I had been stitched too tight, and the reason for this is because of the way that I have torn.
What are the options? If they were to try and release the stitches and redo them there would be a high possibility that it would then be stitched even tighter as it would be scar tissue on top of scar tissue. The inner walls of my vagina are inflamed and this is due to them being extremely sensitive still.
Sex for now is not an option, I need to heal inside properly before we try again as it will just make it feel sore again. She has given me a steroid cream to use on the scar tissue from the stitches and she has explained that this will help slightly desensitize it so that I don’t feel like I have a piece of cardboard shoved in between one of my flaps (sorry, but that really is the best explanation for it).
Once this part no longer feels uncomfortable we will then focus on the inside of me. She has reassured me that if the cream doesn’t work there are numerous other options that we can try. I feel like kicking myself, I wish I had registered at this doctors as soon as we moved to this area, then maybe I wouldn’t have been fobbed off and too nervous to talk to anyone about it.
I’m going to keep at the cream for 4 weeks as that is what she has recommended, I will post an update when the time comes to let you all know if there has been any improvement. And if my sex life has improved as well…
