Bec
by REBECCA SPARROW
In a groundbreaking study that’s right up there with “high heels hurt” and “having friends is awesome”, Indiana University has discovered that infertility treatments like IVF ruin your sex life.
To which I say, ‘No shit, Sherlock.’ But when the issue is so obvious, why is nobody talking about it?
“Women undergoing IVF report much lower scores in sexual interest, desire, orgasm, satisfaction, sexual activity and overall sexual function,” study author Jody Lyneé Madeira, an associate professor in the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, told The Huffington Post.
“Sex becomes mechanical and enforced: a means to an end, rather than a source of pleasure,” she added.
Tell me about it.
“I didn’t even do IVF.”
I know from personal experience the toll TTC (trying to conceive) takes. Sex becomes about ‘trying to get pregnant’, which quickly becomes, “Oh God, there are ferns on the Maybe Baby. We have to have sex.” After an early miscarriage, it took my husband Brad and I 18 months to fall pregnant with our daughter Ava (18 months, I know is a walk in the park for many others who have or are continuing to struggle to get pregnant).
And it’s a miracle that it even happened considering I was drugged up to the eyeballs on a fertility drug and routinely behaving like Elton John (think tantrums and mood swings, not a sudden penchant for sequinned sunglasses).
No seriously, Brad totally LOVED it. There’s nothing like walking on eggshells around a slightly unhinged partner to get you in the mood. I had all the warmth and approachability of Hugh Grant. And I didn’t even do IVF. I cannot begin to imagine how injections, egg pick-ups and spatulas going up your hoo-ha can make you feel.
But it’s not just the drugs that take a toll on your mood. Sex therapist Dr Pamela Fawcett Pressman talks about how the feelings of shame are equally as damaging …
“There’s a helplessness that so many of these women are experiencing, and depression and shame,” Pressman said. “With that comes a lot of negative feelings about our bodies. It’s really pretty traumatic to a woman’s sexuality.”
Also interesting was the fact that it didn’t matter which partner had the fertility issues:
Almost 70 percent of the male and female respondents said that the IVF had hurt their sexual relationship, and just over half of the women reported reduced arousal.
It did not matter whether male or female factors were the cause of the couple’s infertility, participants reported similar sexual problems regardless. The more cycles of IVF a couple went through, the greater its impact on overall sexual function.
So what’s the take-away from this? I don’t know. Behaving like Elton John is not going to get you feeling jiggy? No, that’s not it. I think it’s this … If you’re trying to conceive, don’t beat yourself up if you’re not swinging from the chandeliers having wild sex. Trying to conceive is emotionally draining and you’re not alone.
Have you struggled trying to conceive? How did it affect your relationship?
Comments
36 Comments so far
My husband and I had been trying for a baby for some time before we found out he suffered with a very low sperm count. We tried the usual things the health care professionals recommended, but it just
seemed nothing would work short of a miracle.
We’re both practitioners of naturopathy and very much believe in alternative approaches to treating problems. Long story short, my husband found a website which talked about the benefits of massaging and stretching the testicles regularly to promote better blow flow and improve testosterone and male potency.
After approx 5 months of doing this testicle stretching and massage therapy morning and night, his lab results clearly indicated a big spike in sperm count and T levels. This site also featured a range of other (slighty odd) but effective techniques for men to improve their fertility.
If anyone is interested in having a look, here’s the link http://www.dreampenisguide.com/how-to-get-bigger-balls-that-turn-women-on.html This was the page my husband found on Google, it’s not their homepage.
Susan
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This is my second cycle – Antagonist first time ’round and currently on a Flare. I feel nauteous most of the time, terrible headaches daily (from the Synarel apparently) and I really shouldn’t have any desire to have sex but I do! I think it comes from a place of wanting to feel like I did before TTC and IVF when I had my mojo in the right quantities. This is my second marriage – I have 2 children conceived naturally from my first with 1 attempt apiece for both – and new (defacto) husband has no children. 1 year of TTC and confirmed that it’s male factor infertility so at 43 this is a path I didn’t expect to be going down. In our situation, it’s him that doesn’t feel overly romantic – which isn’t ideal when the other person, namely moi is up for some special grown up time. My sense of being womanly, sexy, sexual and desirable has taken a king hit because at the moment the only action my vajayjay is having is with an internal ultrasound! Round 2 is a mixture of hope, anticipation, fear and a whole lot of other emotions I can’t name. No matter how much you think you’re keeping it in perspective, nothing can buffer you or soften the moment when you now unequivocally that its a negative pregnancy test. I am truly in awe when I read / hear stories of couples who’ve gone through this for years – you are amazing. I don’t know how long we’ll try – we don’t have a limit in mind. The only committment we’ve made to each other is that we will honour and protect our relationship (which is the foundation of our family unit) above all else and we’ll pull the pin if our IVF journey appears to be jeopardising that. For all the horrible aspects of it, there’s been some beautiful parts of it too – the new dimensions it’s added to our relationship and ability to tackle the real / scary / awkward conversations and be okay at the end of it.
To those of you who’ve been successful, your success gives me hope – Thank You!! To those of you, like me who are going through the process, sending you blessings for a positive outcome and a precious baby at the end of your IVF journey.
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I totally understand this article. Here is a link to my short blog on my IVF journey, its a light hearted, emotional look into how I felt if anyone is interested in having a look:
http://livinginthepellis.aussieblogs.com.au/
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There’s too much focus on reproductive technology these days. Not sure if I would risk putting my marriage on the line for the chance of conceiving a child.
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Unless you couldn’t have one andhad been trying for 3 years. i’ve done things o thougjt i would and consider things i never would have. once you’ve invested that kind of time it’s hard to let go. The time slips away in the routine of charting, appointments, meds, accupuncture, and cycles. It’s also hard to grasp never having your own children. I think you start on the journey and you may think like that but you sink deeper & deeper into the infertility. Our relationship is great we love each other and we just know if we can get through this we’ll do it together. Our sex life has it’s ups and downs – it’s like any relationship – sometimes I don’t want to and sometimes he doesn’t want to, sometimes it’s calm, sometimes it’s frustrating, sometimes it’s funny & sometimes it’s sexy. But we have learnt how to push through it (even the drugs side effects, shame, pain & plain tiredness). We are past the point of routine & it’s part of the rhythm of our relationship now and will continue to be hopefully.
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After 16 months of ttc naturally, we are currently on our last “naturally trying cycle” (which I’ve actually given up any hope of natural conception) as I’ll be starting all the awesomely scary drugs you ladies have mentioned below as we head down the ivf route…
I’m scared shitless about how the drugs will effect me, the egg collection, if it fails etc. I’m so amazed and in awe of you who have been through this journey and struggled for a lot longer than we have.
It’s an absolutely heart braking experience, thinking that you will have kids at the same times as certain friends, who are now pregnant with their second…
At this stage I don’t think it has completely ruined our sex life, we still have fun, but it is getting harder and I can see it in the not too distant future… I can’t imagine not ever thinking, where I am in my cycle, when I’ll ovulate etc in the throws of passion… Oh to have those days where we couldn’t keep our hands of each other and it was all about us just doing it for enjoyment!
Wishing everyone on this journey all the strength and hope in the world, infertility can be a very lonely place.
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I don’t normally comment on here but just wanted to reach out to you with very best wishes as you embark on your journey. Everything you said resonated almost precisely with me – 18 months TTC naturally and we are now literally mid way (just had egg pickup) on our first IVF cycle. So far my experience has not been as bad as I feared (and I am extremely medical-phobic so pre starting I would have described the prospect as just about my worst nightmare. But my desire to start a family is so clear that I had to put fear aside and try it). The drugs haven’t been too bad and I feel I have an exceptional medical team beside me. Egg pick up went well but I was at a very high risk of hyperstimulation and even that has been managed well by the team. It is a very uncertain, undoubtably very stressful time (and we currently sit patiently waiting for news on how many embryos “make it”) but on the plus side it has given us hope for the first time in at least 6 months (just like you said my last many months of trying naturally felt very hopeless). I do hope it helps to hear this and do wish you all the best. Be kind to yourself, congratulate yourself every day for getting through it, and just take it one day at a time. All the very very best, truly.
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Fertility troubles improved our sex life. We would normally have sex twice a week but when trying we would have sex every day or two for weeks as my ovulation varied. We would often be talking about our day while having sex but the regular sex made us feel closer. Pregnancy however has put a massive dampener on our sex.
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Same here!
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It took 4 years to try & get pregnant. A friend asked if we were even having sex???!!!! Yes!!!! But without the joy! With the help of fertility treatment eventually did but then had bad results back @ 12 Wks 1:5. After the results came back clear I was petrified to have sex incase it hurt the baby! so didn’t until I felt like it again… months after baby was born! Good news 5 years later have 2 healthy children & a rockin’ sex life with husband. It can improve.
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We’ve been trying to conceive a child since…..forever.
It breaks both of our hearts that we appear destined to remain childless but fortunately, we have each other. Our relationship continues to get better because we both always have the other one’s best interest at heart.
I put her before myself and she puts me before herself. We meet in the middle and find that rather successful.
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Absolutely!!! After 8 years on this merry-go-round, we know this scenario well.
Due to gyn. problems, I walked down the aisle, a 30 year old with ‘induced menopause’ (wow…THAT was a wedding night!).
Then went on to TTC…maybe baby checks, early morning temperature checks, daily charting (ohhhh…the romance!).
Then the joys of Clomid and thankfully a beautiful boy…(and it was all worth it!)
Meanwhile sex life slowly dwindling, with the vicious cycle of emotional and physical impotence.
Then back on the roller coaster again (why all these funpark analogies? Nothing so fun for anyone, I’m thinking). Sex life now pretty much disappeared and we are totally at the mercy of fertility treatments to have our much wanted 2nd baby.
More investigations and tests with the only really action my “private bits” seeing is the joys of a speculum.
Two rounds of IVF and now our sex life has gone. Not sure if it will reappear. No more fertility treatments for us…we have now left the funpark and are curled up in the corner of the car park, dealing with the finality of it all.
What was once a beautiful time of intimacy, is now fraught with the memories of sadness, unfilled dreams and physical side effects of too many disappointments.
We love each other dearly…but that part of our relationship was unfortunately sacrificed. We have a referral to ‘see someone’…and will one day, but just for now, cuddles and kisses are what remain.
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15 years together, 8 years married, 4 years of TTC, 5 cycles of IVF, 2 miscarriages, and finally 1 beautiful (7 month old) baby boy. It was all totally worth it but our sex life is dead in the water. I don’t even remember what feeling sexy feels like anymore, I don’t remember sex for the sake of pure enjoyment. DH and I are still very much and deeply in love but we have lost our mojo. I do hope we can find it again.
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7 months is still very early. It can take a couple of years to get that spark back between a couple. Hugs to you x
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I’ve done 15 IVF cycles and thankfully have 2 beautiful children to show for it. My husband & i started TTC just over 10 years ago and IVF 6 years ago. Our sex life was definitely a chore during this time – we tried to make it fun like meeting during my work lunch break for quickie in the back of the car because it was the right time and in the hope that just might get lucky and fall naturally. No such luck! Now our sex life is virtually non-existent. I think it is partly due to the emotional toll we’ve endured over the last 10 years in TTC but also now because we are just so damn tired working full time and running around after 2 small kids. And when we do find the time once every blue moon, we lose ourselves and remember that we were once pretty good at the old hokey pokey. We are so blessed to have been successful with IVF and wouldn’t have it any other way even if we don’t get to do it that often.
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15 times! Now that is commendable! You must be one tough lady to stick that out, once is bad enough. So nice to hear it was all worth it and you have two beautiful kids. I’m hoping round 6 will be my round. xxx
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Ah yes, I remember the Maybe Baby. Waiting for the ferns. That rarely showed up. I thought the product was faulty. Turned out I had PCOS. Tried “hoping to fall pregnant” sex in between fertility treatments, but not the same. Very lucky to have a patient & loving husband. 18 cycles of IVF/ICSI/Embryo Transfers (a bloody rollercoaster ride) resulted in 2 births – 1 boy & 1 girl. Being a parent is also a rollecoaster ride, but one I’m making the most of!
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Well done! 18 rounds! Amazing!
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Normally I’d put my name but not for this, it’s too personal.
My story is this. I had my first baby at 20. I had a missed miscarriage at 22. Had a second baby at 23 & thought we were done. When I asked my hubby to go for the snip 8 years later he told me he wanted more babies. So we started TTC. Over the last 2 years I’ve miscarried twice & am currently pregnant but it’s been hard going. I had a bleed at 7 weeks & then our 12 week scan came back with high risk for trisomy 21 & 13 so I had to wait 4 weeks for an amnio that happened on Thursday. Now we just await results.
Trying to have a baby is not as easy as it was when i was 20. It’s stressful now & times are anxious. I feel robbed of the joy I had with my first two because I am so aware of everything that can go wrong & I am waiting for things go bad. Its awful but I know if I get a healthy baby this time I’ll be so much more thankful. Riding the ups & downs of the last few years has taken a toll on my confidence. It’s made me think there is something wrong with me, that my body is a failure. I think some woman take for granted an easy conception & pregnancy. I know I did before this….
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Love your writing! Funny, real, topics unspoken. Keep it up.
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Our fertility journey took almost ten years and it has killed our sex life. I have no idea how to recover it and having three children and a full time job doesn’t help.
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As a mum to to perfect, beautiful IVF/ICSI babies, it is such a hard road…..but worth it.
My son, now 3 took 2 cycles, one fresh, one frozen-he STILL hates the cold lol
My daughter, 13 months, took 5, one fresh, 4 frozen.
The heartbreak when it doesn’t work is magnified by the hormones you are on, nothing can prepare you for that. I got to the point where I couldn’t be around babies or pregnant women……and no I didn’t want to talk about it.
It is only now I can.
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This article is so true. Our fertility journey took over 2 years from the fun no protection sex through to conceiving with the final intervention of IVF with ICSI. Pretty much the final straw for IVF. After months on clomid, which did nothing but turn me into the most tense monster on the planet (so sexy) . To a couple of operations to check out my bits (gas
blown into the abdomen to help them poke around better – even more sexy). There is no romance in baby making sex whatsoever. We joked about trying to break land speed records.
Fast forward through IVF (of which reaction to the drugs was nothing compared to clomid) and amazingly lucky success in our first round, everything had become clinical. Sex was
a non event. We got married when I was 20 weeks pregnant to celebrate our new family status. It was a very chaste wedding night!! Then my planned and longed for natural birth ended in induction and emergency c section compounding all those feelings of not being womanly enough to get pregnant naturally through to not being able to deliver naturally.
The two things getting me back towards some sort of track is I’ve come to love my amazing son as naturally as anything I know and my husband is able to show me he loves me without my feeling bad about not being ready to do much in bed but sleep.
My heart goes out to anyone on this rollercoaster. Few words help and no one else really gets it. One thing I found was we were each others strength and without being able to laugh and cry together, we would have collapsed.
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The emotional toll from TTC is enormous and I work with some amazing women who are experiencing the devastation, grief, hope and eventually acceptance of their conception journey.
I’d make the suggestion to get professional emotional support as people will say the most unhelpful things, even if they mean well.
I created a CD to help tune out and relax
While on the journey, as well as send a bit of love back to the body (often there’s a lot of anger or disappointment directed there). It’s called Planting the Seed and you can find out more about it and me at http://www.jacquimanning.com.au
Love to you all on this most bumpy rollercoaster ride.
Jacqui
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There is a fabulous play on right now at the Seymour Centre in Sydney called ‘My Private Parts’ about the IVF journey. After the show next Tuesday IVF fertIlity dr David Knight is doing a Q & A …check out link below!!
http://www.seymourcentre.com/events/event/private-parts/
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Did I mention CRINONE!!! This word will send shudders down the spine of anyone that has used this repulsive stuff during IVF. For those lucky enough not to have to squirt this goop up ones vagina twice daily you will be interested to know that listed under “Very Common Side Effects” on the side of the box is: ” abdominal and perianal (yes your anus!) pain, dizziness, vaginal discharge and itching, breast pain, nausea, constipation, insomnia and feelings of severe sadness and unworthiness, decreased sexual drive and feeling emotional.” Words from the drug company – not mine!
Now let’s couple Crinone with the Viagra pessaries one has to insert 3 times daily. (really cute whilst at work) It’s a lovely waxy substance designed to warm up your uterus, increase blood flow and get your uterine lining ready for embryo transfer. No real side effects from this one, but just more goop going up your vagina taking the daily insertions tally down there to a total of 5.
Aside from the other hormones injected daily that make you crazy with a capital C there is also the lovely Prednisone. What’s that you ask? It’s a steroid designed to suppress your immune system so you’re more likely to accept an embryo. What does else does this wonder drug do? Why it blows you up like a blimp of course. Think fat head, stomach, arms and ankles. The side effect listed on this little treat is “severe fluid retention, headaches, anxiety and moon face.” Again ,the drug companies words, not mine.
Aside from the drugs the IVF’ers would know that you can’t have intercourse for two weeks after egg retrieval (or swim or bath for that matter) and even if you are lucky enough to get pregnant you’re either too scared to do it afterwards or are advised not to in the case of previous miscarriage.
So yep Bec, I whole heartedly agree, trying to conceive kills your sex life!
Having said all of that I will do this until the cows come home (and the money dries up) if this is what it takes to have a baby. Good luck girls!!!!
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Here here! Crinone sucks! And the rest of it!
I would definitely agree that IVF has had an adverse effect on our sex life, for all the reasons you mentioned above. Also, on a couple of occasions, I was so emotional I burst into tears during sex, which my husband took REALLY badly.
But, on the positive side, we both feel really proud of the way we’ve managed to keep looking out for each other and boosted each others’ self-esteem.
To everyone starting this journey – I think pre-empting these sorts of troubles, and going out of your way to up the romance factor and intimacy of the non-sexual kind, is a good strategy. Look after each other and remember you’re in it together, as a team. Best of luck to all!
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Oh god you’re so right! That crinone is evil!
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TTC robs you of so much, your libido, your desire, your feelings of being attractive for your partner. You feel like less of a woman because you can’t do the one thing, as women, we were designed to do naturally.
It has nothing to do with IVF. I’ve never gone the IVF route and yet I can tell you I’ve experienced everything and more described in this article. It’s infertility in general.
It impacts your relationship, it can’t not do so. Relationships break up over the inability to conceive a child. Of failure after failure. Of month after month, year after year of still having empty arms while everyone else around you has babies, adds to their families, complete their families, while you’re just left as “just us two” and for some reason so many people don’t see a couple as a “family”.
I get women telling me that I just don’t know real love because I’ve never had a baby. I’ll never be complete because I haven’t had a baby. I’ve been told I’m less of a woman because my arms remain empty after 12 years of trying to fill them. I get asked “but what will you DO with your life, without children in it? What a boring life” – I kid you not.
Who knew that to be complete, to be a real woman, to be able to feel love, I needed to grow and birth a child from my loins?
The ironic thing? I don’t need all these people telling me and saying these things to me because it’s a mantra that goes through my head every single day I’m unable to make my husband a father – you’re not enough, you’re a failure, you’re less of a woman, he deserves better.
And yet we go against the odds, we’re still together after 13 years, just us two, facing the world together but with empty arms.
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Oh s/b how I want to throttle those horrible women who made those outrageous comments to you – what an awesome and amazing person you are, your eloquent words speak this in volumes. I know nothing I can say will lessen your heartache- just to say I hope you are surrounded by love.
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Oh, god, this struck a chord – down to all those appalling questions and comments people aim at you, because they don’t see a couple as a ‘family’. Even though we decided not to have kids when we got married (and that’s more than 15 years ago now), there were times when I wondered, too, about my status as a ‘complete’ woman without having had my own kids. It’s an insidious thing society does to you when you don’t go down the path accepted as ‘normal’, and it can do real damage to your self-esteem.
What can I say? I’ve been blessed with a wonderful husband and family, good friends (with and without kids) who have the good sense to see that a life can be as complete as you want to make it – or not. So long as you and your husband are still happy, BE happy and ignore the rest because they’ll never understand.
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Well I have children and I absolutely categorically do not agree with those women. You can love passionately. You have live fulsomely. You can be a boring lump of a person, with or without children. And you can be a life-filled dynamo, with or without children. You have an opportunity to do something extraordinary with your own life. Your own life. It is just as precious as the lives of children you did not have. That’s all.
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Been TTC for 5 months now and nothing kills the mood more than an ovulation calendar. With each and every failed attempt, I am beginning to lose hope and it is absolutey the worst feeling. I know I need to stay strong and hopeful but it is challenging. There is nothing i want more, a feeling which many would be feeling as well. The ovulation calendar is out and ready to go for next month. Here’s hoping!!!
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Well, I am about to undergo egg donation #6 and I have to totally disagree with these stats. In fact Id be reporting back with the total opposite if you were to ask me, I find the huge increase in eggs also causes a huge increase in Libido.
Maybe the stress and worry the actual process causes could be the reason for the decline, and not the actual treatment itself.
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Firstly, Carrey – thankyou for being an egg donator! I have to disagree a little though because as an egg donator you are not feeling the same desperation and hopelessness of someone harvesting eggs for their OWN use.
You, admirably, are growing and then harvesting the eggs for other women to hopefully use to get pregnant so while you may be feeling amorous about it I can assure you the women using their own are not. In the 5 cycles I’ve done all I’ve felt is anxiety, depression, poor self esteem about my changing body and the side effects of the drugs. Aside from the emotional pressure there is also the financial pressure of yet another failed cycle. You’re right in saying the stress and worry of the treatment causing the decline in libido but the side effects of the drugs, in my experience, have been horrendous. Major bloating, severe mood swings, painful breasts, abdominal tenderness, depression are just some.
IVF sucks big time, but Im hoping one day it will be all worth it.
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Wow, you’ve donated eggs six times? That’s very special, I’d love to read about what motivates you to do such a selfless, generous thing. Having been through egg harvests for myself was so hard, I can’t imagine volunteering for it. Good on you.
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