How do you keep sex fun when you’re trying to get pregnant?
“Chuck your ‘schedule’ in the trash. If you want to get pregnant, it’s incredibly important that you talk to one another and invest in your relationship”, says Cycle expert Inge Custers, gynecologist reproductive in the UMC Amsterdam.
Not feeling like shaking the sheets
If you’re in a long-term relationship, the feelings of sexual desire toward one another might die down a bit. That’s normal; things stop being new and exciting, and we also become a bit more placid. That’s a bad thing to experience when you’re trying to get pregnant, because - in most cases - you won’t get pregnant without having sex. When couples start trying for a baby it’s often a very exciting thing, since you’re working on starting the next chapter of your lives. As time goes on without a successful pregnancy, you might get stressed and sex starts feeling like a chore. This stress and lack of spontaneity are detrimental to your sex life. You suddenly ‘need’ to have sex, and that tends to work counterproductively. Women+ begin seeing it as a ‘task’ and get less excited during it, which can prevent orgasms from happening. That takes away the ‘reward’ of sex, decreases their interest in sex even further.
Men have the reputation of wanting it everywhere at any time, but that is a myth. Lots of men experience the pressure of needing to perform, due to which they aren’t always able to do so. If he has a bad experience once, he might struggle to perform ‘properly’ after that. He might not even want to try again. After all, why would you set yourself up to ‘fail’?
How do you prevent yourself from ending up in such a downward spiral?
We’ll give you a few tips to help keep sex as fun as possible when you’re trying to conceive.
tip 1: forget timing
Do you have a bulk pack of ovulation tests (LH tests) in your bedside table in order to ensure the best possible timing? Please throw them away, or even better, don’t buy them! Scheduling your sex around the time of your ovulation takes all the spontaneity out of your sex life. Inge’s advice: “Have sex as often as you want, and don’t necessarily plan to have it around the time of ovulation. Sperm cells can survive in a woman+’s body for 3 to 5 days at a maximum. So, if you have sex frequently, you’ll be in the clear! In fact, research has shown that people who regularly have sex throughout the month are more likely to get pregnant than couples who only have sex around the time of ovulation.”
tip 2: doing it right
There are tons of myths about the right way to have sex to get pregnant. There supposedly are positions that increase your chance of getting pregnant, though that isn’t backed up by scientific evidence. Sleep together in any way that feels good to you both. Whether that is doggy style, missionary, or cowgirl. Talk to one another about what you find pleasurable and what you’d rather not do.
Do women+ get pregnant more quickly if you have an orgasm during sex? There is theoretical reason to assume that an orgasm has a role in the chance of pregnancy. Not only does an orgasm release substances that can contribute to conception, but the chance that you will want to do it more often also has a positive effect on how quickly you’ll get pregnant!
tip 3: talk, baby, talk
We’ve said it before, but talk and continue to talk to one another. If getting pregnant
doesn’t happen quickly (and that happens more often than you’d think!), then continuing to talk to each other is more important than ever! The process of becoming pregnant brings along many emotions, both of you may experience it differently. Communication is the key to getting through this time together.
tip 4: self care
Something that we - especially when we’ve been together for a long period of time - tend to forget. Invest in yourself, treat yourself to something nice, something fun! A good book, a warm bath, a day at the beach, whatever it is that you enjoy. Make sure that you continue to value yourself and that you invest in yourself. It has a stress reducing effect, which is exactly what you need!
tip 5: date night
Invest in yourself, but also in each other. Ensure that you have a good time together. Plan a date night every week, yes, every week! Dress up and make an effort. Without the pressure of ‘having to perform’, but just because you like each other! Dance, laugh, and enjoy!
tip 6: self-insemination
Is your sex life getting completely tied up in the pressure of “making love on the clock”? Then there is always the possibility of self-insemination, says Inge. You can do this by collecting the sperm in a (suitable!) jar on the 3 most fertile days of the month (2 days before ovulation and the day of) and sucking it up with a (suitable!) syringe. You then carefully insert this into the vagina and empty it there. On the other days of the cycle, you can simply have sex for pleasure, which reduces the pressure to 'perform'. This may work well for some people.