How we kept sex going after starting a family

A few years ago a Texas preacher named Ed Young called on married couples in his congregation to have sex every day for a week. He later documented this experiment in book that he wrote with his wife. Although my husband and I weren’t even churchgoers, let alone members of that congregation, trying to have sex every day sounded like a great idea to us so we took on the challenge. We were inspired. Hell, if church goers were getting laid more than we were, it was definitely time to ramp up our game.

We didn’t want to fail the challenge just two days into it—especially knowing that an entire church congregation was having screaming orgasms in the name all that is holy as we lay there in our bed yawning uncontrollably.

We committed to seven days and got started on a Saturday. We had never really thought about why it was that we weren’t having sex every day already. It’s not like either of us ever gets tired of having sex—it’s one of those good things that you just can’t have too much of. On Monday however, after easily making sex a priority on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, we realized why we weren’t having sex every single day—Mondays at work were draining. After a full day of work, getting a car fixed, picking some stuff up from the store, and cooking dinner, we ended up in bed completely wiped out and fighting to stay awake. We didn’t want to fail the challenge just two days into it—especially knowing that an entire church congregation was having screaming orgasms in the name all that is holy as we lay there in our bed yawning uncontrollably. At the same time however, neither one of us seemed to have the energy to jump on top of the other to get things going. And then it hit us—it’s that whole jumping up part that was getting in the way.

Up until that Monday evening, we had been defining sex as a textbook penis-in-vagina 169-calorie-burning (combined) humpathon. It took some effort and some energy, and was well worth it when we pulled it off, but some nights we chose sleep over sex because we both wanted to just lay down and relax. We talked about it for a little while and realized that there was no reason why we couldn’t have both—relaxation and orgasms—and count it as sex.

We each took turns laying back and completely relaxing while being treated by the other to caressing, stimulation, stroking, and pleasure. There was something very satisfying and powerful about watching one another climax and realizing we were making that happen for one another with minimal effort moving just fingers and hands. We went to bed as satisfied sexually and were still on track to meet the challenge of seven days straight.

We’ve become sneaky and creative—so sly that we’re sometimes able to turn a long hug before work into quick orgasms for both of us…

Over the next four days we expanded on the theme. We incorporated the use of toys for both of us, as well as oral sex and even a combination of toys and regular sex together, which resulted in really quick orgasms. We looked forward to it daily, talked about sex every day, discussed what we liked and didn’t like, and learned a lot about ourselves and each other. In fact, we enjoyed it so much we surpassed the seven-day challenge and went for a full 30 days straight. Every day for 30 days we both had orgasms together in some form or fashion using whatever means fit the amount of time and energy we had in a given evening. Sometimes it was classic textbook sex, sometimes we simply masturbated together, but it was always satisfying and fun. It was glorious to say the least.

And then came Baby #1

I’m glad we participated in that challenge because a few years later, when we decided to start a family, our sex life changed. Mind you, making that baby was amazing. We had mind-blowing baby making sex and we were fortunate to have gotten pregnant easily and without complication. Happy, happy, joy, joy. With pregnancy though, comes changes early on. For me, in the first trimester, I was nauseous and my boobs became very sore—not exactly a sexy time for me. I was glad that we understood each other’s needs though and I still wanted to connect with my partner, but didn’t want to be touched much. So, drawing from what we learned during our marathon 30 days of sex, I did things to him that I knew he enjoyed. I once again enjoyed seeing him relax and enjoy. And when I did want to be touched again, boy did I want to be touched again—all the time and in all different ways. The second trimester I was horny, horny, horny. As my belly grew bigger though, we had to find some new positions to accommodate my new body shape and he was able to put what he learned about me from the 30-day challenge to work. We kept things going strong, mixing up toys for both of us—vibrators, a Fleshlight [NSFW] for him, fingers, ben wa balls and massage. We were back in business.

Baby #1 was born and we had six weeks of no sex while I healed and hormones normalized. We took our first attempt at having sex after baby very, very slowly and my first thrilling post-baby orgasm was brought about by fingers alone. Luckily Baby #1 was a good sleeper in the swing and we were able to quickly move to having little bedroom dates with him swinging away within earshot in the next room. We got pretty good a fitting in morning sex before Baby #1 woke up and kept things pretty balanced. Putting Baby in front of Sesame Street for 20 minutes became a running joke for us—we called it “Sex-a-me Street”. Thank you, PBS.

And then came Baby #2

Two and a half years later, we decided to go for Baby #2. Again, mind blowing-baby-making sex, pregnant in the blink of an eye, and my body changed even more rapidly this time since it been through this whole prego routine before. And this time, I was pretty much horny through the whole pregnancy.

Post Baby #2 it was the same routine as before—six weeks, no sex. This six-week period can be a hard time. Not only is the woman’s body adjusting to hormone changes, body changes and breast feeding, it is an emotional time and a huge change for the whole family unit. Sex is pretty low on the list as you are coping with so many other things, including how to balance out care for two children, but if my partner found a break and I could tell he could stand to release some sexual tension, I was all in favor of him retreating for solo play now and then—Fleshlight in hand. Happy partners are helpful partners.

Now, with two kids under four years old, it’s a challenge to have intimate times. We both realize this challenge, but we still make an effort to touch each other. We talk about missing frequent intimacy and joke about it, but we are laughing together which is a great connection until we can have the physical connection again. We make opportunities for it and we improvise—again, drawing from the expanded ways of finding and sharing pleasure that we learned during that 30-day sex marathon a few years earlier. We’ve become sneaky and creative—so sly that we’re sometimes able to turn a long hug before work into quick orgasms for both of us thanks to skilled fingers and knowing just what to do to take each other from 0 to 60 to “oh my God” in just a couple of minutes. And that’s the magic. We’ve quit trying to fit sex into the day and instead we’ve learned to choose whatever type of sex will fit the time we have. Sometimes we’re just swapping quick handjobs/fingers, and sometimes it’s the deluxe package, complete with a date night out on the town followed by staying up too late having sex. Sure, we may be woken up hours later by an upset kiddo who just wet the bed, but we’ll handle the wet bed much better if we had orgasms two hours earlier.