Six Week Sex Rule

Is six weeks long enough?

My husband went with me to my postpartum check-up. The doctor checked my incision and asked if we had any questions.

“How long do we have to wait to have sex,” my husband asked.

“Yea that’s what all the dad’s ask me!” He buddy punched my husband on the shoulder, “Six weeks man, don’t worry, it will go by fast!”

I said, “Surely that’s just a suggestion, it’s got to be different for everybody. I have so many stitches.”

“Nope six weeks is good,” replied my doctor.

I still feel, all these years later, like he set us up. The doctor was imparting a kind of “good old boys” club attitude to my husband and our sex life.

My husband took out his phone and entered the six-week date on his calendar. I imagine he titled it as “Yippie Yi Yo Ki Yay Day” or “Bow Chicka Wow Wow Wednesday.” Six weeks initially sounded like a long time away to me, until the day actually came.

I was exhausted from breastfeeding, pumping, and 42 sleepless nights in a row. I felt a sense of new mother-shock that made the spit up stains on my tee shirt look like combat medals and my nursing bra feel like a bulletproof vest.

You should know that my delivery was not without trauma, and by that I mean the vaginal kind. I’m referring to the dreaded episiotomy. I was unlucky enough to be given a mediolateral episiotomy. This is an incision that starts at the vaginal opening and instead of going straight down it is cut at a 45 degree angle- basically into your butt cheek.

After delivery the nurse said, “Honey just so you know, it’s harder to recover from that kind of episiotomy.”

“Then why did the doctor do that?” I asked.

“Most doctors don’t do them anymore, for some reason your doctor still does.”

It was a brutal recovery. There were so many stitches, sitting was an absolute nightmare and pooping was an off-road adventure full of bumps and surprises. I found myself wondering why there aren’t seatbelts for toilets.

Fast forward to six weeks later.

My husband awakes with a wide grin on his well rested face. He is whistling, he is singing in the shower.

“Wow, you are in a good mood today, what’s up?” I ask.

“Today is 6 weeks honey!” he shouts.

My stomach drops. I know exactly what he means. I have just started to be able to sit without pain, but I have a hard time believing that the inside of the war zone that is my vagina is back to it’s old self. My husband goes to work and I have the day to think about it. I miss sex. I miss fun. I miss feeling like I used to. “This might be ok, it might be just what we both need,” I think. Evening comes, and the baby is fed and sleeping and my husband is showered, shaved and wearing cologne.

He leans against the door frame and says, “This has been a long time coming.”

“It’s not the coming I’m worried about,” I mumble but he doesn’t hear as he pirouettes into the bedroom and locks eyes with me and cat crawls onto the bed. Just as things are getting started, I have to stop it. It feels terrible. It’s so raw and tender that it literally sends shivers up my spine. I am suddenly nauseous, my heart is racing and I’ve broken a sweat. I’m not ready. My body is not ready. I tell him to stop and he does.

“I’m so sorry, I know how excited you were for this… I am just so sorry, I can’t do it.”

“But the doctor said 6 weeks, it’s totally fine, he said so!” My husband is clearly upset.

I tell him that it hurts and there is nothing I can do about it, and it’s not his fault.

“You just need to get into it,” he says.

I tell him there is no getting into it. He feels rejected and hurt and disappointed, and I feel the need to explain. This is what I do when I am afraid someone is mad at me, I explain and explain. This time I try using an analogy…

“Pretend you had open heart surgery. Your chest was cracked open. You have a tender, purple, raised scar that is freshly healed over and I take my thumb and rub that new scar. For a few seconds it’s probably okay and then suddenly it’s not okay. It’s scary because it is newly healed. The nerves are heightened to protect the wound, it’s painful and prickly in a way that makes you want to clench up completely.” He rolls over and says nothing. I feel the need to keep explaining, “That’s what this feels like, so I’m all tensed up and I just need more time.”

After a minute or two he says, “The doctor said six weeks, you are fine… it’s all in your head.”

I was crushed. I already wondered if I was doing a good enough job as a mother, now felt like I was failing as a wife. It led to years of tension in our bedroom where there was none before.

Many years later it became clear that we had a host of other issues in our relationship, but quite honestly this was the first time an issue wasn’t easily solvable. So many feelings were attached to this on both sides. It turned into a pattern of me feeling unseen in my pain, and him feeling profoundly rejected and unloved all because of sex or the lack of it.

I don’t put all of the blame on doctors, but I can’t help but wonder how often doctors have set up their patients for disappointment by not having compassionate and honest discussions about not just when it’s medically safe to have sex again, but how to know when it’s right for you.

Men are left out of so many of the messy details that come up after a woman gives birth, and I don’t think that’s a good thing. We keep our messy healing to ourselves. We don’t talk about having scabs in places where we’ve never had scabs before and clots and stitches and the fact that we are diapering ourselves in between diapering our babies. Then when the time comes to become our “old selves” in the bedroom, I think both women and men are startled that we have to start writing a new chapter here. Things that worked before may no longer work.

Every doctors office has a wall of brochures on breastfeeding and safe sleep for infants. Perhaps it’s time to add some vital information for men in words they can understand such as:

“Read the Room: A Tired Wife Always Says NO.”

“Before You Get Your Hopes Up, Have a Conversation.”

“If Hemorrhoid Cream Is On The Counter, She Just Wants to Cuddle.”