Читать книгу Stand and Deliver!: And other Brilliant Ways to Give Birth - Emma Mahony - Страница 25

What if you just don’t feel like doing it? Pregnancy may drip-feed you hormones that soften and engorge your yoni, make the clitoris more sensitive, and hit a triple jackpot with making the lubricating cervical glands work overtime, but what use is that if you are forever rushing to the loo to chuck up your Boots sandwich? It is all very well wandering around in a state of semi-arousal, but if this is accompanied by tiredness and aching breasts, then what’s the point? My favourite line in Vicki Iovine’s Best Friend’s Guide to Pregnancy is when she describes the urge to hit her husband over the head with a bedside lamp when he goes near her breasts in the first three months. Not everyone is in the mood at the beginning.

Although Dr Miriam Stoppard in the New Pregnancy and Birth Book says, ‘The majority of women I have spoken to about sex and pregnancy have almost universally felt that sex was better than ever,’ I reckon she conducted most of her research in the nymphomaniac district of Amsterdam. The truth is that sex is a very complicated issue among individuals, let alone couples, and it tends to be where we dump all our private and collective neuroses.

Most commonly, our body image determines how we feel as a woman. Sad to say in our post-feminist age, but if pregnancy makes you feel fat instead of gorgeous, then that is going to translate immediately into your lovemaking. The light will go firmly off when undressing, some of you may reach for the chocolate box rather than the fruit bowl, and you just won’t feel desirable. You may even subconsciously push your man away.

However, always remember that the reality is that most men find the extra curves and roundedness of women in the early and middle flushes of pregnancy a real turn-on. So don’t you dare confuse your own feelings with those of your partner. Men are conditioned by nature to fancy fertile women, and you are a walking example of voluptuousness.

Pregnancy is the time to buy some postcards of Rubens’ paintings to stick on the fridge, with white fleshy mamas breastfeeding cherubs and muscly men hovering in attendance. It’ll remind you that heroin chic wasn’t always fashionable.