Holy Virus. I have been offline for a few days and it was due to a bug in my lungs not my computer, I almost would have preferred the later. I felt like a mucinex commercial with a whole family reunion of those boogery green guys partying in my rib-cage. At one point I thought, in a fevery dream state, that for sure I had throat cancer I was in so much pain. I am generally pretty dramatic like that when I get sick 🙂 I didn’t even get out of bed for the Ellen Show which is usually the best part of staying home sick. So sorry to abandon you all over the weekend and first part of this week. I am back today though and looking forward to catching up with all of your stories. Now back to my topic at hand.
I am 31 years old and for the last three years or so I feel like my self confidence has been on a steady decline. I don’t really know how to describe it or when exactly it started. In my twenties, I was fairly self confident, maybe even borderline cocky. I felt as if I could have and do anything I wanted. I was comfortable biting off more than I could chew, and chewing it. I didn’t hesitate when going after any dreams. I never felt drop dead gorgeous but I was happy with my looks and felt great about my body. Well, its not like that any more. I am more apprehensive in even small areas of my life. I am more cautious when I jump into new things. It isn’t really a matter of living life and learning to be careful it is more feeling unsure of myself. I have doubts about my ability to make small changes let alone the kind of hard things I have jumped into blindly in the past.
One area where it has really started to have an effect is in the bedroom. I am just not as confident as I used to be. I remember having fun and feeling sexy with boyfriends past. I can still have fun and sometimes the spontaneity of the moment is enough to distract me but more times than not I just end up feeling awkward, with my own husband. It’s getting to the point where just about every time I feel like I have to “perform” I clam up and get anxious. Cloudy isn’t particularly hard to please but it does seem like we are both so focused on not being awkward that we really are. Sometimes we laugh about it but it’s weird. He doesn’t do or say anything to make me feel bad I just don’t feel confident and sexy like I used to. Part of it is that he is pretty quiet and I am trying to figure out if he is enjoying it at all. But I think another major contributor to the problem is the infertility issue. Se.x has now become about me and my cycle and baby making and ovulating and failure, failure , failure.
I don’t know if I should blame my age or my hormones or infertility or just an awkward pairing of individuals (although for the first 6-7 months of our dating we made it work pretty much daily without being weird at all, but we weren’t trying to make a baby then either.)
Has anyone else had this happen? I want my moxy back!
befriending my ovaries 
Infertility places all sorts of strains upon relationships. I feel like my libido is super low now. I have to actually psyche myself up to do it. There are some nights that I just really don’t want to go through the whole process. Once we get going I usually have a good time but there are nights where I just keep thinking “okay, let’s get this over with so I can lay in bed and read my book in peace!” I hate feeling like this. I remember when it used to be all about spontaneity and fun with my hubby. Now it’s a job we have to do. I really hope that once this whole journey is over we’ll be able to recapture the old spark.
That is exactly how I feel most nights. Thank you so much for your comment, it’s nice to know I’m not alone in this. Cloudy doesn’t understand why I think all day and all night about making a baby but when it comes down to actually doing it I’m not that interested. I guess from that point it is hard to understand.
To knock myself up, I scheduled sex and stuck to it like a drill sergeant! I tried to convince my husband I was just super in the mood but he caught on, felt like a piece of meat, and kind of liked it!
My email comes up funny on wordpress – it says I have an account whenever I try to use gmail, btw.
Hi thanks for stopping in! Men are so different, but funny!
Glad you’re over your mucinex commercial experience (LOL) and feeling better.
Like Ann says, I think it’s not unusual to feel stressed or anxious when s.x turns from just for fun into just for babymaking (and perhaps some fun, too, but really, there’s only so much fun that can be had). I read an interesting post by a psychologist on this issue … which I will now go to look for and link to here … here you go:
http://theinfertilitytherapist.blogspot.com/2012/04/sex-infertility-treatment-and-real.html
There are some interesting ideas in here about the true purpose of the act for humans.
That is an interesting post, thank you for sharing. Maybe I need to focus more on my connection with my husband than the utility of his sperm. My new mantra is Fun over Function!
Me too… I think IF takes over and doesn’t leave much room for spontaneity. Know how you feel I lacking in confidence. Hopefully one day IF won’t rule our lives xoxo
It really does us in! Freaking fertiles get to have all the fun!