Let’s talk about sex.
Remember when it was fun? Remember when it was spontaneous, a secret language between the two of you, a source of pleasure, comfort, connection, and intimacy? Remember when it was just about us?
And then, the journey began. And slowly, insidiously, everything changed.
Sex, once a source of joy, can become a scheduled, performance-based task, fraught with a level of pressure and expectation you never thought possible. It becomes another item on the "Project Baby" to-do list, wedged in between "take prenatal vitamin" and "call the clinic with Day 1." The bedroom, once a sanctuary for your partnership, a soft place to land, can start to feel like a battleground of hope and failure, a laboratory for a high-stakes experiment.
If you are in this place, if intimacy has become a source of stress instead of a source of comfort, if you feel a sense of dread when you see that fertile window approaching on your calendar, please know you are not alone. This is one of the most common and painful side effects of infertility and trying to conceive. In our GrowingMyFamily community, we know this struggle intimately. It’s a tender, vulnerable topic, but it’s one we must talk about, because your connection as a couple is too important, too precious, to sacrifice at the altar of ovulation tracking.
How Does This Happen? The Slow, Insidious Erosion of Intimacy
It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a slow erosion, a series of small shifts that build up over time until you look at each other and realize you don’t recognize this part of your relationship anymore.
The Tyranny of the Calendar: Suddenly, your desire is no longer the catalyst for intimacy. The catalyst is an app, a line on an ovulation stick, or a doctor’s instruction. Sex becomes a timed, high-stakes event. The spontaneity, the playfulness, the romance—it’s all gone, replaced by a sense of obligation and pressure. It becomes a chore.
The Specter of "The Goal": Every time you are intimate during the fertile window, there is a third person in the room: the goal. The hope of a baby. This immense pressure to "perform" and "succeed" can kill desire for both partners. It can lead to performance anxiety, making it physically and emotionally difficult to connect. It can make one partner feel like a "vessel" or a "tool," and the other like a "performer," reducing a sacred act to a mechanical one.
The Association with Failure: After months, or even years, of trying, sex during the fertile window (and sometimes anytime) becomes inextricably linked with the crushing disappointment that follows two weeks later. Your brain, in its attempt to protect you, starts to create a subconscious association: this act leads to pain. It’s no wonder your body and heart might start to pull away from it. You begin to brace for the inevitable heartbreak even before you’ve begun.
The Physical and Emotional Toll: Let’s be honest. Between the hormonal medications that can tank your libido and make you feel unlike yourself, the invasive procedures that can make you feel disconnected from and even resentful of your own body, and the sheer emotional exhaustion of it all, feeling "sexy" can feel like a Herculean task. You’re not just "not in the mood"; you’re in a state of profound physical and emotional depletion.
The result is a profound sense of disconnection. You can be physically closer than ever, but emotionally, you feel miles apart. The very act that is supposed to bring you together becomes a source of isolation, stress, and even resentment.
Reclaiming Your Bedroom as a Sanctuary: A Gentle Guide
So, how do we fight back? How do we reclaim intimacy and protect our partnership from the clinical, cold nature of this journey? It requires a conscious, intentional, and united effort to separate "baby-making sex" from "love-making sex."
1. Call a "Truce" in the Bedroom
This is the most important first step. You need to have a brave, honest, and compassionate conversation with your partner, and it needs to happen outside of the bedroom.
What to say: "Hey, can we talk about something? I feel like our intimacy has become really stressful lately, and I miss us. I miss the fun and the connection we used to have. I want to be clear: this is not your fault, and it’s not my fault. It’s this journey that’s putting this pressure on us. Can we make a pact to try and find our way back to each other?"
Why it works: Naming the problem out loud removes the shame and blame that you’ve both likely been feeling. It externalizes the issue—it’s the journey that’s the problem, not you or your partner. This allows you to be a team against the problem, instead of opponents.
2. Schedule Sex (The Other Kind)
This might sound counterintuitive, because we’re trying to get away from scheduling. But if spontaneity is gone for now, the next best thing is intention.
The Practice: Look at the calendar. Find a week where you are definitively not in the fertile window. Designate one or two nights during that week as "date nights" or "connection time." This is scheduled time where sex is on the table, but with one crucial, non-negotiable rule: it is not allowed to be about making a baby.
The Goal: The only goal of this time is pleasure and connection. It’s about remembering what it feels like to touch each other just for the sake of feeling good, for the sake of being close, for the sake of play. This takes the immense pressure off and can help you rediscover the joy and desire that has been buried.
3. Redefine "Intimacy" and Take the Pressure Off Intercourse
Intimacy is not just about sex. When intercourse feels too fraught with pressure, you can and should focus on other forms of physical connection to keep the bond strong.
The Practice: Make a commitment to a "no-clothes cuddle session" for 15 minutes every night before you go to sleep. No phones, just skin-on-skin contact. Take a shower or a bath together. Give each other a foot massage or a back massage without any expectation of it leading to more.
The Result: These acts rebuild the physical connection and release oxytocin (the "bonding hormone") without the pressure of performance. It reminds your bodies that touch can be about comfort, care, and love, not just about a goal.
4. Take a "Month Off" (Even If You're Not Really Off)
If you are in the thick of treatments where timed intercourse isn't required (like preparing for an IVF retrieval or a frozen embryo transfer), this is a golden opportunity. Declare a "sex vacation."
The Practice: For one whole month, make a pact that you will not have sex with the goal of conception. All physical intimacy during this time is purely for pleasure and connection. You can even make a fun list of non-procreative intimate acts you want to explore together.
The Result: This can be an incredible reset for your relationship. It can wash away the months of pressure and remind you both of the desire, fun, and friendship that still exists between you. It allows you to remember who you are outside of your fertility struggles.
Friend, your partnership is the foundation of the family you are working so hard to build. It deserves to be nurtured and protected. It’s okay if your intimate life has taken a hit; you are not alone in that. But you have the power to reclaim it.
Start with a conversation. Be gentle with each other. And remember that the greatest act of love on this journey is the one you show to each other, long before a baby ever enters the room.
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