So, I left off with being pregnant with twins, after a rather unproductive bout of “trying for babies” sex. Yeah, it really was pretty abismal, especially compared to the way K was conceived. The pregnancy was hard, to say the least. Whereas last time I was mainly exhausted, now I was exhausted, highly nauseous, and taking care of a toddler. I began doing what I always do in new situations: I researched the hell out of twin pregnancy. Multiple pregnancies are so much more high-risk than singles, and the symptoms are literally twice as bad, because of the extra hormones and extra weight. And once again, my dear sweet husband (oh sarcasm) didn’t understand, and began getting irritated and cold with me, because he didn’t understand just how awful I was feeling, and how completely terrified I was of this pregnancy. A million things could go wrong. 50% of multiple pregnancies end in c-sections. A huge percentage of twins are born premature. And the list of complications goes on and on.
In an effort to get him to understand, I gave him one of the many books I’d bought on multiple pregnancy and birth. And it gathered dust. I especially began to be irritated when I noticed that he was vigorously reading “The Married Man Sex Life Primer 2011″ by Mr. Athol Kay. What the hell was this bullshit? I’m in agony, puking my guts out everyday, with barely enough energy to cook a frozen skillet meal for him at the end of the day, and he’s reading this crap instead of the book I gave him? I was appalled. I called Athol a few not-so-nice names. I berated my husband for thinking of sex at a time like this. What. The. Hell.
Knowing what I know now, I’ll say that even though the book has likely saved our marriage, the timing was HORRIBLE. Oh we had some fights about it. My husband, in a hurry to kick the MAP into gear, upped the Alpha way too hard, when I was really needing lots of Beta support. I started to freak out, remembering how hard the transition was after we had K. Was I going to be stuck taking care of 3 kids while he did his own thing, played video games, went to the bar, whatever? Freaking. Out.
I think he eventually realized he was hurting me when I confronted him about how he was treating me. “If you don’t understand what’s going on with me, and can’t relate, why not read the book I gave you SO YOU CAN UNDERSTAND??” He agreed. But he’d lost the book. To this day, I’m not sure where it went. It’s probably languishing on a bookshelf somewhere. But he did start to realize that what I was going through wasn’t something he could just throw platitudes at. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine” wasn’t cutting it. Major abdominal surgery was a real concern.
(Note: I can’t pinpoint a lot of the things that he started doing that turned me back on, because I didn’t know what to look for before I read the blog and book myself, but I will say that other than too much alpha for a little while, he did a great job running the MAP. He’d started losing weight, he started being more assertive and making more decisions, and I started to warm up again.)
My worrying of preterm labor was all for nought. 28 weeks came and went. Then 30. And so on. By 36 weeks, I was done. DONE. And even though we hadn’t really been having sex throughout the pregnancy, I knew it was a way to kick things into gear, and early labor was definitely no concern, so he gladly obliged. Also throughout this time, I’d started reading Athol’s blog. While originally irritated in the extreme (the first page I opened the book to when I found it was titled “Come On Her Tits”. WTF!), a lightbulb eventually went off. He was trying to save our marriage, and I had been a total bitch for 7 years.
Back to 36 weeks… Somehow, me being the size of a small house, we managed to do the deed every 3 or 4 nights, sometimes every other night. We had an incredibly limited number of positions, obviously (just one, really), but he made sure I was comfortable. At the same time, he made some dominant moves. He made me remember just how much I love having my hair pulled. Even though I felt like an elephant, he made me remember that sex actually felt good. What a revalation!
At 38 weeks, I was done. We went in for the OB appointment, Baby A had turned breech, and I absolutely lost my mind. I was damn near hysterical. No, I was hysterical. At that point, I didn’t care about the risks associated with a c-section, I just wanted them OUT. I’d been having trouble breathing. I couldn’t even toss and turn in bed at night, because lugging my ginormous tummy from one side of the bed to the other was actually physically painful. I was contemplating wearing a fracking diaper to bed so I wouldn’t have to get up to pee every 30 minutes. It was insane.
And so my wonderful, awesome doctor said “meet me in the OR”, and it was done. My discomfort wasn’t without reason; Little D was 6.5 lbs, and Little A was 7 lbs. They weighed more than some single babies, and came out healthy and beautiful. The surgery was one of tthe weirdest things I’ve ever experienced, and my husband was a fantastic nurse for a good long while. I had a little bit of trouble healing, but nothing drastic. He and my parents helped around the house and with babies, and I was able to get up and move around pretty well. Nursing was horrible, and I struggled from the beginning, but having so many folks to help out really helped to stall the postpartum depression I think I had with K. I wasn’t the only one that got up to feed them, Mr. RedPill was doing most of the work, and that helped so much. It was something I truly appreciated, and I tried to show him that physically, as limited as I was by the surgery.
Even through waking every 2 hours to feed them, we were somehow totally hot for each other. 6 weeks postpartum, we got so hot and heavy making out one evening/morning that we ended up going at it anyway, despite the doctor’s instructions to wait 8 weeks. It was like we were newlyweds again, and it was (and still is) totally amazing. Mr. RedPill has been quick to smack down any silly fitness tests I come up with, though I don’t do it consciously, and I think I’m actually testing him less these days because I’m aware of them, and because there aren’t anymore silly fights for control of the relationship. It feels good to let it go and let him have control. I think that’s what I wanted all along, and the constant “I dunno, what do you want to do?” statements were getting on my nerves. It’s weird how I can see this now, but at the time, I had no idea why I was feeling the negative feelings I was having.
So that concludes my intro, but perhaps this is the beginning of new things. I feel like I left a lot out, but I’m sure I can tidy up loose ends in future posts. I hope our story can help someone who might be going through something similar.
