The majority of kiddos are conceived during the winter holiday season. If we break this down, we'll find that one part holiday spirit, one part New Year’s Eve hilarity, and one part chilly weather, equals several reasons to strip down to nothing and get it on.
Despite the onslaught of celebs who have come clean about infertility, including Hollywood A-listers Courteney Cox and Julia Roberts, the issue remains highly stigmatized. Both men and women feel the pressure to have kids, but, as with most things, the genders deal with and communicate about the problem differently.
Jealousy is ugly on me. I suppose it's ugly on anyone but it feels particularly nasty when I wear it. I would love to do away with it completely as an emotion, but it keeps cropping up again. It's not that I'm jealous of women who are taller, thinner, prettier. I'm not jealous of women with more money or more glamorous lifestyles. I'm jealous of one person and one person only: the mother of my stepson. And maybe not for the reasons you would think.
My sex life isn't exactly fireworks and handcuffs and a regular reenactment of the Kama Sutra. In fact, when my husband and I first decided to throw away the birth control pills and condoms and try for a baby, I worried: I wanted to be a mom so damn bad, but the frequency with which we had sex was definitely lacking, and I often experienced pain during sex. Amazingly, babymaking sex has totally improved my sex life.
I try to divorce Michael at least once a month. I blame this on the PMDD, though I've also been diagnosed with chronic depression and anxiety and, once, a psychopharmacologist told me I had obvious bipolar tendencies. After the PMDD diagnosis, I realized that switching to Yaz was sufficient for managing my wild mood swings. Then, I decided to have a baby.
We've all heard how sex lives can suffer once you have kids. First, because of the damage that occurs to a woman's nether regions during childbirth. Then, because of the tenderness of a woman's vaginal lining—in addition to hormonal fluctuations—in the months after childbirth. And then? Well, there's the lack of time, and the exhaustion that comes from being a parent (and a spouse, and a fully functioning individual). There's the magnification of the madonna/whore complex that can occur after you pop one out. There's the reshuffling of your affections, and the sometimes attendant resentments that can result from this. This doesn't worry me. After all, our sex life already sucks.
Baby Bytes: 15 must-click mom links.
Last February brought rumors of how Jennifer Aniston likes her eggs –frozen. However, it doesn't look like she'll be dipping into her rainy-day stock, since recent reports say she'd rather have her eggs fertilized. In fact, Star has reported that she's been taking some serious steps to ready her almost-forty body for child-bearing with John Mayer. (The sooner the better!) Star's story says that the couple is crossing their fingers for twins. (Sadly, it will still take about a dozen additional children to one-up Brangelina, especially since Angelina has a kid for ever year she is younger than Aniston... that would be six). Aniston, 39, is six years older than Angelina, but she high hopes to conceive before her 40th birthday. Nonetheless, Jen has allegedly undergone a string of not-so-secret-anymore fertility treatments. Better make hers a double!
