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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
Why didn't anyone tell me that pregnancy sex is amazing?
Jul 22, 2004 | It's summer in New York City, and my husband K. and I have just checked in to the Library Hotel at 41st and Madison. We're on the seventh floor -- Geography & History -- in the Asian History room. Above the bed are black-and-white photos of Mao and Hirohito. City workers are ripping up the sidewalk below, and across the street, behind a row of windows, dozens of office workers sit in tiny cubicles, in front of big computers, doing who knows what.
K. hasn't seen me naked in more than a month. I've been doing a one-semester visiting writer stint at a Midwestern university, and he's been back home in the Bay Area. Meanwhile, I've been packing on the pounds. I have two excuses for this: one, I've been in Ohio, where there's nothing to do but eat, and two, well, that is a bit more complicated.
About three weeks ago I called K. at 6 in the morning Pacific time with the news. I'd just peed on a plastic strip, and the results had been a bit shocking: two pink lines.
When I told K. the news, he said, "Wow."
I said, "Is that all you have to say?"
He said, "I'm thinking about it."
We decided to meet in New York to celebrate. Though neither of us admitted it, I think we were also coming together to mourn the end of romance. People say sex tapers off after the vows are exchanged. Three and a half years into my marriage, I beg to differ. But they also say that sex pretty much ends after the first child is born, at least for a year or two, and that, I fear, may be an accurate appraisal. I can't imagine anyone who's old enough to form an intelligent thought coming anywhere near my nipples while I'm breast-feeding.
But I digress. So here we are in the Library Hotel, looking forward to visiting our old haunts -- Rain on the Upper West Side, the Ziegfeld theater, John's Pizza in the West Village. K. goes to brush his teeth while I peruse the books arranged neatly on the bedside tables. The titles don't exactly get me hot: "When the Allies Entered Peking," "The March to Lhasa," "A Leaf in the Bitter Wind: A Memoir." We could have asked for the erotica room, I suppose, but that would have seemed so obvious.
"Let's get this over with," I say, when K. comes back into the room.
Lest you find me unromantic, I'm not referring to the sex itself, but to the unveiling of the stomach. For my entire adult life I have had a 24-inch waist. Now, only two and a half months into the pregnancy, I'm sporting a definite pot belly. I lift my shirt, a bit ashamed to reveal that my jeans are held together with a safety pin at the top, because I can no longer button them. K. grins and pokes my belly. "Hello, fatty."
"Watch it. You're the one who got me this way."
"I should hope so."
"Are my boobs bigger?" I ask, lifting my shirt higher.
He cups them with his hands, makes a serious face, as if he's really deliberating. "Yes," he says finally. "Your boobs are definitely bigger."
"Let's take a nap."
"Splendid idea."
Soon we're under the covers, K. in his boxers, me in my -- well, I used to call them undies, but that is far too dainty a term for what a woman wears when she is pregnant. I am in my underwear. "Let's make out," I say.
"OK."
