#postpartum

#postpartum

"My Aura ring started to go crazy," Allie says. "'Your heart rate is up, your body temperature is up.' But I was still nursing. I hadn't had a period. Everything she was feeling could have been related to postpartum hormones. She hoped her ring would tell her if she ovulated, but says "the app needed three months of steady cycle information first."

I was standing in the kitchen, unshowered, my 5-week-old baby in the bouncy seat at my feet as I washed dishes, and my toddler rolling cars up and down the back of my legs, when my husband hinted that he wanted to have sex.

Postpartum represents a relational stress test, highlighting pre-existing vulnerabilities and strengths within couples as they transition to parenthood.

"Hey, you know what's f----- up? The phrase 'bounce back after pregnancy.' Here's the problem: Every single person I've seen grow a human being and pop 'em out have rebounded in their own time."

We struggled to conceive for a long time, and when we finally got pregnant, I was so scared something would happen that we were never really intimate.