I Want My Epidural Back

by Karen Alpert

  I know what some of you are thinking. “Boo-hoo-hooo, that’s so sad that you don’t love sex anymore. I feel so bad for you and your cold vagina. Maybe you should just try having more sex? My hugglepoo and I do it every single night and sometimes even twice when we’re feeling frisky.”

  Well, (a) I wouldn’t want to be like you because you use annoying words like frisky, and (b) come tell me that after you HAVE TO have sex a lot for eight months straight.

  Okay, lemme explain. It all started when I was twenty-nine.

  Aggghhhh, why haven’t I met my husband yet?!! The plan was to meet him by the time I was twenty-five. I mean really I thought I was gonna marry my high school boyfriend, and then I thought I was gonna marry my second high school boyfriend, and then my third high school boyfriend, and then a few more, and then a few my freshman year in college, etc., etc., etc., all the way until I was twenty-five when I was dating this total asswipe who I kept thinking would change into the perfect prince the way asswipes often do in the movies so I could marry him. But nope, out of 247 boyfriends between the ages of fifteen and twenty-nine, not a single one panned out. Shit.

  And then when I was twenty-nine, I met the man of my dreams. The man of my desperate twenty-nine-year-old dreams who actually sucked and it took me four and a half lonnnnnng wasted years to figure out that our relationship was like two puzzle pieces you keep trying to jam together even though they don’t F’ing fit but they’re the only two puzzle pieces left because you don’t realize that you accidentally left another piece in the box. But as I was desperately clinging on to the relationship in hopes that it would work because I couldn’t find the right puzzle piece, the eggs in my ovaries were getting older and wrinkly and growing wiry gray hairs.

  ME: I don’t know, Doc, I just keep hearing this loud ticking noise in my ears.

  DOCTOR: That’s your biological clock ticking. It gets louder the closer you get to becoming an old childless hag.

  I mean now that I have kids, I actually recognize that childless people have totally AWESOME lives that are often better than those of us who are parents, but at the time I thought my life would be over if I didn’t get to have children. I was hunting for a husband like I was fighting for my life in the Hunger Games.

  And then when I was thirty-four, I met him. And no, it didn’t happen when I least expected it to like all those jackasses say it will. I worked my ass off to find the right guy. I was on multiple dating websites forcing myself to go on at least one date every week, and going way out of my comfort zone, saying yes to pretty much anyone, including men with receding hairlines who wore black pants with brown belts and gross tank tops. Yup, I lowered my bar in the clothing department and raised my bar in the personality department, and I found the man of my dreams. The REAL man of my dreams. And we had great sex. Lots of it. And it was AWESOMMMMMME. And we both wanted to get married and we both wanted to have kiddos and we both knew that my eggs were slowly rolling toward the assisted living facility for senior citizen eggs, so we didn’t waste any time.

  ME: We should probably start trying to have a baby right away because it might take a while.

  HIM: Yes. Me want sex.

  And guess what!? We were preggers within two short months!! I don’t know what everyone’s talking about, it’s so easy getting pregnant (FYI, I’m not this big of a douchebag. Keep reading).

  And then we had Zoey and life was awesome, even though we never slept and we couldn’t go out anymore and my boobs were more hangy than my uvula and none of my pants fit, etc., etc., etc. But still, everything was great and we knew we wanted to have a second.

  HIM: We should have another so they can play together and make things easier.

  ME: Definitely.

  PEOPLE WHO ALREADY HAVE MORE THAN ONE CHILD: Bwhahahahahahahahaha!!!!

  At my hubby’s suggestion, we started trying right away.

  ME: But I’m not even ovulating right now.

  HIM: You might be. We should have sex just in case.

  And when I got my period that first month, I wasn’t surprised. Disappointed? Maybe a little. But not discouraged. I mean this was exactly what happened the first time. And I fully expected to be pregnant by month two.

  Then month two came and I remember sitting at my desk and feeling a little pain in my belly. OMGeeeee, is that the embryo implanting?!!! I was super excited. And then a few hours later I felt it again. That embryo must really be burrowing into that lining. And then by that evening I was spotting a little. Eeeeeeks, it’s happening!!! And then by the next morning I was digging through every old purse in my closet to find a tampon because I hadn’t bought a new box of them because I fully expected to be preggers this month and hell if I was gonna spend a bunch of money on tampons I didn’t need. Shit. Now I was disappointed.

  ME: I’m not pregnant.

  HIM: Good. Me want more sex.

  So the first thing I did was go to Costco and buy a GIANT box of tampons because Murphy’s Law says the bigger the box I buy, the faster I will get pregnant. And then I went to the Internet and started to research ovulation calculators. It was asking me things like dates and cycle length and luteal phase and I’m like WTH does the moon have to do with it? And since my cycle wasn’t always regular, I figured out that I was gonna be fertile sometime between June 4th and June 10th and that we should have sex every other day because that would give my hubby time to replenish his sperm supply (apparently sperm need time to reproduce too).

  So we waited. And waited. Until . . .

  ME: Honey, we need to have sex today!!

  And his clothes were off before I had even finished saying the word today. And then after we were done, I laid there. No wait, I just got laid. I lied there. Or did I lay there? Whatever, I reclined there on my back visualizing all the little spermies racing to the egg to see who would get there first. It was so exciting to think about them nibbling away to fertilize the egg or however they do it. And then, exactly forty-eight hours later, doo da doo da doo doo doo. Doo da doo da doo doo doo.

  HIM: What is that noise?

  ME: Oh, that’s my alarm. Time to have sex!

  Yup, I set an alarm to remind us. So we did it. And forty-eight hours after that. Doo da doo da doo doo doo. Doo da doo da doo doo doo.

  HIM: Again?

  Neither of us was really in the mood, but it was time so we did it again. Phew, three times in one week. We’re definitely going to be pregnant now!!

  UTERUS: Fuck you!!!! You’re not in charge here!

  Yup, Aunt Flo arrived again. So every month we kept trying. Insert, repeat, insert, repeat, insert, repeat, over and over again until my vagina felt like someone had put one of those medieval torture devices in it that looks like an umbrella that they open up inside you and my hubby’s peeper felt like someone had rubbed it against a cheese grater for a couple of hours to make shredded penis. Mmmm, a delicacy in many countries.

  Okay, now close your eyes because I want you to picture something. Awww shit, you can’t read with your eyes closed. Fine, open them back up and close them figuratively. Now picture me and my husband having sex. Agghhh, nooo, you’re blind now!!! I totally apologize. My bad. So don’t actually picture us. Picture my head on Gisele’s body and my hubby’s head on Channing Tatum’s body and now picture us having sex. There, that’s better. So now what I want you to do is picture Harry Potter standing next to the bed while we’re having sex and he’s pointing his totally powerful wand at us and he is literally sucking allllllll the magic out of our sex. It’s like electric lightning is shooting out of our naked bodies and it’s all being sucked into his wand. And when he’s all done, he vanishes into a puff of smoke and we are left there still doing it. Not making passionate love. Not getting it on. Not fucking. Just doing it. In out in out in out in out.

  Because that’s what sex had become for us. Something we had to do. A chore.

  HIM: We need more lube. Here is the bottle.

  ME: Okay, it’s applied.

  HIM: That’s good
. I’m going to cum.

  ME: It’s about time.

  HIM: All done.

  ME: Okay, I’ll lie here for the next forty-eight hours and then come back so we can do it again.

  It was about as enjoyable as putting together Zoey’s new bike. But worse because imagine putting that bike together over and over again, three or four times a week every month, but then the next morning you wake up and there’s no bike. Shit, does that analogy even make sense? I don’t know, but basically all I’m saying is that when you have to have sex many, many times, it starts to become a chore.

  And every month I would be somewhere when I would feel the first twinge of cramping and I would kid myself into thinking it wasn’t period cramps, and that maybe I just had to poop or something. And then as the day went on the pains would get stronger and all I could think about was nooooo, I don’t want to have to have sex anymore. I mean don’t get me wrong, I love my husband to death and I think he’s crazy sexy, but I just didn’t want to do it anymore. And I wasn’t alone. He was pretty much over the whole sex thing too. And let me tell you this, if your husband doesn’t want sex anymore, something is wrong.

  We felt annoyed, irritable, angry, guilty, exhausted, and spent. These are all really great things for a marriage, by the way.

  Anyways, this went on for eight months. Eight lonnnnnnng months of doing it and doing it and doing it without the result we wanted. And pleeeease don’t think I’m an asshole for complaining about eight months when there are so many couples out there who do it for years without conceiving and who have to get shots and pay shitloads of money and buy eggs and feel those awful cramps month after month after month for years on end. If eight months was bad for us, I can’t imagine what it’s like for some couples and my heart goes out to them. Big time.

  And then one day I didn’t get the twinge of pain, so I peed on a stick and there it was. Clear as day. The blue line. I wanted to jump for joy but I didn’t because I was too scared I would dislodge the baby.

  ME: Honey, guess what? We’re pregnant.

  HIM: Really? We did it?!!

  ME: We did it.

  Yup, we did it. A LOT. But it finally worked. I don’t know which we were more excited about. The fact that we were pregnant or the fact that we didn’t have to have sex anymore. Until after the baby arrived and we got the green light from the gynie.

  GYNIE: Well, it’s been six weeks. You can have sex again.

  ME: Do we have to?

  I mean no, I didn’t really say that out loud. And I’m happy to say this isn’t the end to our story. Because guess who showed up to our bed again one day! Harry Potter!!! Completely out of the blue! Yup, one day he randomly showed up and he aimed that magic wand at us and zappppppp, he gave us back our sex magic!!! Needless to say, my hubby was a little perplexed when I started yelling, “Thank you, Harry!!!” in the middle of our sexcapade, but at least the magic was back. Phew.

  And now my hubby won’t stop asking for it again. Everything’s back to normal.

  HOLDEN: I want a cup.

  HUBBY: Where are the cups?

  ME: Where the cups are.

  I mean seriously? Did we seriously need to have this conversation? Does anyone else out there deal with this shit?

  You didn’t think I’d just write a chapter about all the shit he does right, did you?

  Dear Schmoopie Woopie,

  I love you. Wait, I mean I LOVVVVVVVVVVVVVE you. Like when you kiss me, I still get those butterflies in my belly, and when you wash that pot that’s been “soaking” in the sink for 48 hours, I get weak in the knees. But here’s the thing. I would really, really be appreciative (yes, THAT kind of appreciative) if you would stop doing a few annoying things:

  1. Stop asking me stupid shit. I’m not saying you’re stupid. In fact, I’m saying you’re pretty F’ing intelligent, so stop asking me stupid shit like “Do we have more milk?” Ummmm, hello brainiac, open the fridge and look. Heyyyy, look at that, milk! Who’da thunk it’d be in the fridge?!

  2. Step one: Take off your dirty clothes.

  Step two: Look in the mirror and say something cheesy like “Holy crap, there’s a hot naked guy in this mirror!”

  Step three: Throw your dirty clothes in the hamper. Not ON the hamper. IN the hamper. I mean seriously, is it that hard to pick up the lid? It weighs less than the beer you pick up every night.

  3. You know what drives me BONNNNNNKERS?! When I’m literally unpacking bags of groceries I just bought and you say something like “Oh yeah, we ran out of apple juice this morning.” I’m like WTF WTF WTF??? “Why didn’t you write it on the list?!” So whatta you do? You walk over to the list and write apple juice on it. My nice, clean list that has nothing on it because I JUST WENT SHOPPING!!!

  4A. Okay, so when I offer to wash the dishes after dinner, here’s what I want you to do. Don’t help me. Don’t hang out in the kitchen. Don’t “keep me company.” Pick up both kiddos and get the F out of there. And don’t feel guilty about it. When I say I WANT to wash the dishes, what I’m really saying is that I’ll stand at the sink and scrub dried cheese off plates if that’s what it takes to be completely alone with a glass of vino. Capeesh?

  4B. And if you accidentally forget 4A, please don’t come up behind me at the sink and try to put your you-know-what in my badonkadonk. Yeah, I’m psyched you still think I’m sexy, but the kids are still awake right now and probably doing something annoying like drawing on my walls or putting holes in them or rifling through my nightstand drawer. So the last thing I want to do at the moment is procreate.

  5. ME: Can we throw that shirt out, pleeeeease? Look at the pit stains.

  YOU: Are you kidding? I’ve had this shirt since high school!

  Bwhahahahha, I think it’s F’ing HYSTERICAL that you think this is a selling point. Ohhh yeah, how could you ever throw out a shirt that you’ve been sweating in for twenty-two years?

  6. Honey, you know we’re getting off at the next exit, right? Honey, we need to get off at the next exit. Honey, our exit is in a quarter of a mile. HONEY, GET THE F OVER NOWWWWW BECAUSE IF YOU WAIT WE’RE EITHER GOING TO MISS OUR EXIT OR WE’RE GOING TO HIT THAT GIANT 18-WHEELER AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!! So whether I’m saying these things in my head or whether I can’t help myself and I’m saying them out loud, WHYYYY??? WHY do you insist on driving in the left-hand lane until like a split second before we need to get off the highway? We’re either going to die when we slam into a giant Mack truck or I’m going to die from an F’ing heart attack.

  7. If you are wearing black pants, don’t wear brown shoes. If you are wearing brown pants, don’t wear black shoes. If you are wearing black socks, make sure they are the same black. Holes in old boxer shorts do not make you comfy, they make you an exhibitionist. Holes in old jeans do not make you comfy, they make you look like you traveled here in a time machine from the 1980s. Oh and please, whatever you do, do NOT wear that braided maroon, navy, and tan belt anymore. You’re lucky I don’t know where you got it because I am not a violent person, but if I knew I would go there and hunt down and brutally murder the person who sold it to you.

  So there you go. And I know what you’re gonna say. You’re gonna say that I shouldn’t talk because I do some annoying crap too. Like my nagging. Well, if I’m nagging, it means you’re doing something wrong. Like something on this list. So just stop doing it, and I’ll stop nagging you. Simple as that.

  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo,

  Your honey bunny

  ME: Honey, can you get the Push-Ups for the kids?

  HUBBY: Sure. Where are they?

  ME: In the downstairs freezer.

  (He comes back up three minutes later.)

  HUBBY: I can’t find them. Are you sure they’re there?

  ME: 200% sure because I checked before the BBQ to make sure we had enough.

  (He comes back up two minutes later.)

  HUBBY: Nope, not there.

  ME: They are there. Go look again.

  HUBBY
: Are you sure?

  ME: YES!!

  TEXT FROM HUBBY: I can’t find them.

  TEXT FROM ME: Keep looking.

  (Two minutes later he comes back up carrying guess what.)

  HUBBY: Got them!

  ME: Where were they?

  (Because yes, I need him to say it.)

  HUBBY: In the downstairs freezer. I just couldn’t find them because the box was turned sideways and I couldn’t see the picture of the push-up.

  ME: I’m sorry, I should have had the picture facing the front. I didn’t realize you were illiterate.

  FYI, I did not say this last part out loud. I wanted to, but I restrained myself because I imagine this is the kind of stuff marriage counselors suggest you keep to yourself.

  HUBBY: I don’t know which I love more, you or this big deep-dish pizza.

  ME: I’d like to see that pizza give you a blowjob.

  Teach Your Douchenuggets

  to Be Less Douchey and

  MORE NUGGETY

  HERE ARE A FEW WORDS I CALL KIDS SOMETIMES (and no Mrs. McPerfectpants, I don’t say it to their faces): rugrats, douchenuggets, crotchmuffins, a-holios, whinemeisters, sucktots, dicklings, and assbeanies. I mean it’s not like kiddos are jerkwads all the time, but oh my gawwwwd are there days that I wish I believed in corporal punishment. Kids love to test their boundaries and break the rules and do all sorts of naughty shit just to see what happens. Wanna know what happens, kiddo? I punish your ass (not literally—see corporal punishment comment up above). But yeah, I’m a bit of a hard-ass. Because guess what cute little a-holes who aren’t punished grow up to be. Assholes. Big ones. And we have enough of those on this planet already.