Mom Guilt: Sex After Baby

Get ready for an episode of the MomGuilt podcast that's going to shake things up! Elizabeth and Stephanie, your favorite co-hosts and real-life moms, are back with an electrifying topic: sex after having a baby. Yep, they're going there, diving headfirst into the depths of mom guilt and the challenges it brings to the bedroom.

But before they jump into the juicy details, Elizabeth has a special request for all you listeners out there. She wants you to think of another mom who could use a dose of encouragement in the midst of mom guilt. So if this episode resonates with you, be a superstar and share it with her. Let's spread the love!

Now, buckle up for a wild ride as Elizabeth and Stephanie, armed with a combined total of seven kids, spill the beans on their personal experiences and the oh-so-real guilt that comes with postpartum intimacy. They'll have you nodding your head and laughing out loud as they recount their moments of sheer panic, from "horned dog" ambitions to accidental ladder smacks (ouch!).

But it's not all giggles and mishaps. These incredible moms have a mission—to let you in on their conversations and remind you that you're not alone in this journey. They'll dive deep into the nitty-gritty, sharing how the gospel of Jesus Christ has helped them release the heavy burden of mom guilt. It's a powerful reminder that your worth as a mom and a wife goes far beyond your post-baby body.

As they navigate the uncharted territory of sex after childbirth, Elizabeth and Stephanie will share practical advice, personal stories, and a whole lot of sisterly love. They'll explore the biblical foundations of sex, the importance of communication with your partner, and the need to embrace grace and self-acceptance. It's a frank and honest conversation that will leave you feeling empowered and ready to conquer any mom guilt that comes your way.

So, grab your earbuds, settle in, and get ready to join Elizabeth and Stephanie as they break down barriers, shatter stereotypes, and open up the dialogue about sex after baby. This episode will have you nodding, laughing, and maybe even blushing a little. But most importantly, it will remind you that you're not alone and that you deserve all the love, grace, and intimacy in the world. Tune in and let the MomGuilt podcast be your guide to a guilt-free and fulfilling postpartum journey!

To find more gospel-centered resources head to https://www.resoundmedia.cc

Transcript

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Hey, before we get started, I'm one of the co-hosts and my name is Elizabeth. As you're listening to this episode, I want to ask you to think of another mom who might need to hear some encouragement in the midst of mom guilt. So if you find this episode helpful, please share it with her. Let's jump into this week's episode on sex after baby. Like with my second, when the OB said, no sex for six weeks, I'm like, man, I'm going

to have sex earlier than that. You horned dog.

I know.

Welcome to this week's episode of the MomGail podcast. This podcast is really just a conversation between friends. Together, Elizabeth and I have seven kids. I have four kids. She has three kids. And we are also really good friends. And with that many kids, we love to go on playdates together. And we found during those playdates that we were constantly talking about this mom guilt that we feel. And so we wanted to let you listener in on conversations that Elizabeth and I are having, sometimes on the phone or on playdates, so that you know that you're not alone in the mom guilt that you feel because sometimes we feel just we're the only ones that feel this way and After her and I talked through it. It's like no, we're not the only ones everybody struggles with this So really our goals are to let you in on that conversation that we have but then also To encourage you because we found the gospel of Jesus Christ really has helped us Release that burden of that mom guilt that we're feeling. And my name is Stephanie and the last time that I felt mom guilt was earlier this week we had a family party and I let my kids stay up so late. It was so bad. Usually my kids like my younger ones will go to bed at eight and then my older ones get to stay up until like nine sometimes nine fifteen but it was like 10 30 and they're going strong and I'm like this is gonna be horrible tomorrow morning. When you said like so late I pictured like midnight. Oh you know and okay maybe my so late is very different than your guys is so late but I just felt really guilty because I'm like okay now they're not gonna get the sleep they need and then now we're gonna pay for it the next day and they're gonna be really grumpy and then I'm gonna be really grumpy and that is exactly what happened. Yep and you think like oh I'm gonna let

them stay up and they'll sleep in.

They don't sleep in.

My kids don't.

It doesn't matter if they go to bed at like 8 or if they go to bed at like 1030 and they still wake up at the same time.

Seriously, sometimes earlier I'm like, how? This does not make sense.

It doesn't.

But you're a good mom.

You're a fun mom.

I was trying to be a fun mom and then the next day I lost my temper a lot.

Let them be in the moment.

Catching fireflies and watching fireworks.

Yes, yeah. You know, it's part of the childhood fun. Well, my name is Elizabeth. And the last time that I felt mom guilt was the other day. Sorry, I'm going to laugh through this. Kind of mean. But we have an above ground pool. And I was putting the ladder in. And my three year old came like running towards me right then. I lifted the ladder. I like smacked him in the head with it, which I felt so bad. He was deeply hurt. He looked at me like I just really not only hurt him, but hurt his heart. So we made up, but then he tells my mom the other day, first thing when he sees her, Mom hit me in the head with a bladder

and he would not stop talking about it. I'm like, oh my gosh, I traumatized. Oh my goodness. I had somebody from church that I had over and I didn't really know this person and I had my kids on the swings and like I have this problem that when somebody gets hurt, I laugh. Yes, horrible. My kids get so bad. So does my husband. But I was pushing them on the swings and like I forget exactly how it happened. But like I took out two kids in one accident like the kid on the swing like fell off the swing went and like hit my other kid that was in the bath and this woman from Jersey that was wearing a playdate was just laughing she's like I will never forget the first time I met you when you took out two other kids for the swing

it was the best ever because he just started laughing I'm like oh my word it is so bad

so like we just said this week we're actually talking about sex after having a baby. And all of the guilt that comes with that. I know, man. So we're going to get real kind of open honest here about our experiences so that you guys can feel like you're not alone.

Because this is something that is not talked about. I mean, you don't, you don't go to Bible study and like, we're going to talk about sex today

ladies.

Yeah, I just had a baby. And what was sex like for you? I mean maybe I think I did that to you probably.

You and I have.

We would go to Bible study.

I don't know if before we were friends, we looked like a friend where we would have that

open conversation.

So we're going to be your friends today, listener, that are going to talk about this.

I've asked Stephanie a lot of inappropriate questions over the years.

Sometimes in front of strangers, which isn't all that appreciated.

She hasn't forgiven me yet for that. Someday maybe.

Whenever you hear sex, I think there's some things that we just kind of want to share with you. Like, biblically, with a worldview, what are some of the foundations that we want to lay before we even go any further? Because people hear sex and they immediately will have assumptions, good or bad. What does that mean? We probably should have said this earlier. Mom, if you have little kids that are listening, maybe now's the time to like put in those earbuds. You probably would have guessed that with the title, but here's a warning possibly a little too late. If you're not quite ready to have the sex talk, turn this off.

Turn it off or put your earbuds in. And then they just don't hear it.

Yeah.

Just kind of some things that we want to start off on the episode of like, so sex is designed by God, right? This is not like a man-made thing. It's not something humans discovered. This is actually something that's designed by God. God created sex. Yeah, and we can see that in Genesis 2. Genesis 2, 24 and 25 says, therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh, aka have sex. And the man and his wife are both naked and they were not ashamed. Yeah. So sex doesn't surprise God. He's the designer of it. So any type of sex outside of marriage is outside of God's design. That's sin. We don't want to do that. So, listener, married relationship, one man, one woman. And then also we see God created sex both for reproduction, to have kids.

Be fruitful and multiply.

As well as pleasure. Yeah. Which I think sometimes the church doesn't really want to talk about because it's kind of awkward.

Yeah. And you, I mean, the song of songs, I mean, it's.

It is in the Bible.

It is. Yeah. I mean, you have part of church that says, no, it's just for reproducing. And then you even have culture that says, no, it's only for my pleasure.

And those two things isolated are not true. God actually has designed it both for reproduction and for pleasure, which strengthens the marriage.

Yeah. And a healthy sex life and marriage glorifies Him. It's all for His glory.

I think, like, you and I kind of growing up like our formative years were in like the purity culture like they kind of told you to wait for sex because it's just for reproduction and they didn't talk about the fact that it was pleasurable. Yeah. Which I think they did a terrible disservice because the instant you pretend like it's not pleasurable you're either going to make people feel guilty when they engage in sex with their husband and it's pleasurable, or you're gonna like constantly feel like, if I have sex with my husband, it's dirty. And it's not. This is God's design.

Yeah, absolutely. And I didn't grow up in the church, so I was told almost the polar opposite, that sex is, before marriage, you have to, you know, have sex before marriage. It's whatever you want.

So mom guilt, wife guilt, they bleed together. And I think, so you have a baby, which, I mean, you had sex because you had a baby, right? But then after you have a baby, you go through this traumatic experience, really. I mean, your body changes. You have a baby. It's possibly traumatic. If you had a C-section, you had major surgery, you've got stretch marks that you maybe didn't have before. Your boobs look totally different than they probably did before. You've got extra skin that you didn't have, you know before to this really I think it's really hard You're really learning to have sex again because it's gonna be very different. Yeah, it's almost like your marriage night Like I get that. Yeah, like each after I mean, I've had four kids and then every time it's like This is kind of like my wedding night again. I don't know. Is this gonna hurt? What is this gonna? Yeah, I don't know I'm in my body. Is he still going to find me attractive? Like I don't know.

It feels like that same anxiety and fear over and over and over again. And yet even no one talks about it.

No.

So then you feel so alone in it.

And I think like the only thing that you hear talked about is your doctor at like the discharge like like we're going to send you on your way. And oh, by the way, no sex for six weeks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm like, oh, okay.

Yeah, and I feel like it was drastically different, obviously, with my first, because I didn't know what to expect.

I didn't either.

I mean, what was kind of that like for you? I mean, between your first and your other pregnancies after you gave birth.

Are you asking like how it was like approaching that six weeks mark of having sex or how the discharge was from the hospital?

Sorry, I didn't phrase that right.

How was it sex after baby in comparison to your first and your other pregnancies? I think that's important. So if you are a mom that you're listening and you just had your first baby and you maybe like you're pregnant with your second, like it was different for me every time. And so just because it was how it was for my first was not how it was for my second, third and fourth. So I think that's something really important listener that if you've had it, it's probably not gonna be the same. Yeah. Each birth is different, your body responds to it differently. So for me, having my first, I tore in each of my deliveries, so I had stitches, so I was really scared, like how bad is this going to hurt? And actually with my first, it was very painful. In hindsight, I would go to the doctor, I'm like, this hurts way more than I think it should, and she's like, are you using lubricant? Are you doing all of these things? I'm like, yes, but this hurts so bad. It hurt to have sex all the way up until actually delivering my second baby and I tore again and then it didn't hurt anymore so I don't know if I was like stitched up poorly. Yeah I wonder if that was the Kate because that's not normal. No and I so I just kind of want to say that for you listener if you're experiencing that like that's actually not the norm and I didn't know that that wasn't the norm because nobody talked about it. And you try to tell your your OB. And she kind of blew me off. Yeah, sometimes they do. Yeah, so I mean some sex, like when you have sex, like the pain afterwards, like sometimes that's normal. But to what I was experiencing, it was like a stinging burn every single time. Like that actually wasn't. Yeah. So that was kind of my experience with the first.

That's so hard. It was really hard. It's really hard. I had stitches also with my first and almost tore all the way through and I remember when the OB was like no sex for six weeks I'm like that's it?

Can I pay you money to make it longer?

Don't say that in front of my husband. No, but you know that almost felt too soon because I was still in pain at that point like still recovering. I remember if I stood too long or sat too long, it hurt. But you're right, it was different for my other two, after my other two deliveries, sex was different. Like with my second, I actually, when the OB said, no sex for six weeks, I'm like, man, I wanna have sex earlier than that.

You horned dog.

I know, just terrible.

Because I didn't, first of all, I didn't tear, I didn't need stitches, I tore a little bit, but it was a different experience.

Yeah.

And it's crazy how drastically different it can be. But I've been on that side where it's so scary and having sex is like painful. And you're like, is it going to be like this forever? Please, God, don't let it be like this forever.

Yeah.

And honestly, I remember feeling hopeless. Yeah.

So kind of to back up just a little bit, do you remember, so like we talked about each one is different, but as you were nearing like that six week timeline, like as that six weeks was almost up, what was going through your mind?

Panic.

Yeah, for me too.

Yeah, like, like scared to put anything in there.

You know, I was supposed to baby. Yeah, I know that it's smaller than the head of a baby, but this is still very scary.

But then also still my hormones were crazy. I'm just trying to figure out how to be a mom and felt like I was just barely keeping my head above water with that, let alone how to be a wife again in that area. Yeah. So I felt panic, overwhelmed, anxiety. Sometimes leading up to the sex was worse than the actual sex because of the fear. Yeah. And you don't like, you know, it's so hard. Your husband obviously probably misses you and wants that and you want to make them happy. But then at the same time, it's just,

it's a whole new thing. Well, and then you add in, like, I had babies that didn't sleep and that six weeks, most babies aren't sleeping. You are completely sleep deprived. Yes. Like the last, you know, I love my husband, but I would have craved a nap over having sex in that point. And so being totally sleep deprived, but then also like I was trying to nurse. And so I was so scared, like what if my boobs start leaking milk

in the middle of this?

They do.

They do.

In case you're wondering, they do.

That hasn't happened to me.

And so like that peer to peer, oh my goodness, like those are no longer just for pleasure. They serve a very functional role to keep my child alive.

They like you look at them differently.

You do.

No longer like this fun thing that you can play with. They're like very important.

Yeah. It feeding your child and it changes kind of even how your body like my body felt more practical than it was like sexual.

Well, OK. Super honest moment here. Like all the other moments haven't been. But even like, so after nursing, you develop a little bit of like callousness, be from like your infant nursing. And so even like the sensations and feeling of when they're touched is not like is stimulating or like it feels different.

Yeah, absolutely. And then there's just the element of like, you feel like your body's not your own anymore. At least I felt that.

I literally like created this other being inside me that for so long, like you went from, okay, my body is mine and then you got married and you're like, okay, now it's mine and my husband's. And then it's like, okay, now it's mine and my husband's and the baby. And then now baby doesn't live inside me anymore, but my body still very much belongs in a way to my baby because I'm feeding him or her with it. It is so like, it's like pinball. Like, what do I actually feel like with my body?

Do I turn off maternal and then turn on, you know, my wife's mode? Yeah, exactly. Which is so, I struggled.

It's really hard. To turn that off. Like, okay, I just changed a poopy diaper. You got to give me a couple seconds to get back in the mood here.

Exactly, exactly. And then just my mind was everywhere else. So it was, it was hard. It was painfully hard. And I did not have anyone to talk about it with. We didn't know each other at that point when I had my first. We met shortly after and I wish I would have had this so much. It was a hard time. It

really was. And then like to also be fair like there are other pregnancies I was like a couple weeks before I'm like, hey honey only one week left. And I'm like you know almost like hyping this up again like it's a second wedding night. And there were times when it was amazing. Yeah. You know that first time after having a baby because you're able to like figure things out again and like you feel still a little bit more comfortable because they're your husband like you have this rust and like He loves me. I just had his child. Of course, there's some extra skin. There's some extra pounds There's all these different things, but now I'm not just his wife I'm the mother of his child which in talking to my husband Maybe your husband will say the same thing is incredibly sexy to them. Yeah, cuz it's like you just grew my child. I'm so much more attracted to you than I was before. But then on the wife's side, it's like, how are you attracted to me? I look the worst that I've ever felt I've looked. Yeah. But I think in that moment I can rest like this is a marriage. It's a marriage until one of us dies. Like he's not going to leave me because he doesn't think I'm sexy anymore. Like that's not the case. That's a lie that I'm believing. But just to have this security of we love each other. We're going to figure this out.

It's going to be okay.

Sex is so much more than just attraction and physical and we'll even talk about like the hormone levels of it of what's released like it's bonding. Which is why God created it only for marriage.

And I don't know if you felt this. I felt like this with my second like I almost the six weeks were coming and I was like I miss it. Like it was a totally different mindset. I'm like oh we get to have sex without a huge baby in between. You know, it's just the two of us. Exactly. And so my mindset was just so different. And it does depend on the type of labor and delivery that you have. So give yourself grace. Yes. And talk to your husband about that.

And that's one. Okay. So just to put that is such an important point for me. I think that was a very key difference between the first one because the first one I felt really embarrassed. I'm like I can't actually tell him that my boobs might leave. Yeah, but then he found out anyway, so that was really shy, but I thought I could keep that a secret, but then like so so we learned what not to do after the first time and the second one, like a couple of weeks before we started having conversations of like, hey, I'm really scared to be intimate with you again. I love you and I want this to happen, but these are my fears. These are my insecurities. And having those conversations ahead of time was so important because my husband was looking forward to it too, but he didn't really know how I was feeling. He hasn't been through it. He hasn't been, yeah. And so to have that honest conversation of like, hey, I'm feeling really insecure. Can we maybe like dim the lights? Or hey, it's really important, I've been told to have lubricant. I know maybe we haven't used that before, but now after baby, like things are different. So listener, if that's you, lubricant is actually a huge thing after having a baby. Yes, that's your friend that you may have never met.

You know, there are just different things

that's gonna change. And you just talk about that as husband and wife and figure it out and it's okay.

Yeah, and I know even I had to say like, can we go really slow?

Yes.

And if we had to say like at any point, if it's hurting too much, stop. Very similar to a wedding night.

Yeah. Really.

Yeah, that same kind of gentleness, tenderness, I need it again. And I think communicating my needs set my both me and my husband up for success, which you're right with the first. Not only did I not know that I needed to do that, I was too young, too insecure. And yet it only made our marriage stronger. So I agree. Talk, talk, talk. The more you talk in detail, the better is my opinion on that. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know, like, were you ever given any advice or input or anything from outside sources around this? I know it's not talked about.

I don't think I was. Honestly, for me, it was the doctor actually said, you're going to probably need lubricant.

Yeah.

And that was from a doctor.

Yeah.

And I was like, okay, thanks.

This is awkward.

See ya.

Yeah. They're like, okay.

Well, I feel like, I mean, you see social media, not, they don't, social media doesn't necessarily talk about sex after baby, but they talk about how, oh, like I got my baby weight off in this amount of time and I look like this.

Yeah, that expectation on moms, which I think wasn't there. I mean, it wasn't as in your face for my first as it is now. Like, I feel so bad for these moms that are having babies now with like TikTok and Instagram and all these different things. Like, I'm six weeks postpartum. I'm like, girl, I have never looked like that. Seriously. Even before kids. And so having this expectation that your body is going to be like rocking, you're going to have all this stuff like put together. That's not the experience for most moms, and that's OK.

Yeah. And that made me really insecure. How come these other moms, you know, like at six weeks look amazing and yet I don't. And that made me insecure to get dressed in front of my husband to have sex. And so I feel like it wasn't talked about. No positive advice was given. And actually just comparison. I struggled with comparison in it. And I thought I was the only one that it sucked for or not.

No.

Well, I know this now after I've made you uncomfortable for so many years asking about it. I didn't realize how long I would be in like diapers, like the pads that are so big, like

the super maternity pads.

Not the sexiest thing, you know, like, but you bleed for so long.

You do.

Yeah, you just feel like your body is like so foreign.

And it's actually interesting that you say that. To me, thinking through, this is our experience now. This isn't new, having babies. Like what was it like for generations previous to us? And even like going back to Bible times, what was it maybe like, you know, in the Bible times for women? And I think thinking through, okay, they would have bled probably for longer than we did because we have like modern medical advances and all of the medical care that we have that they didn't have access to. It's actually really interesting to me to think that like doctors tell us six weeks. And in the Bible, God actually gives a very similar rest time to women in the Bible, because in the Old Testament, there were these things called purity laws. And when a woman was bleeding, she was considered unclean.

Yeah.

And that isn't to say that God thinks women are dirty or that women are of lesser value. Like that is not at all what it's talking about.

No, it was just blood. Yes. I think in general, right, was unclean. Yeah.

Yeah. So, so actually in the Bible, you can read about in Leviticus 12 that talk about a woman being unclean for somewhere between like 40 and 80 days long, which actually like that many days is like almost six weeks to 12 weeks, which I find is so interesting. It's so crazy. That medical standards today have that in place.

Yeah, like we talk about dad's design for sex. He also has a design for sex after baby. Like he...

It is so crazy. Yeah. It's like he created the whole thing and had this all figured out.

It's like he knows how everything should work and what's good for us. That's a good point. I never thought of that. I mean, yeah, so then that would have given moms time to rest, bodies to heal before being intimate with their partner, and I think that helps with the guilt. If you're feeling guilty, like why can't I do it earlier? Or, you know, I feel so bad that my husband has to go so long, which I think we can sympathize by understanding this is part of God's design. As I feel like we kind of, we've talked a lot about our experiences. Do you have like any encouragement for moms that are going through this, who are going to go through it, or maybe just need some good advice from godly women?

Yeah, I mean I think we've kind of said it, so talk to your husband, right? If you can find a godly woman friend, this is not something we talk about with the opposite gender, even if they're a really good friend. This is a female to female conversation only. But to have somebody, if there's somebody in your life that you can trust with that, to just talk about your insecurities. I have had a couple of friends who had babies a couple years before me and got married a couple years before me. And so when I was heading up on my wedding night before I got married, I would come up and I'm like, hey, so you got any like tips and tricks for me? Like, I don't know. I've never done this thing before. Like, and then I did the same thing with, you know, having having a baby, not with my first, but with with later as I was able to do that. And so to give you that encouragement that if you can find a friend now, if if you can't, though, so if you're listening to this and you're like, I just had a baby, my six weeks is coming up. My husband's super excited. I'm not. I do not want to have sex. I am terrified. Yeah. I want to just give you some encouragement. And I think one of the things that this actually feels really weird, but pray, right? Like God created sex. We don't have to be scared or timid to pray to God to ask for a good sex life.

We don't have to be ashamed in it.

We don't. And I think, you know, so many times I've even gone like, I have said the prayer of like, God, I know my husband wants to be intimate. That is the last thing I want right now. Can you please soften my heart so that I have a desire and I want to.

Yeah. And I've prayed before, like, maybe this is TMI, but I've prayed like, God, please let this not hurt. Let it be fun. Let it be mutually beneficial. I've prayed for that.

Yeah.

So I think to pray and then like we said earlier, like talk to your husband about it so that way you're both on the same page. So it's huge. One thing I do want to just say very clearly, I have heard from the medical community and from like, I think, I don't know. I mean, I think it's well intentioned, but it's bad. They will tell people, well, if you're not in the mood, what's really important is that you like watch porn, or you read those like fiery super romance novels, which is essentially like porn, reading porn for women. And I think somehow like we can say like watching porn is bad, but in Christian culture even, there are these trashy romance novels where it's like being super explicit and Christians feel like that's fine. And I just kind of want to be some conviction here for you if that's you, listener, like that's not okay.

That's not part of God's design.

It's not.

No.

And so some people will recommend like, we'll just do that before you and that'll get you all fired up and ready to go. And I'm saying right now, don't do that. Yeah, danger. That will lead to death. That will not give you a path that you want to go. It will lead to death and destruction and to sorrow.

And I just don't think that fosters a healthy sex life.

No, you're letting somebody else in on your sex life. And the only person that should be let in is God. It's God and you and your husband.

Yeah, and typically in any kind of romance novels or even movies Those men aren't real. No and you you compare your husband to them Yeah, you're right. It just leads to sin which leads to death And so I'm glad you brought that up because sometimes no one's hurt Sometimes people never say that and you think well because nobody's talking about it. It must be okay Well now you've heard us talk about it. Okay. Yeah, there is still grace and you can turn It's not okay. Yeah. There is still grace and you can turn, you know, turn from that if you struggle with that, God will be there. The Holy Spirit will help you. Another thing, kind of like when we're on the topic, we're still talking about sex here. Sex does not just have to be penetration. Yeah. You know, just kind of the encouragement of that. You can have sex with your partner in other ways. So, you know, you can be a cheerleader, you can, you know, there's other options that you can do, maybe if you're not quite ready or having pain during sex.

Yeah, I think, I mean, you guys don't wanna do anything that's gonna create pain for the other person and this is a whole nother conversation that we're not gonna just talk about right here because that's a whole nother thing. But like, if I'm gonna be super, like using your hand, using your mouth are things that you can do, like you were saying, that's not like penetrating that might hurt you, but that can still foster relationship. And those things still should only be done in marriage. Yes, that is sex. And so, you know, doing those types of things, too, is a way that if we're really scared or if it is hurting, because like for me in my first it was and that wasn't always something I could do. Yeah, there are other ways that I could satisfy my husband than that. And that's okay. We're married.

It's fine. Yeah. And there's that desire like, I want to love my husband well, just like my husband wants to love me well. And there's times where I'm like, it's just too hard. And he's like, it's okay. No, like, let's give it time. It's a mutual love that wants to care for one another.

So I mean, you are the only one that can sexually satisfy your husband, right? So if it's beyond the sex weeks and the six weeks and he is saying, honey, I really just miss you on this bond. It's not like, you know, you as a wife could say, well, just go get it over there. Just go watch porn or do things like that. You're leading him into sin by doing that. And so there's this tension of us wanting to love our husbands. But then also we know that he loves us, too, and he's not going to want to do anything that's going to cause us pain or hurt. And so this is a way that we really can just show each other love and kindness and give each other grace.

And yeah, and a loving wife will recognize the need and a loving husband won't. We'll see the need for his. Yes, there's a good balance there. And so yeah, so just be creative in that, you know, and it doesn't have to look like traditional sex.

Yeah, and kind of on that topic, so there's a book that you and I actually stumbled across recently. Now, this is one that you're not going to want to leave like laying around. But this is a Christian book and it's actually called Married Sex. And it's by Gary Thomas and Deborah Faleta. And it was so good. So good. It is like something that I don't think the Christian church talks about a lot. But this book, like in a very tactful way, like this is not like a erotic point. Like this is very much like this is a biblical resource that we've actually given recommendations to like other Christian friends.

I've recommended it for like newlyweds.

Yeah, don't read it before you're married. No.

But like right after marriage, because I wish I would have read it.

Yeah, it like tells you, like these are different pleasure zones. And honestly, being married for 10 years, there was somewhere I'm like, I had no idea. How come I didn't know this like 12 years ago when I got married?

Yeah, and it talks not just about the physical, it talks about the emotional and it's just such a helpful tool. So Married Sex by Gary Thomas and Deborah Folletta. Yeah, so good. I'm glad you brought that up. I feel like one kind of last encouragement that I can think of is that, remember, you But you know, listener, that this is a season. Sex will not always be like this. Your boobs won't always leak. It won't always hurt. You know, your kids will be older. Your kids will sleep through the night. And maybe you're like me. I struggled right after I had baby that I was kind of hormonal and had some like postpartum rage where like, I remember looking at my husband and just hating him. That sounds so mean. I couldn't explain it. It was not rational. No. So I want to encourage you. It will not be like this forever. You will desire sex again. And so sometimes when you're in it, you feel like this is what it's going to be like forever. And I've cried about that. I've thought about that too. And it's not it hasn't been not to minimize how hard it is, but to

give you hope. Yeah. And big perspective. Sometimes when you're sleep deprived and the little things seem a lot bigger, but this is like our sex life is a big thing. Like this isn't a little thing. This is a big thing that is meant to like foster your relationship and to keep you close together. And God designed it that way. Yeah, exactly. And I want to bring it back to what you said too about prayer. Bring everything to God in prayer. And just even maybe that's with your spouse.

And God will use that and he will be faithful through it.

So yeah.

So I think listener as we close our time down here together, we kind of want to just leave you with this that after having a baby, your entire world has changed and shifted, right? Like your family dynamic has changed, your body has changed, your hormones have changed for sure. But in all of this change, we can actually feel anchored to our Father in heaven who never changes. And so in those moments when everything feels crazy, we can just cling to God and say, God, I know everything has changed, but you don't change and you're there for me. And so just to kind of help you listener, just to point you back to God, who is unchanging in those seasons where everything feels like it's changed has just been so important for my heart to just be drawn to worship, which actually I have found leads my heart and softens my heart towards my husband as well. So we don't want you to live your life unburdened from this guilt, knowing that God is your strength and he's unchanging and he is always there for you and we can trust and depend on him. Until next time, see ya, bye.

So listener, we really want to hear from you.

If you are struggling in areas of mom guilt,

we want to talk to you in the specific topics that you're maybe struggling with, and we would love to get an email from you letting us know what those are. So if you could please email us at momguiltpodcast at gmail.com or message us on any of our social media platforms that we're on. We would love to hear you and because our desire is to create content that's genuine conversations for us, but also that's really helpful to you as a listener. conversations for us, but also that's really helpful to you as a listener. So if you could email us, that would be great.