Pregnant with desire by Kate

There will be no pornography in this post, but the fact I just wrote the word should at least garner our blog a few hundred more hits than usual. That and the word sex, which will be repeated several times in the course of the piece. Look away now if a) the combination of intercourse and pregnancy upsets you and b) if a few intimate-ish details about other people's carnality tends to give you indigestion. The brave, the curious and the prurient, read on!

Sex during pregnancy is generally encouraged by the experts - unless you're very miscarriage-prone (in which case, the advice is to leave off for the first few critical months), they see no reason why the hanky-panky shouldn't continue unabated. That's not to say the couple concerned doesn't have issues with the whole area of How's Your Father, of course. Morning sickness, over-tender boobs and exhaustion can all contribute to a low mojo in the recently impregnated woman. Meanwhile, men can find the concept of "something else up there" a bit of a performance-dampener and as the foetus gets bigger, there are concerns about accidentally squishing the future offspring in-utero in the throes of passion. Then there are the women who feel like big lumps of unattractively wobbling flesh as pregnancy enters its later stages and the men who involuntarily envisage the Fat Slags in Viz and can't help making unflattering and enshrinkening comparisons with their expectant partners.

I'm pleased to report that none of the above problems have affected Theo and me. In fact, the only thing that's prevented the frequency of our sex life being as high as previously has been late night fatigue, morning medical appointments and early Spanish lessons. If anything, pregnancy has enhanced the quality of our carnal relations, despite the necessary diminuendo in acrobatics and the restriction of positions for bump-avoidance reasons. I don't know whether it's the pregnancy hormones, the yoga (which includes a move aimed at "freeing and encouraging the flow of sexual energy") or simple practice, but achieving climax certainly seems to have become more effortless in recent months, which has got to be a bonus. Not that things in that department were ever bad, I hasten to add, but considerably more time and energy was required to get there previously and I'm only human.

I think we're also aware that the days of our - relatively - unfettered and spontaneous sex-life are now severely numbered, so here's to matrimonial bliss and tranquility while it lasts. Not to mention the rumpy pumpy.