Off the Wagon: How much sex can we not have in a year?

Really. Think about it. Since bearing a child to term would take about nine months and add a few more months for the recovery period, any woman who's pregnant and told to stay off intercouse would be faced with the sad fact that she'd have to abstain for at least a year.

Such is my sad lot in life when the doc told me that since my placenta is low, having intercourse may end up aggravating the low-lying sac. And jeopardize carrying the baby to full term.

My poor husband. Time to work those biceps, or is it those wrist muscles? Looks like he'll have to be entertained by the hot chicks at Digital Playground. As for me, my hormones are making do with extremely graphic dreams of the horizontal tango kind. Most of the time, Rizal will play a starring role, at others, I get to fulfill my fantasy of bonking total strangers or reknowned leading men.

Other than that, the baby's organs are all in order but the doc tut-tutted at my lack of weight gain. He did a good job of scaring me into eating more to boost up the baby's size in case I needed an early delivery. "By week 34, if the placenta is still lying low, we'll need to decide if we're going in for a C-section." On the other hand, hopefully, if the baby grows big enough with the amount I'm chuffing my face into and the uterus expands enough, the placenta will "move" along with the expansion and not lie so low. Does that make sense?

Whatever. I'm not about to lower my chances of a quick and less painful recovery. And of giving up the chance of putting my husband through the hell of going through labour and childbirth with me. No can-do. If I'm going to have a kid, we're going the whole hog: pain and curses, sweat and tears, pinched fingers and possibly dislocated shoulders or arms.

My main mission now is to eat and eat some more. No matter that I really am kinda running out of clothes to wear and ideas to toss around for work mix-and-match but still am too stubborn to don a tent (what else can you call those maternity dresses that threaten to balloon up over your girdle and maternity bra if you step over an underground air vent?).

Other than that, I am also actively trying to visualise my placenta lying somewhere not too low in my uterus. Hey, a bit of positive visualisation never hurt, right? If all else fails, I could SOS a friend for her midwife who managed to urut her baby and what else into better position.

I am determined to go through childbirth. With the epidural, of course.