Baby-Making Sex Can Be ‘Some of the Worst Sex People Have’

Picture this: Your alarm goes off at 7:30 a.m. You walk the dog, shave your legs, doomscroll the headlines, and check your calendar: six meetings, an exercise class, and dinner with a friend. Somewhere in there, you still need to call your mom and return a package.

But also: Today may just be the crucial 12-to-24-hour window when you’re ovulating.

You and your partner have been trying to get pregnant for five months, and so far, no plus sign. You have to find some time today to fit it in (pun intended). It doesn’t matter how busy you are, what’s happening in the world, or whether you’re in the mood. The period tracker says “go.”

Trying to conceive involves a lot of very unsexy sex—especially for heterosexual, cisgender couples grappling with gender norms and expectations that can make this process particularly tough on the partner with a uterus.

And according to licensed psychologist and certified sex therapist Dr. Laurie Mintz, this phase is marked by less connection between partners, performance anxiety, and immense pressure. Baby-making sex, Mintz said, is “some of the worst sex people have.”

How pregnancy actually happens

Most of us were fed the fear (by our gym teacher, probably) that we’ll automatically get pregnant the first time we have unprotected penetrative vaginal sex. While this is possible, many people who want a baby don’t get pregnant that easily.

Couples where one partner has a uterus and the other has a penis may conceive by chance if they happen to have vaginal intercourse around the time of ovulation—that is, the brief window during the menstrual cycle when one of the ovaries releases an egg that may be fertilized by a sperm in the fallopian tube. (Roughly 42 percent of U.S. pregnancies are unplanned.) Rarely, pregnancies can happen when sperm ends up near the vagina without intercourse actually happening.

Pairings with people who don’t identify as cisgender or heterosexual may face additional barriers to getting pregnant. They may do intrauterine insemination (IUI), in vitro fertilization (IVF), use a surrogate, or choose to adopt or foster in order to build a family.

If you don’t get pregnant by chance, the next step likely requires intensive planning. Many conceive by tracking their cycles in apps or on old-school calendars and having vaginal penetrative sex when ovulation is predicted. In cis-het couples, this scheduling work typically falls on the woman, according to licensed marriage and family therapist and certified sexuality educator Dr. Lexx Brown-James.

“She’s the one doing the tracking, having to be so in tune with her body and there’s a fear that’s held—‘is my period coming?,’ a constant checking of ‘are my breasts sore?,’ and a persistent questioning of the body’s function,” Dr. Brown-James said.

Because sperm can live in the body for up to five days, the best chances of conceiving are the days leading up to ovulation. For many couples, this “fertile window” is when baby-making sex officially clocks in as a calendar event, complete with mental math on how many romps count as “optimal” before the buzzer.

While it can take couples many months to conceive successfully, most people who want to get pregnant do eventually get that positive test. Eighty percent of people with uteruses who are having vaginal intercourse regularly and aren’t using birth control will get pregnant within six months, data from the Cleveland Clinic shows.

But is that half a year of passion, connection, and intimacy for couples? Far from it.

IVF plans, unexpected twists

Zoya is a 36-year-old Bay Area native who runs her own business. (Zoya is not her real name; the people who invited Rewire News Group into their bedrooms, so to speak, spoke on condition of anonymity.) She married her husband, Scott, in 2022 after four years of dating. They decided they wanted to get pregnant soon after the wedding. It took ten months.

The couple first tried ovulation tracking. There were moments of silliness and levity during the first four months, Zoya said, but sex also “became a bit of a group project, which made [it] less intimate.”

As Dr. Mintz explained: “It doesn’t matter if it’s a good time or not; there is an urgency and demand associated with sex during this time. This does not make for the best playful, erotic sexual encounter.”

Zoya agreed.

“We wanted there to be romance and to feel relaxed but it’s hard to do that—it’s hard to shut your brain off,” she said.

(Read more: Here’s How To Keep Your Reproductive Health Data Safe)

After trying for four months to get pregnant without success, Zoya and Scott heeded a friend’s advice to pursue IVF. In a sense, they were lucky: Zoya’s health benefits made this option financially feasible—in the U.S., a single cycle of IVF can cost as much as $30,000.

But IVF isn’t a breeze. Zoya spent three months giving herself daily shots, dealing with bloating and hormonal shifts, and fearing going under general anesthesia for the egg retrieval process.

“Initially it was really scary—scary to do the injections,” Zoya said. “And then you get used to it. It was the first time I was sacrificing my body and my lifestyle, like drinking wine socially, for something bigger than me.”

Dr. Brown-James, who also went through IVF to conceive her third child, described the ordeal as “miserable.” The physical toll of the retrieval process, possible nerve damage from injections, and her experience on hormones was brutal.

“I couldn’t have gone through that process again,” Brown-James said.

Ultimately, Zoya and Scott didn’t have to undertake the entire IVF process. One month before they were planning to do the embryo transfer, Zoya realized it had been a while since she got her period. A pregnancy test came back positive. They now have an 11-month-old baby girl.

“All in all, I’m grateful we didn’t struggle with natural fertility issues,” Zoya said. “But it was still a slog to go through two cycles of egg retrievals.”

And the pregnancy process isn’t always smooth, even after a couple manages to conceive.

When joy turns to grief—and back again

The first month Aurora and her husband, Ben (not their real names), tried to conceive, they weren’t trying very hard.

“I had gone off of the pill and we stopped using condoms, but I wasn’t tracking anything in any meaningful way,” said Aurora, a 33-year-old journalist who lives in New York City.

Given that, both Aurora and Ben were surprised that they felt disappointed when Aurora got her period. This feeling was echoed by everyone interviewed for this story—from experts talking about their clients, to moms reflecting on their conception journeys. Couples are disappointed when conception doesn’t happen for them, even after only one month of trying.

So Aurora and Ben tried again in earnest that next month, and they got pregnant. For ten days, the couple dreamed, planned, and celebrated their future as a family. Then she felt her pregnancy symptoms cease.

“My boobs stopped being sore and I just knew I wasn’t pregnant anymore,” Aurora said. “I could feel it.”

Aurora’s OB-GYN confirmed the worst: The gestational sac was empty; the pregnancy wasn’t progressing.

“It was horrible.” Aurora said. “We only told family and a few close friends. There were days we would just lay in bed and cry together.”

Up to 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage every year. Still, Aurora felt like she failed in some way. Even though she knew it wasn’t logical, the question of “am I not fit to parent?” came into her mind.

(Read more: How Trump’s Big, Beautiful Bill Fails the Parents of Stillborn Babies)

Six months later, the couple started to try again. The second month of baby-making sex resulted in a viable pregnancy and a healthy baby girl.

Aurora and Ben wouldn’t do anything differently, they say. But their emotional and anxiety-inducing journey was not one they could have seen coming.

Most people don’t realize how much time, energy, and emotional labor goes into trying to conceive.

“It’s a lot,” Dr. Mintz said. “These are way less than ideal circumstances; sex should never be goal-oriented and the focus should be on pleasure and not orgasm.”

The orgasm gap

Prioritizing pleasure sounds nice, but it can feel impossible during baby-making sex. In a cis-het couple, it can unintentionally reinforce gender norms already seen in the orgasm gap: Because sperm is necessary for conception every time a sexual encounter happens, the woman’s climax can become gratuitous. (The orgasm gap, by the way, is less of a thing for lesbian couples, who are more likely to use toys and prioritize each other’s pleasure, and it’s even less of a thing for gay male couples).

It’s also challenging to focus on pleasure when you’re spending more money than you thought you would while trying to conceive.

“Not only are you spending money on doctors appointments and fertility tests, but you’re driving back and forth to appointments, taking time off of work, and buying pregnancy tests, ovulation tests, ” and other products, Dr. Brown-James said.

There are also countless products on the market to track cervical fluid and basal body temperature, which can cost hundreds of dollars.

And this is just within the first year of trying—the time period considered “normal” for couples under 40. The 15 percent of couples who don’t get pregnant within 12 months are categorized as “infertile.” What happens then?

“In monogamous, cisgendered, straight couples, oftentimes the woman is presumed to be the one with the problem since she is the one that isn’t getting pregnant,” Dr. Brown-James explained. “We assume something’s wrong with the woman’s ovulation or her body rather than testing the man’s sperm.”

Of the 15 percent of “infertile” couples in the United States who have trouble conceiving, over half of the time, there is a male infertility issue, data from Yale Medicine shows.

This pressure for both people in the couple can take a toll, causing stress and overwhelm. It can feel isolating and very lonely.

It’s no wonder why trying to conceive is a challenging time for so many couples. Sex—typically considered to be an activity done for pleasure—can become filled with urgency and stress.

Baby-making in queer couples

This process looked different for Jess, a 43-year old queer femme, and her partner, Val. Together, the couple—who like others requested pseudonyms to share their story—have a 10-year-old child and a blended family.

The couple didn’t feel a lot of pressure around the sex they were having while trying to conceive.

“If anything it made us feel more connected because it felt sacred,” Jess said.

They used the Tantus POP Squirting Dildo which mimics ejaculation. “It felt novel and really different,” Jess explained. “We were having sex three mornings in a row before going into work while our friend was coming from across town to give us his semen. It was very different from most people’s experiences.”

But it wasn’t all fun for Jess, either. The first time she got pregnant, she miscarried. The couple tried again (using the same dildo) two cycles later and got pregnant with their child.

She remembers having some of the best sex she ever had during pregnancy

“I felt very in my body and in my purpose,” Jess said.

Couples who aren’t feeling such connection and pleasure during this potentially wild chapter of life should talk about it, Dr. Mintz said.

“They need to ask, ‘How is this impacting our sex life?’ They can get closer by acknowledging this is pressured, [and] asking, ‘How can we do things differently?’”

For couples in the throes of baby-making sex, Dr. Mintz advised slowing down, taking your time, incorporating sex toys, and remembering that your connection with your partner is worth investing in.

You’re “doing this for the big picture of having a baby,” she said. Even so, “sex can be playful.”

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