Infertility Can Affect Your Sex Life (and Water is Wet)
by Lollipop Goldstein
Nicole Smith, a researcher out of Indiana University, conducted a study that found — wait for it… — that infertility can affect your sex life.  It’s being reported as something along the lines of IVF can kill your libido and ruin your relationship, but the actual study seems to focus on the reason you’d be doing IVF (eg. infertility) vs. the procedure itself.
Now I know your jaw probably dropped open because this.did.not.occur.to.you.  Life crises often make us horny, and stressful situations such as cancer, unemployment, or the death of a loved one drive us to want CONSTANT sex.
Wait.
I may have messed that up.
Forgive me if I feel a bit sarcastic reading about this study and the subsequent headlines.  It seems like common sense to me; something that doesn’t need studying per se unless the result will be that people will stop saying things such as “well, at least you get to have a lot of sex!” when you tell them that you’re experiencing infertility.
The university reports,
Compared to a sample of healthy women, women undergoing IVF reported significantly less sexual desire, interest in sexual activity and satisfaction with their sexual relationship. They had more difficulty with orgasm and were more likely to report sexual problems such as vaginal pain and dryness. Similar to emotional and relationship challenges associated with assisted reproductive technologies, the sexual problems intensified as a couple’s use of ART proceeded.
I agree with the researchers that people should discuss their sexuality with their doctor since there are sometimes solutions to symptoms.  But the reality is that infertility is a life crisis, one that happens to be tied to sex.  If someone told you that their sex life was decimated due to cancer or unemployment or the death of a loved one, we would tell them that their libido will hopefully return when they are not in crisis.  We would not expect their relationship to look exactly as it looks when there isn’t a crisis on hand.  So I wonder if the good intentions of this study (and I believe there are good intentions here) creates even more pressure to treat a symptom (lack of libido) even as you’re not in control of the underlying cause (infertility).  And that, in turn, creates more stress and more frustration in regards to a person’s sexuality.  In other words, is this helpful or would it be better if we all just admitted that sex may not be an enjoyable experience during this particular life crisis for many people and we shouldn’t stress about fixing it while we in the middle of the storm.
I’d also want to see a study that looks at a sample of women who learned about their infertility after trying to conceive for a year vs. people who go into IVF knowing full well that they will need to use some form of assistance in order to conceive.  I have heard