On Our 19th Anniversary I Saved My Husband From Having to Look at My Holes

“Stop jostling me. Why are you jostling me so much?”

“No, that sucking isn’t right. Try this instead.”

“I haven’t showered in a week, but if you’re really that motivated, we have some Febreze somewhere…”

We had an especially unromantic anniversary this year. The kids were with us, it was a school night, there’s this whole pandemic thing still happening, oh, AND I have a loud machine constantly suckling at the teat wound I’ve had festering for SIX WEEKS.

We’ve tried the intercourses a few times during this long healing process, but it’s kind of like a combination of pregnancy sex and postpartum sex when there’s an infant nearby. Romance is challenging when one of your body’s is in a weird place, or an alarm might sound. The wound vac alarms for reasons that aren’t unlike an infant’s, actually: it’s empty, it’s full, you ignored it for too long, or when you tripped on it, you yelled and it got scared…things like that.

It’s not just the lack of sexin’ that’s stressing us as a couple this year. Since our last anniversary, we lost and gained some jobs, sold a business, moved cross-country, virtual schooled and then got the kids started in a new school, and THEN I had a breast reduction that’s refused to heal for almost two months. It’s left me couch-bound…