'We focused so hard on getting pregnant, we forgot how to have sex.'

When you are in your mid-20s and newly married, that honeymoon bliss bubble - sipping cocktails by the pool and planning your life with your new hubby - means that, of course, the "When should we start trying for a baby?" conversation is ramping up.

You've barely left the reception when you have parents, family, and friends asking when you'll be growing your little tribe, and to be honest, you are excited. You've ticked the wedding box and you feel like you are ready.

You say, "Let's try without trying" or, you work out how many social events you have in the following 12 months during which you won't be able to knock back a prosecco or five. Because of course, as soon as you 'decide' you are ready to fall pregnant, you will. It's science.

Watch: Sexologist Chantelle Otten shares the best sex tips for couples. Post continues below.

But Coach Carr from Mean Girls was wrong: If you have sex, you won't fall pregnant and die. 

In fact, you have sex so much and you aren't pregnant - but you do think you will die of exhaustion. 

You start to wonder what's happening. You download pregnancy apps and buy ovulation kits. The excitement of trying very quickly (and without you realising) turns into more of a scheduling situation - and the panic starts to set in.

Six months go by and every month you think it's 'the month'. You should have bought shares in Clear Blue. But you never see those two lines.

Fast-forward 18 months, thousands of dollars, blood tests, sperm tests, probing and SO many things inside your vagina that are not a penis and here you are, waiting to go in for an egg retrieval while your husband is a few doors down giving his sample to finally (and hopefully) make your baby. 

IVF is not what you had in mind, and what's even more confusing is you don't actually know why you aren't able to fall pregnant - you are simply infertility un-explained.

Your husband fist pumps as he comes out two minutes after he's walked in to give his deposit. He looks equally impressed and relieved that he nailed the one job he had. 

His smirk makes you love him a little more.

Four rounds later, you get the good news: you are pregnant. You did it. You bloody did it! You'd welcome your daughter into the world nine months later and the parent season of life would finally start. 

It is absolute chaotic bliss.

Very quickly the conversation creeps back in: "When should we start trying for a sibling? Should we try now because it could take a while again? Do we even go back on contraception?" You don't.

There isn't really time to enjoy your sex life again. You don't have any frozen embryos left, so you think, let's just rip the band-aid off and go again. Very quickly you are back to scheduling. 

Your husband is abstaining from his usual "alone time" so you can give yourselves the best chance. You're taking all the vitamins, pre-natal, getting acupuncture, and stopping alcohol. He also tries fertility supplements to get his swimmers in order. 

And the love is there - but the spark is gone. You want to enjoy it, but you both have one thing on your minds - will this month be the month? Please, let it be the f**king month.

Alas, 18 months later it's groundhog day and you're back, waiting for another egg retrieval. Your husband's job is done and you're wheeled away, waking up to the good news that you should confidently have more than one embryo to transfer.

You get eight - EIGHT! A total relief. You know so many who aren't as lucky.

And now, at last, you're pregnant for the second time - well on the road to that previously all-consuming goal - and you hope to make sex... fun again.

So how does one admit to the other that you have lost your way in the bedroom?

For me, it was subtle: a few comments about what a relief it is that family planning is no longer taking priority over pleasure. How great we aren't on a schedule. We can do it what we want, where we want. 

I tell him how my pregnancy hormones are raging and I want him. ALL. THE. TIME. 

But then I realised that my husband had lost his ability to read cues... and I had forgotten how to give them. My ovulation window was his permission, and now that's gone, he doesn't know how to ask without literally asking. 

When I ask why he doesn't make more moves, he says he doesn't ever want me to feel pressure to have sex - is that modern-day chivalry?

I know that if we are going to get back to the pre-marriage sex-raged people we used to be, I'm going to have to take charge. We fumble, we try different things. A few tongue-in-cheek comments as we are getting our daughter ready for bed, passionate kisses, sending nudes (nudes, lol) - and A LOT of oral sex. 

We're like two teenagers awkwardly discovering sex for the first time and I can't help but laugh. We have been through so much together, mentally, physically and emotionally. Something that, in so many ways, brought us closer together also put an awkward wedge between us.

The great thing is, we have the love and we have the time. 

We just need to stay the course.

* The author of this story is known to Mamamia but has chosen to remain anonymous for privacy reasons. 

Feature Image: Getty.