<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" HAVING A BABY Trina Tschappat, 28, stay-at-home mom and part-time UPS worker Troy Tschappat, 30, electrician  Westport, SD TRINA: When Troy and I first got married, I thought we should be having sex nonstop. But Troy is one of those rare men who doesn&amp;#039;t need sex all the time, and it used to spark a lot of fights between us. Then I got pregnant with our son, Brendan. I thought I&amp;#039;d still want to have lots of sex, but I was so tired that I wasn&amp;#039;t up for it physically. A month before I gave birth, we&amp;#039;d stopped having sex altogether because it just got too awkward. We finally had sex again seven weeks after Brendan was born. I was worried that I was fat and ugly and that Troy wouldn&amp;#039;t want me anymore. But Troy was so gentle and sweet and didn&amp;#039;t care that my body was different \u2014 he told me I looked beautiful.  Once we got back in the groove, it felt like we were newlyweds again. Sexually, we could finally do all the things that we couldn&amp;#039;t do when I was pregnant. We also have this extra bond because we share this wonderful child. Our sex drives got more in sync too \u2014 we both want it two or three times a week. I think Troy&amp;#039;s desire has increased because of how much closer we are emotionally. And each day that I see Troy grow as a father, I just want him more and more. We do need to be a little more strategic now. Like recently, Troy came inside after mowing the lawn and said, &amp;quot;You know, I was thinking...,&amp;quot;and I knew right then what he wanted. We hurried upstairs and had sex while Brendan was napping \u2014 just an hour before I had to go to work.  HIS VASECTOMY Tenna Perry, 47, dog breeder and groomer Dave Perry, 47, scheduler in an electric plant  Browns, IL TENNA: Pregnancy has never been easy for me. With each of my three kids, I had to go on bed rest. I&amp;#039;ve actually gotten pregnant twice while on the Pill \u2014 both of those pregnancies ended in miscarriage. So during sex, I always worried about getting pregnant again. When I was pregnant with Will, our youngest, I thought about getting my tubes tied, but Dave suggested that he get a vasectomy instead. He said if anyone was going to be in pain, he wanted it to be him. Dave&amp;#039;s choice was such a powerful statement of love in my eyes. As for how it changed our sex life? Simple \u2014 it made us able to enjoy sex any time, any place, without worry. And the fact that Dave volunteered for it was a turn-on too. We&amp;#039;ve been married for more than 20 years and we still enjoy each other sexually, and never hesitate to show it. My oldest says, &amp;quot;Ugh! Get a room!&amp;quot; A DISHWASHER Thembisa Mshaka, 36, copy director, author, and voice-over actor Anthony Tmor Morris, 36, real estate broker Brooklyn, NY THEMBISA: Four years ago, my husband and I were on the brink of divorce. Today, we are beyond happy and can&amp;#039;t keep our hands off each other. And we owe it all to our state-of-the-art Bosch dishwasher.  Doing the dishes used to be a major source of conflict. Because Tmor is a food snob, he does all the cooking and won&amp;#039;t allow me to help. While I&amp;#039;ve always enjoyed his signature gumbo, his intricate salads, his chicken-and-pineapple surprise, I didn&amp;#039;t enjoy how he&amp;#039;d dirty every pot, bowl, and measuring cup we owned, then invoke the &amp;quot;cooks don&amp;#039;t clean&amp;quot; rule. I hate washing dishes. It takes me back to my childhood, when I was the one who had to clean up after my siblings.  So I&amp;#039;d beg \u2014 literally cry \u2014 for compromise. We&amp;#039;d agree to split the dishes, but after about two nights, he&amp;#039;d silently shirk dish duty or flat-out refuse to participate. We&amp;#039;d have these terrible fights about dishes that bled into other areas of our relationship \u2014 including our sex life. Sex had never been great for Tmor and me. When we met, I was inexperienced and he&amp;#039;d had many girlfriends. I was constantly playing catch-up and he was frustrated. The nightly battle over the dishes made our shaky sexual chemistry nonexistent. Things came to a head when we moved from California to New York. We had a three-week standoff where neither of us washed a single dish. Our kitchen was disgusting, and we ended up having to throw away most of our kitchenware.  After we calmed down, we entered couples therapy. I became more sexually confident; he became more understanding. And when we bought our new home, we decided to splurge on a dishwasher. For months, Tmor pored over magazines and scoured the Internet to find the perfect machine \u2014 one that was powerful, quiet, and big enough to wash the pots in one load. My very frugal husband could have bought a basic dishwasher just to shut me up. But he wanted a top-of-the-line model so I wouldn&amp;#039;t have to scrub a single pan ever again. I found that very, very sexy.  This month, we&amp;#039;ll be celebrating our 11th wedding anniversary. Tmor brings me flowers, we load the dishwasher together, and we have fantastic sex at least three times a week. By removing dishes from the equation, we were able to remember what we liked about each other in the first place. A HEALTH CRISIS Wendy Allen, 55, clinical psychotherapist and business coach Jeff Allen, 56, real estate developer  Santa Barbara, CA WENDY: I used to be a competitive horse jumper; five years ago I had a serious accident. My leg was broken in multiple places, and I developed a painful nerve disorder in my foot. I was practically helpless \u2014 Jeff had to help me on and off the toilet and bathe me.  During my first year of recovery, I couldn&amp;#039;t have sex in the conventional ways, but it was really important to both of us that we recapture our sexual relationship, even though I was fragile and in pain. So four months after the accident, I initiated kissing and foreplay. It took us another few months before we were able to have intercourse. We had to work to find a position that would accommodate my injuries, and it was brief and far from romantic, but we were so happy just to be having sex that we considered it a victory. Our sex life kept getting better; we felt like a team exploring all the new ways we could be sensual with each other. Instead of sizzling, vigorous sex, our lovemaking was slow and tender.  Now that I&amp;#039;m doing better, we are still enjoying so much tenderness \u2014 in addition to exciting, creative sex. After everything we&amp;#039;ve been through, our love feels all the more precious. And we&amp;#039;ll never take good sex for granted.  PILATES Rebecca Roemisch, 32, publicist and innkeeper Rory Roemisch, 31, financial software consultant  Austin, TX REBECCA: Rory and I have been together 10 years and married for two. We were always pretty active sexually, but now that we both do Pilates, our sex life has reached a new level.  Rory is certified to teach Pilates and he got me into it three years ago. Pilates gave me more flexibility and better control of my breathing. My sexual sensations are heightened, I have more endurance, and I&amp;#039;m not self-conscious about my body \u2014 my mind isn&amp;#039;t focused on hiding my thighs under the sheets. Being more in tune with our bodies has helped us connect sexually. Now, we can fuse together with minuscule movements. We can push and pull and rotate our bodies for different sensations.  The heightened physical connection has also brought us closer emotionally. We are able to talk about what we like and don&amp;#039;t like in bed, and we&amp;#039;re more affectionate in general too. We truly feel like soul mates. A CALENDAR Lauren Mayer, 49, songwriter and music teacher Scott Grinthal, 42, singer and church administrator San Mateo, CA LAUREN: When Scott and I first became a couple six years ago, we had a lot of sex \u2014 around three times per week. It was easy because my kids were 7 and 4, so Scott and I had plenty of time for sex after they went to bed. But as the kids got older, they stayed up later, often until 11 p.m. Scott and I get up each morning by 6, so we couldn&amp;#039;t wait until after the kids were asleep anymore. And even though they&amp;#039;re often at their father&amp;#039;s for the weekend (Scott is my second husband), Scott and I frequently have music gigs on weekend nights. It became rare for us to find a time when we were both awake and in the mood. Our bedroom time slowed to once per week. We both felt physically frustrated.  We consulted our couples counselor, and she suggested we use a calendar to plan specific times for sex. We&amp;#039;ve always been open to anything that might make our relationship stronger, so we started having meetings where we penciled in appointments \u2014 usually twice per week \u2014 then committed to sticking to that schedule. Even if we&amp;#039;re tired or not in the mood, we&amp;#039;ve found that if we just go through the motions, we usually get into it. Sometimes we designate &amp;quot;my night&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;his night&amp;quot; when the &amp;quot;guest of honor&amp;quot; just relaxes while the other partner does all the work. The calendar makes me closer to Scott, and we feel like more of a team because we&amp;#039;re working together to stay sexually connected \u2014 neither of us is solely responsible for making sex happen. The more we plan on sex, the more we do it \u2014 and the more we want to do it! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/sex/advice/a2753/improve-sex-life/>