There are a lot of issues surrounding identity and motherhood that are hard to fathom. My new identity was the single hardest part of how motherhood changed my life. Picturing myself as a mother was easy, but acting like one was hard. The complete sacrifice of "me" time made me resentful. Getting my tired ass off the couch to refill the sippy cup yet again was mental agony at first. Then, partly through wearing me down like water torture, partly getting used to it, and partly learning to enjoy it, I redefined who I always pictured myself as: independent, impulsive, alternately loner and partier. All this I can live with.

Now I realize the hardest part, the part I still deal with after Isabella just turned four, is the loss of myself as a sexual person.

I'm too tired to have sex half the time. My first feeling is that it is another chore. This is not me. I used to love sex. Now I just want to lie there. Please don't wake me. But it's more than that. The reasons are numerous and complex and mostly sad. I still consider myself a sexual person, trapped inside a frazzled mommy.

There are a lot of reasons beyond fatigue that I believe made this happen: my body changed and is no longer in my control; I don't feel men perceive me as sexy anymore when I'm tooling around in my wagon with two kids, no shower and a ponytail; I'm angry at my husband; I'm afraid of getting pregnant again now that the idea of children is no longer romantic; I'm bored.

One of my favorite games I play in my head is "Imaginary Boyfriend." I play way more often than I care to admit. I have so little exposure to men aside from my husband now, and most of them are married. Even in my young slutty stage, I didn't mess with married men. So the few unattached ones I come across, the bagboys, the guys at the gym, the occasional male friend I run into from college, they become my Imaginary Boyfriends.

I imagine not just sex (but there is a lot of that); I imagine the verbal foreplay, the saucy banter, and sending them home afterwards so I can sleep alone. No snoring. The smell, the feel, the unknown of a different man is too erotic to think about too closely. It could drive me mad. I love my husband. I know many people out there understand I'm not running around lusting after youngins like Mrs. Robinson. I've never been unfaithful to my husband. I just miss the excitement and romance that seem to have slowly dried up while our kids have sucked us dry. I miss being desired.

Then I wonder, who will desire me? After two Caesareans, my belly lies next to me in bed like a warm kitty. My hair is becoming coarse from dying away the gray. I have cellulite in places I never dreamed possible, and my breasts are pointing at the floor at odd angles. Come and get it, hotties!

It's hard for me to separate my physical appearance from my self-perception of attractiveness. I doubt this separation is entirely possible, seeing we evolved as a species to be attracted to the prime specimens for breeding. I'm not at the place yet where I can tell myself, "You are attractive because you're smart and good at Trivial Pursuit." I'm still at the place where I get a rush when handsome men give me the appreciative once-over. With no one telling me I'm attractive, am I?

My husband and I have issues. Respecting his privacy and not wanting to whine, I won't go into detail, but I'm sure many parents of young kids can relate. When you're struggling to cohabitate, co-parent, and individually survive, the flame of desire gets pretty oxygen-starved. By the time the kids are in bed, we are so damned tired it's pathetic. Then there's the buzz kill talk that has to be done: reconciling the checkbook, making the shopping list, going over the calendar. For those of us with no family in town date night is an elusive mirage. Babysitters, when you can find a decent one, are expensive and in demand.

There's also the anger. I'm still not sure exactly where it all comes from, but I would never blame my husband for it all. True, I'd rather kill him than screw him when I'm picking up his dirty laundry off the floor for the millionth time, but it's me too. It's my anger at even being in this situation. This grueling, often thankless maid servant position I've somehow been tricked into. I want to dress inappropriately and dance drunkenly on bars, dammit! How did I end up wearing sweats five days in a row?

Then there's the issue of the "V" word. Having no health insurance and an agreed-upon opinion that we are done having kids, I thought my husband should get a vasectomy. You would have thought I offered to do it myself by his reaction. We have many friends who have had one with no complications, but my husband is a man who fought me over fixing the dog for six years. If I get pregnant with no health insurance, we can kiss our lives as we know it goodbye. My babies don't come out as they're supposed to, and cost my former insurance company about $40k each. Being a household of self-employed contractors, we don't even qualify for assistance. Every time we have sex with a condom I'm chanting "don't break don't break don't break" in the back of my head.

Several times I've been warned by older women with children grown: your kids go away to college, and you have nothing in common with your husband anymore. Were they talking about sex? Code speak for sorry, you feel like a sibling to me now? It's so hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's scary to think that one day the kids will be grown, but that day may find me and my husband on different paths without physical intimacy to cement our bond.

The saddest part is I miss sex. I miss it a lot. It's not that I don't feel like doing it anymore. Usually it's around late morning when my husband is at work and there are dishes to be done, so nothing comes of it. Sometimes I think I will dry up like some desiccated mummy from need. Maybe that's how the pharaohs were embalmed—they were celibate.

Sometimes I feel like a simmering time bomb about to go off. It's a scary, frustrating place to be. I'm too well-behaved to have an affair, too tired and mad to have sex with my husband, too bombarded by images of bagboys to forget about men entirely. I know something has to give, but right now feels like forever.

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