Giving birth turned me off

The birth of my daughter was the most spiritually uplifting event I have ever witnessed. Apart from peeling an onion or seeing your team relegated from the Premiership, nothing is guaranteed to bring a tear from even the most hardened macho cynic than the birth of a child. Over the years, it has become increasingly voguish for men to be present in the delivery room, but for all the awe and magic of childbirth, the sight of a sweating, hyperventilating, haemorrhaging woman, in the midst of thrusting 10lbs of living, breathing tissue through her body, non-stop for eight hours, can have a lasting effect on your libido.

Before the birth of my daughter five years ago my (ex-) partner and I had enjoyed a healthy love life. I'd previously heard stories of men who could no longer get aroused after witnessing the blood and gore of the delivery room, but as a healthy young man these tales of stage fright didn't put me off.

I thought such talk was men being men - over egging the pudding as usual. When my turn came to play Big Daddy and step into the delivery room I had a great time. There was no verbal abuse aimed at me, no scratching and snarling nor the customary apportioning of blame, which I had been told to expect because the pain of labour was of course, "all your fault".

I tried to be supportive but was eclipsed by my partner's best friend and mother. I made some token attempts at synchronised breathing, but as we had bailed out of pre-natal classes after one session (we thought we were "naturals") I wasn't much cop at holding hands and patting mama's furrowed brow. So, as the womenfolk did their thing at the head of the bed, I spent much of the labour inquisitively eyeing the midwife while she beavered away downstream. Big mistake.

Hindsight has since taught me that perhaps I should've stayed upstream instead of spending several hours ogling my partner's crotch. "I can see the head," I exclaimed with childlike glee at the first sign of life. This truly was a revelation. As the grey fleshy membrane of my daughter's scalp grew bigger and bigger I could feel my emotions working their way to a crescendo.

The midwife teased and fingered her way around until the head appeared in full. "Oh my God!" I exclaimed. My eyes still well-up thinking of that first sight of baby, with her blue-grey almost lifeless head, eyes closed and pouting purple lips. I took a massive gulp as the midwife appeared to wrench baby by the head - once, twice, BINGO! Out she came in a flood of sanguine fluid and mucous. "Oh! It's a girl!" I yelped, fighting back tears. I wanted to fall apart and cry with joy and relief at seeing my little girl slip-slide into the world, healthy, breathing, big and bouncy, but I composed myself because that's what real men do.

After the birth, I would spend night after night peering over the little one for hours as she slept in our bed, obsessing about her health, marvelling at this new life. The climax of childbirth far outweighed any sexual climax I had ever experienced with the mother of my daughter, and this shock of the new added to a long list of fissures that had appeared in our relationship not over months, but right from the start.

I'm somewhat ashamed to admit it but in the months following the birth, I no longer found my girlfriend as attractive as I once had. That's not to say I didn't love her. But the casual mauling first thing in the morning, the groping at the kitchen sink, the spark had all but gone. And it wasn't a physical thing, per se.

To the envy of many of her friends she managed to maintain not only a sense of style but also her ectomorphic figure. She was fortunate in that she had been blessed with a genetically waiflike body so there was no need for postpregnancy crash diets. On the outside she was still much the same person, still chic, still attractive despite the diminished attention to hair and make-up.

But on the inside she had made a seismic shift in personality. She was increasingly contemptuous toward me and unwilling to compromise, even over the slightest issue. I was made to feel as though my role in the relationship had been purely to service her desire to have a child.

Now the mission was accomplished, I was expendable. In the best traditions of the Madonnawhore paradigm, she had gone from sex kitten to Mary Mother of Jesus overnight. Suddenly she became surly and bossy. My partner now reminded me of my mother.

I didn't feel, like many men do after the birth of a child, alienated or rejected. I was quite content to stand on the sidelines looking in as my girlfriend's friends and family swooned round her, ignoring me. Having a daughter gave me added drive and ambition, an even greater reason for living than my own selfish motivations. However, I felt pressured to spend more time at home, be at the dinner table on time and not work at weekends.

"Everything would be all right if you just gave me more attention," was a line often repeated to me by my ex. She had a point. But I just didn't feel I had the energy or the financial resources to give my all to her and baby simultaneously. When we were childless trendies we had time to indulge each other. We went out, we partied and we had a sex life. But then came baby and all that changed. New agendas had been set.

After just over five years together, when our daughter was barely a year-and-a-half old, our relationship finally buckled after a spectacular argument, full of blaming, name-calling tripe. We both wanted to have a child together (the conception was no mistake) and despite the glitches and petty gripes between us we thought with Hollywood naivety that a baby would bring us together. It didn't.

It's now been three-and-a-half years since we split and for the past year I've been in a relationship with a thirtysomething career woman. Recently, talk has turned to the inevitable: living together, mortgages and babies. As a result a small cloud lurks over our relationship as I've said I don't want any more children.

She's childless and while not in a hurry to conceive she hasn't ruled out the possibility of having children, with me. We enjoy a very close relationship and I'm flattered that she wants to get into my genes, but the fallout of my earlier relationship has made me once bitten, twice shy. I can't help but fear the same thing could happen to me again.

Looking for a Fight by David Matthews is published by Headline (£7.99)