Once Upon a Time... A Blogger's Beginning

Do you find yourself wandering the streets of blogland and not knowing where to start? If all of this is foreign to you, yet you happen upon my blog, then I would like to share my story.

Once upon a time, I googled "Pregnancy Envy". It led me to my first infertility blog. The blog had already been abandoned, but I read the whole bloomin' thing. It was so funny and smart. I wished I could have had an ounce of her talent. I thought how great this person was at capturing my attention, making me laugh out loud, cry with her while sad and overly joyus while happy. It felt a bit wrong that I wasn't invited to read such intimate details of her life. But, it helped me learn more about what I was about to go through in my own. I watched as her blog progressed 1, 2, 5, 10 blogs in and she had all of these commenters! "How did she do that! Where did all of these people come from?" I wondered.

I'll never forget how I laughed out loud when I boldly decided to read other blogs on her blogroll and then subsequently found the title of "Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters". I thought someone had a very funny sense of humor in regards to the whole infertility thing. Dare I click on it? Clicking on someone else's blog still seemed like a bit of an invasion of privacy. Instead I clicked the blogs of others, searching for someone who would be like me. Lost. I found new ones to read, but do I leave a comment? No, certainly not - they don't know me!

I decided to go ahead and blog about my situation if nothing else than to provide myself a way of documenting the story. Eventually I reached out to Mel's Stirrup Queens site and this was my baby step into joining this community. And I am so glad I did. Thanks to Mel, I have found a home.

If this is where you find yourself in your journey, let me take a moment to share just how wonderful participating in this community can be. After submitting my blog name to the wonderful Mel - THE Stirrup Queen - Lollipop Goldstein, I just hoped that maybe one or two other people would find me and leave a comment or two.

I never anticipated what would start out as just receiving and returning comments would eventually turn in to wonderful friendships. I love my blogger friends.

I have a beautiful blogger friend who contacted me no less than 8 times with various emails and comments during a tough weekend to check on me to make sure I wasn't a mess! She's super supportive, sweet and kind. She pledges to always be there for me. It never fails when I try to comment on someone and I have a hard time thinking of what to say, sure enough she will have already been there with far better words than I, but it inspires me to do better.

I have another one whom I think about almost everyday because we typically are on the exact same cycle, so her good days are my good days and as it always seems to turn out, my bad days are her bad days. Each cycle starts with the hopes, the dreams and then all the unfortunate stuff in between until the new cycle begins. The bad days suck but I think about her and I'll say a little prayer that her bad day is better than mine.

I have another blogger friend whom I love for many reasons but what drew us together was our common birthday. But it's crazy how much more we have in common. (If ONLY I could steal her cooking/baking/knitting abilities!) Get this, she even has freckles just like me! One day we plan on getting together for a happy hour, however the plan is that we'll stick to sprite meanwhile the guys drink up because we'll be pregnant. Alcohol or no alcohol any chance I have to meet with her will most definitely be a happy hour.

Then I have a BBF, (Best Blogger Friend!) whom I couldn't live without. She actually marks the beginning of my infertility journey as my very first commenter of the wonderful world of the internets. With motherhood as a common goal, we have bonded and shared the heartache of the unfulfilled goal. We could probably write a book with simply the email correspondence alone. I have never in all my life met someone who cares about so much of the little things in my life. She picks up on things that most people would have never have commented on, and that makes me feel pretty darn good.

Although there are many others, the last one I'll speak to is truly a breath of fresh air. Infertility has brought such depression into my life that it seemed impossible to overcome. One of my blogger friends not only makes me laugh with her amazing sense of humor but, has even made me cry with her thoughfulness. Here is an example of what I'm talking about. Yeah, I know it rocks!

This is merely scratching the surface.

If you are fairly new to the world of infertility or blogging in this community and you find yourself lost and feeling alone, come on in. Pull up a chair, strike up a conversation. Don't just walk down the street alone. Do you see all these homes with lights on? Walk up to the door and knock. Introduce yourself. Share your needs. Be bold in following others. Give back to those who have offered you a place to rest and feel restored. Offer up a hug in the form of a comment. The hardest part is walking through that front door. Share a piece of you and you will be surprised at how it doubles in return.