JUNE 21, 2008

That is the date that my current typepad subscription expires, and frankly I’m seriously considering not renewing.

It’s not so much that I don’t have much to say (watch me through twitter and I’m constantly throwing out my two cents), it’s just that fewer and fewer want to hear about it. New infertility blogs are popping up all the time and frankly, for those still cycling, they are more appealing than investing time into a blog written by someone with secondary infertility and an uncomplicated pregnancy.

I’ve looked at trying to blog under the cloak of a “mommyblogger” but I don’t have it in me to do so, as I refuse to discuss blowjobs, pierced nipples, surprise pregnancies (bwahahaHA!), politics, or feminism. My life as a parent is actually too normal for that. Not a bad thing, mind you. Just not anything that will make the transition easy.

It’s not just the “new blood” that I miss. Old friends through blogging drift away, whether they’ve decided to stop treatments or because they’ve already brought home baby #1 or even baby #2; or my pregnancy has left them with the fight or flight instinct, one we all know too well; or there’s the handful I’ve pissed off along the way.

It would be wonderful to have the confidence (and talent) to be like Mimi Smartypants and not worry about feedback via comments, but I do. If I didn’t – if none of you didn’t – care, you’d shut off the comments option. I’m not going to apologize for the fact that validation is important to me. It’s why I started blogging because I couldn’t find that support in my personal life from friends and family.

I don’t know what I will do. I’ve got a month to work it out. Considering that blogging has literally been a part of my daily life (whether through reading or writing) for three years, leaving it behind will be incredibly difficult. It saddens me that I even am at the point of contemplating it.

no. 654 – Taking a Seat

Since the calendar was flipped to May, I’ve been thinking a lot about Mother’s Day. I’ve experienced it at its best: I still have my own mother here to talk to and seek advice from, who more often than not lately makes me want to pull out every eyelash I have – one at a time – as well as to be a mother myself; and at its worst: to have the past couple of years go by that serve as reminders that Mother’s Day 2005 was one of four (and the first) due date that found me in a vacuum of depression. I think of May 8th as not just a missed due date, but a "should have" birthdate for a baby girl who might have turned three this year, if only…if…

Sometime last May, after Mother’s Day, I read about a blogger* who decided to remain seated during the Mother’s Day blessing at her church. It was her way of remembering the women who ache for a child but battle against the cruel odds of infertility.

That idea has been with me all these months, and this year I will follow suit and remain seated during Sunday’s blessing. It’s a simple action, but one taken because I simply have no words that could possibly sooth the pain that generally goes without acknowledgment in too many.

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* I apologize for not having a link as I cannot recall who it was. If you know, please feel free to email me and I will udpate.