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.
Punch Drunk 
Testing.
In case you don’t recognize the new e-mail address, this is the former QM. Regarding your last paragraph, you will adjust if that’s what you decide. I did, and life has actually been better since then.
I have a theory that life is divided into three main parts: service to self, service to family, and service to the greater community. Most of us spend our younger years swimming about happily in the first part…in fact, some of us get stuck there indefinitely. But usually, once we have kids, we get tossed neck-deep into the second part, and it is how we deal with that heave that defines how much we struggle with motherhood and all its inherent challenges. Just my theory, mind you.
I don’t quite fully agree with your definition of “mommybloggers,” but I do feel that many of them are still struggling with the transition from service to self to service to family. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be seeking validation from a wider audience. I know I had my share of struggles with that transition.
If it makes you feel better, I don’t miss my blog anymore. I did for a few weeks. I don’t even read many blogs anymore…yours (because I’m pulling and praying for you) a couple of Catholic moms and the Mothership (but even her I read a lot less often.) I, for one, urge you to let go and re-engage more fully with your physical surroundings. Blogging can be a huge timesuck, and your time is about to get very, very precious.
As always, my best to you…
I don’t get many comments anymore. I guess I’ve gotten boring, or maybe everyone has just moved on. Whatever. I like to think I do it just for me, but deep down that’s probably not true.
As another who pretty much stopped blogging once there was a successful pregnancy and babies in the picture, I can see the lure of giving it up. Then again, I’m blogging again because I missed it, though I have few readers and hardly anyone ever comments anymore. As for reading goes, I can’t keep up anymore, though I do check your blogs and a few others pretty regularly. Like my own lurky readers, however, I rarely manage to find the time or words to leave a comment. So there you have it. I would miss you, but I would also completely understand. Though I do hope you would keep this blog to let us know when the babe arrives and how you all are…
Why not keep the subscription up until after the baby comes and see what happens? You may want to keep blogging, or not, but don’t make the decision in the middle of an emotional time.
Wait, if you let your typepad expire, you would still have this blog, right? It doesn’t mean you will stop blogging, does it? Please say you’ll continue blogging here no matter what happens with typepad. I have to know how you’re doing and who is pissing you off at work today and the latest on your ILs!
Where do you get this perception, new vs. old? I read no new blogs. The main thing I don’t like (if you take it the right way) is that my Bloglines section for infertility is completely overwhelmed by those who had succeeded. That said, I do not bash any success and would sincerely like to continue reading about that person. Perhaps you, too, could focus on old blogger friends? hint hint
I’d be so sad to see you go. Yours are the first blogs I check everyday.
Well, I guess it’s up to you. I think that your archives would be helpful to infertiles, however. You’ve been through a hell of a lot, woman.
I know, it’s hard.I think ultimately I had to say to myself: would I rather have kept my readers and not have gotten pregnant? Of course not! I think people just lose momentum with blogging eventually, most of the time, that it’s not personal.
There’s a market for everything on the internet, D, if you have the energy to find it. Maybe there’s other niches for you out there?
I would hate to see you go.
I thing blogging has somewhat saved my sanity. Even though I blog about pointless things, it helps me to see it in print…somehow if puts things in perspective. I really enjoy reading what clever women are writing and you are one of them. SO, I guess that settles it, you have to keep blogging for me 🙂
Please, keep up a blog. Why not just keep this one? That way you only have to write in one and you can password protect the entries you want.
DD, I love reading your blog.
You can’t quit before the baby comes!!!
Can I plead with you to keep blogging?
J
I’d miss you too. I promise to comment every post if that helps!
but i’d miss you…waaaaah
I think I’d have to come all the way up there and make your fingers type out the words if you quit on us now! But I really do understand the feeling that blogging has lost its luster. And your twitter thingies crack me up!
Ahem… you’ve only pissed off a handful????
DinoD
I would miss you, you punchy, witty woman.
Coming out of the shadows to put my two cents in. TKO is one of the handful of blogs I still read on (almost) a daily basis. So I will miss you greatly. And I want to hear of your new arrival.
If you do decide to hang up the keyboard, I understand. Hell – I haven’t updated my blog since March.
Please don’t go. And I know, this is coming from one of those a–holes that dropped off the face of the earth once her babies were born. I PROMISE to get back into it- I’m just having a hard time carving out time and brain power. That being said, who am I going to hang with in blogland if you leave (given that my current audience has dwindled to like six people). Please stay!!!!
I can’t seem to quit even when I want to. I kind of hope you can’t either, but I get why you’d want to too.
There are free blogs (hint, hint)
dude, I just realized that since I have a top secret WordPress blog, it didn’t post me as Shelli. Actually, it was my test one before my Blogger account. But hell, you know who I am.
It’s hard isn’t it? When I’m not cycling, my readership drops into the toilet, and yes, I have had A LOT of blogging buddies that left me in the dust and moved on (read: abandoned), mostly because … well….I don’t know really. If someone has a successful pregnancy I guess they don’t want to read the bad sh*t…. who knows…
I would miss you. I have so few blogging buds that still want me to succeed in finishing my family and I need their support. Blogging is as much validation as it is the flip side. I have a handful of bloggers I never want to lose touch with… and you are one of them.
That being said, you do keep TWO blogs… why don’t you keep the Typepad one and ditch the other? or vice versa?
Besides, what would your co-workers read at work? hehe
You can’t cut us off! The baby is almost here!
It makes me sad too! You are one of my favorite bloggers.
When I started my blog I didn’t know the community existed and I wrote that I was just writing for myself…but I do love me some comments. And, I have let the readers dictate what I write and I’ve got to stop that.