Wednesday, May 7, 2014

To blog or not....

Going into this cycle, I struggled with the idea of blogging through a cycle. I've never blogged while cycling and I'm not sure how I will handle the highs and lows in such a public forum.

When we were going through our first embryo adoption which resulted in Leland I followed a lot of embryo adoption and infertility blogs and drew a lot of strength and encouragement from following and commenting on them. But what I lacked was forming relationships because I had no forum upon which to share who I was in order to connect with these other moms. Honestly, I don't know if they even knew I existed or how much they were helping me at the time. While pregnant with Leland I really wanted to start blogging, but the timing seemed odd. Then, finally, just after Leland was born I actually started my blog.

So for me, I’ve only really blogged the happy ending of my embryo adoption story. The work, time, and heartache of my (pre-Leland) infertility journey took place pre-blogging.

Cycling again is like reopening the portion of my identity – the infertile portion – the portion that having had a child and not yet being ready to try again had begun to shrink. And now it’s reopened. Only this time, we are not secretly infertile. If almost anyone asks we will tell them we are “working on it” and “it’s easier said than done.” And with friends and family, we’ve been even more open about actively cycling right now. And with that, I did make the decision to try blogging through this cycle. It feels so different from last time when only about 8 people even knew we had fertility issues and almost no one knew we were cycling. There is more pressure, but also more support.

So, for now, I’m putting it all out there.

And it that regard…today is my last day of Lupron (!) and my first day of 3x/day Estrace. 11 days till transfer.

6 comments:

Sara said...

I know how you feel. It's hard for people to know because if it doesn't work, that won't be fun to tell everyone. But it helps me to know I have so many people thinking of me and praying for me, so for me, that's worth the trade off.

Aaron and Jennifer said...

Excited to follow your EA#2 journey - thanks for being willing to share it! :)

Ashley said...

It is hard to put yourself out there, not knowing what will happen, (also in domestic adoption) but knowing that so many people are supporting you and praying for you makes it worth it in my eyes. Excited to share in your journey!

Anna said...

Hey Lara! Wishing you awesome luck tomorrow!

Anna said...

Oh, duh. You said eleven, not roman numeral two. It's been a long day. :P

Deborah said...

I can relate to this. I wasn't blogging when I was trying for my first, although I read & commented on a lot of blogs. Now that I have my own blog, I can say that the bloggers whose blogs I commented on *did* know who I was, but it didn't feel that way at the time.

The nice thing about this community, though, is we've all been there, and we won't take any particular day's high/low as indicative of how you'll be feeling forever.

Wishing you the best of luck as you start this cycle!