Writing a blog is hard!

Hi Everyone!

I've been thinking a lot lately about why I started this blog. It's been a year of writing and I'm doing a bit of reflection.

I've already said that I deal with things by talking about them.  It's why I joined a support group and why I now lead it.  It's why I tell people about what we are going through.  It's why I raise money and give speeches.  The more I learn about infertility, the more fired up I become.  There are millions of people who go through similar situations and it breaks my heart that so many of them stay silent.  But, I can also understand why they do.  Talking about your struggles is a very hard thing to do.

I had a few goals for this blog when I started writing it.  The first was to educate and bring awareness to infertility.  I wanted to give people, who don't deal with infertility, a little insight into what it's like to live each day with infertility.  The second goal was to let the people, who are struggling with this disease, know that they are not alone.  I wanted to be the voice that tell them it's OK to feel sad or depressed or completely indifferent or even happy at times.  It's all part of the process.  Lastly, the goal was to help myself deal with all of it.  Writing this blog has been extremely therapeutic for me.  Once I write it and get it out, I'm pretty much over it.  I move on.  I'm not the type to wallow in self pity.  The thing that I'm not sure people understand though, is that every single month is a roller coaster.  Every month there is that little sliver of hope that maybe a miracle happened, maybe I'm pregnant.  And then every month when that period starts it's a painful (literally) reminder that it didn't happen.  I want you all to really think about living like that.  Suddenly a period goes from annoying to a crushing realization that your body failed yet again.  Any woman who has tried to get pregnant and it's taken longer than a couple of months can sort of understand what I'm saying.  It's been 3 years of that for me and it's not always easy, which is why I write about it.

But the more I write, the more I realize how hard it is to write a blog about something so personal.  I'd be lying if I said that writing this blog has always been wonderful, because it has also added some stress to my life.  Almost every post I write, I worry about offending people.  I care about how my words affect others.  I don't want to upset them or hurt anyone's feelings.  I feel like there is this line that I'm constantly worried about crossing.  And frankly, I know I've crossed it a few times and I've hurt people's feelings or upset them.  I don't like this, but I am starting to realize that it's absolutely impossible to write something that everyone agrees with.  That's the beauty of the country we live in.  We have the freedom to think and feel differently.  We have the freedom to voice those opinions.  It's doesn't mean that I've stop caring about what people think, because I'm not sure that will ever happen, but I'm more aware that it's not possible to please everyone.  I can't control how people react when they read my blog.

There's so much more I could write about in this blog, but I'm very unsure of how to do it.  Obviously, our diagnosis has affected pretty much everyone we know in some way or another.  So how much do I actually write about?  How much can I share without hurting people's feelings?  I don't really know.  And that, my friends, is the line I'm talking about.  Most of the time I don't want to cross it because I want to play it safe, but then other times I really really do.  It's an interesting predicament to be in, but I kind of like it.

The positives of this blog far outweigh any negatives, so I will continue to write!


Stay tuned!

~Tonya