TRANSITIONS OF AN IF BLOG

Even though I haven't been blogging myself lately, I still take a keen interest in reading other blogs and keeping up with what is happening in the ALI blogging world. That is what brought me to the discussion on PAIL and then onto the healing discussion posts from LFCA which I have found very fascinating to read. I can relate to much of what has been discussed on there and would like to write about a few things from my perspective in the hopes that it will help people to understand why I took a backseat for the last few months.

When I started blogging and joined many of the ICLW events, I began to follow many blogs that I could relate to who were going through the same things as me at the time. Once I got pregnant I continued to read these blogs, but as time went on I started to feel uncomfortable in the IF community. It wasn't about my follower or commenter numbers dropping (as I have always openly said how I completely understand why readers would feel the need to move on from my blog as subject matter changed with my growing bump and then my transition into motherhood, not to mention the fact that I was blogging less frequently) but the bitterness tinged in some of these blogs of writers who were still in the trenches (I have edited this to add that I am NOT referring to the bitterness that every infertile feels about their predicament and the bitterness that can bite when you hear about others pregnancies, particularly those that come easy. I am talking about bitterness that comes across as downright nasty to pregnant woman and mothers. There is a big difference). It made me withdraw back into my shell and start having longer gaps between posts. When you are on the way to motherhood, or just entered into motherhood, continually reading these posts with such negative undertones about pregnant woman or mothers is really quite disconcerting and awkward, and you begin to take things personally and feel wrong about posting. So you step back. I'm not saying I never felt that way at times, that I never felt bitter about my predicament or jealous or angry, but some blog posts I read were outright poisonous. And I didn't want to be exposed to that. So although it was easy enough to stop reading them, it still left a lasting impression on me and my place in the blogging world post baby. The creation of PAIL has in some way inspired me to make a return. If others can carry on blogging post baby, then why can't I?

Do I think there is alienation of parenting blogs in this blogosphere? Yes, but I can understand why. Let's be honest, we don't seek out pregnant or parenting after IF blogs. We found this community while we were still trying desperately to conceive. I still follow infertility blogs but blessed be, most of the ones I started following 2 years ago have gone on to be successful and then teepered off on their posting, which is exactly what I did. Perception is strong in this instance. I never felt like anyone was telling me NOT to blog and no one outright did, but I just began to feel uncomfortable and there were some things that I would have liked to share that I felt I couldn't, due to some of my readership being people IRL and the awkwardness of discussing personal relationships and feelings and knowing they were reading.

In summing up I feel the need to apologise if I have hurt anyones feelings by stepping back as it was never my intention to neglect my readership. I am also very much looking forward to being able to invest more time in my relationships with my followers now that you can individually reply to comments (yay!) and finding some new blogs to follow.