Thursday 15 January 2015

Blogoversary: from bobbing at the wharf to exploring the New World

torthúil is two years old today.

The title of my first ever post was still bobbing at the wharf.  After taking a long time to prepare, provision and chart a course, the ship left the wharf, then had an unexpected course change in a lightning storm, which sent us off on a sometimes frightening, often fun voyage (including a lot of seasickness) and finally we docked at the New World, after weathering one last 52 hour squall.  And now we have a whole new purpose: to explore the new world that we discovered with AJ's arrival.

There. That's the retrospective part of this entry in three sentences. I say it in three sentences and one metaphor not because I think the story of the last two years is a tidy one that resolved neatly, or because I think tidy stories that resolve neatly are inherently better than messy ones that don't resolve neatly, or at all. No, I put my retrospective into two sentences because that's all the time I want to spend on it.  I resolved at the end of last year not to spend a great deal of time looking back to "this time last year" or "that time two years ago." (With some exceptions, such as AJ's birthday, of course.)

The main reason I wanted to write this entry is to reflect on why writing this blog is still important to me. Many of the bloggers I read question the purpose or continuity of their blog after having a baby or babies. Some moved to a new blog or stopped blogging. I'm happy for everyone who feels they outgrew their (in)fertility blog, even though I miss their writing! But throughout my pregnancy and AJ's birth and now infancy I feel I need torthúil as much as ever. I'm glad of this because from the beginning I hoped it would be more than a blog about infertility although that was the reason I started it. From feeling very hesitant about this space and my voice in it, I now write regularly and frequently find myself composing posts in my head, and putting off chores to write here (pfffffft to you, vacuuming and laundry!)

Here's what moves me to keep writing:

1) Continuity. Infertility is often described as a rollercoaster. The emotional highs and lows of trying to conceive and carry a pregnancy are usually why. But in addition to going up and down, rollercoasters make abrupt changes of direction that aren't intuitive. My experience of actual rollercoasters is somewhat limited, but when I have ridden them the part where I scream the loudest is usually when they pause and then jerk in another direction. There have been a lot of sudden, sharp changes in the direction of my life the past two years, whether it was learning about the diagnoses or IVF failure or the surprise conception and all the weirdness of pregnancy and the unpredictable nature of labour and birth and parenting. 

As I've worked through all these changes in direction, and the questioning that came with them, the blog has been a constant. It's very reassuring to know I have this outlet, and even though I have pretty good support network IRL, I don't want to let it go.

2) Readers! It means a lot to know that almost whatever I write about (as long as it is not completely obscure, I suppose) people will offer knowledge, words of comfort or reassurance, or a perspective of sanity. Or just say "I am here!"

3) The room under the carpet. OK, this one starts with a dream I had this January. In the dream I was in my bedroom in my parents' house, where I grew up. The carpet in this room is same as when I was a child. My parents really aren't interested in material possessions or image, and I guess they decided a while ago that one house renovation/update in a lifetime is enough. I admit to finding this carpet a bit gross. In the dream I noticed a spot on the carpet that seemed damp and mushy. I went to investigate, and noticed that there was a kind of....sprout coming up from the mushy, rotten spot. I thought this was definitely wrong so I started investigating. I discovered the sprout went down a long way...more than a metre. As I dug under the rotten carpet, I discovered there was a whole other space beneath the floor. I went down through the opening into it. It was a bigger than a crawl space but smaller than a room. There was all kinds of stuff crammed into it. There were storage boxes filled with things like clothes, pictures, books, toys. But there were also entire pieces of furniture. It was like someone had one day taken everything in the house and shoved it into this secret space, and never taken it out again or spoken about it.

The space under the carpet was both a complete shock but also an answer to questions I didn't know I had. And somehow I knew the reason why all this stuff had been hidden. Maybe I found it by looking inside the boxes or maybe I just knew without asking. This entire life had been packed away because a child had died.

The dream was so vivid that when I woke up it took me a few minutes to realize that there isn't a room under the floor of my old bedroom or that I have a secret sibling I never knew. (I've had a few dreams over the years about this secret or forgotten sibling. Does anyone else have such dreams?)

I think we all have a secret room under the carpet, a room that contains things most people don't or can't see, or the memories of people never seen or met. I think the blogs are a way to tell the story of the secret room. And, well, I think that is a story that should be told and listened to.

4) Blogging makes me feel more like myself. Writing was very important to me in my teens and early 20s, and then somewhere between 25 and 30ish it became less important. I was meeting new people (including my husband), learning new things and my professional life was finally starting to come together. I still wrote for various purposes but I didn't want to spend hours on a solitary activity.  torthúil has made writing important to me again. I don't have to remind myself to write; it is part of my routine. My life is right now dominated by my role as a mother. Even though I'm writing almost exclusively about motherhood and the journey to get here, writing connects me to the identity I had before being a mom. So it feels natural and essential to me on all levels.

Happy blogging! If you have a blog, what keeps you coming back to it?

18 comments:

  1. Happy Blogoversary!

    I come back to my blog when I find my mind going over something like a stuck record. This doesn't happen too often now as I'm no longer obsessing about having a (live) baby and the one I've got keeps me too busy for too much mental churning.

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    1. I'm glad to hear there is less obsessing! you are right, writing is a good way to become less "stuck."

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  2. I'm so glad you keep writing, I love getting AJ and life updates. I understand (kind of) why people stop, but I often feel cheated or used, you know? We support each other through all the rough stuff, and then, once we get through, we don't get to share in all the good experiences.

    I'm at that crossroads. I don't want to dwell on the infertility, but believe me, it hasn't left my mind for a second. On the other hand, I do want to be thoughtful of my friends who are still trying. I think the best thing to do it to be honest about what I'm feeling.

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    1. I (usually) appreciated the pregnancy/parenting blogs because they offered a glimpse into what came next. So I am glad when people carry on blogging in some form! It is hard to leave the infertility behind, although I'm trying to "shrink" the place it has in my life/mind. But little things happen that bring it back. Yesterday I was digging through my "fertility binder" looking for vaccination records. My eye fell on a test result that had the words "ovarian failure" on it. And in that instant I was right back to when we got the diagnosis, how it felt like a punch in the gut. The irony being the news on that paper was actually good (showing that I'm genetically normal). Anyway. I like to think that compassion toward everyone is possible, wherever they are at.

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  3. Happy Blogaversary! Has it been 2 years already? I swear I remember when you were just starting!

    I feel guilty about switching blogs and if I could go back, I would have just kept with my original one. I started a new blog once I got pregnant because I wanted to make sure those who were reading had chosen to follow me, knowing I'd be writing about pregnancy and I was worried about hurting people's feelings. But that wasn't necessary because if people didn't want to continue reading they didn't have to.

    I've thought about stopping many times but I keep going because of all the online friends I've made and because I enjoy the writing process. I used to write a few times a week, but now I've decided to only write when I get the urge.

    I hope you continue blogging for a long time to come. I love to read your updates

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    1. thank you! it's fun to share all AJ's new developments, and the other "life stuff." I think the writing process is a great way to work through things. What did people even do before blogs?

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  4. Happy 2 years! Time flies, huh??? I hope to see you continue blogging!!!!

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  5. First and foremost, happy blogoversary.

    That dream gave shivers down both arms.

    I, for one, am very glad you've kept blogging.

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    1. thank you! I love being part of the blog community.

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  6. Wow two years already! I am so glad that I have been an active part of it for the last 1.5 years. I love reading your blog posts and love that you have a very cute baby. So glad that you will continue to write. I keep writing because I want to document my life so I can look back and see what exactly happened. It's also an emotional outlet as well as a way to build friendship. I often feel so fortunate that people comment and offer their suggestions, opinions, or simply want to give me a hug when I need one. That's what keeps me coming back for more.

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    1. Those are all great reasons! so glad that we have this outlet to share.

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  7. Hi!
    Here from the round up... I keep blogging partly to document and partly to give others the opportunity to have a glimpse into the future after DE-IVF. I remember looking for blogs, trying to find out what the balance of pain/regret versus happiness was (and why) after abandoning one's own eggs.

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    1. Hi Valery! thanks for the comment. I think the blogs about a specific kind of treatment and the process (medical and emotional) are great too. I connected with a lot of people after my diagnosis of diminish ovarian reserve. It really helped. I also looked up DE-IVF blogs at one point, as I thought that was the direction we would be taking. I still follow them!

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