Category Archives: Blogging

The Renaissance

Posted in Blogging, Blogoversary by

I just happened to glance at my sidebar yesterday to realize that today is my blogoversary. Four years of writing in this place.

I’d love to say it went fast, but looking back it really did not. So much happened in the last four years. I guess time goes fast when your having fun, but when you’re not…? It moves like the speed of a turtle.  Maybe fun is a bad word.  Life has been fun WITH the exception of the expanding my family part.  That sucked.

This week I had the pleasure of going to my annual GYN visit. Now, if you have been reading my posts over the last few years you know I’ve had some pretty disturbing visits. I even put off this visit for a few months because I KNEW the practice was moving. Not going back to that old office was a relief of sorts. I don’t even remember my visits there prior to having David. All I remembered is the sadness of the visits for each miscarriage. Having had so many and tense/bitter moments there I pondered starting over with a new GYN. But I didn’t, and I am glad I did not jump the gun. I have two lovely friends that work there and they scheduled me specifically to get in and out quickly. No loitering in the new waiting room with the large pregnant bellies.

It was the very first visit of a new era of Shelli. There was no talk of infertility or treatment with the doctor (except to say that I am done). Just the standard lady-bits chat.

Now, that I am here, writing this today I look back at the many years of writing, a huge majority of posts were infertility related. A large majority of that cycle related… it’s no wonder my posting has slowed over the last year.  My identity is changing.  It’s time to put that part of my life aside.

My readership has changed as well. Many of my on-line friends have disappeared, either succeeding in the place I failed at or just grew tired of the blogging medium altogether. I hate to say it out loud, but I know that many of my readers didn’t stick around because I was the sad story on the Internet. They grew tired of my cycle failures and miscarriage totals. Who wants to read bad news over and over?? 

Let’s face it, there’s not much to say at this point. I am sad that they do not come back here to comment. I miss them. The ladies I loved so much moved on too… and I am left pining for the good ‘ole days.  Gone are the days when I was lathered in support.  Nowadays I feel like I jilted ex-friend.

For the five or so of you that have held on, thank you. xo  If you are lurking, that’s cool, but it would be nice to have you delurk so I know you are still here.

While I will still be writing an occasional infertility post now and then, I am moving on. To what I don’t know. I am not abandoning my blog, but there will be a time of reinvention this year. A renaissance of sorts. I guess I need to change too, it’s not doing me any good to not change.

As a first step, I am removing the infertility stats from my sidebar. I can’t stand looking at them anymore. It is just a giant sign of failure I need not be reminded of. It will relocate to my “Infertility Diaries” page accessible above for those who wish to know the history of me.

Sigh…I didn’t mean for this post to be negative.

Nobody likes a party pooper.  I’m just feeling melancholy today.  I’ve done a good job of censoring myself here, but who am I censoring for now anyway?  It’s time to change.  This I know.

The reality is I love to write.  I will keep writing, and for awhile it might seem a little disjointed… but that’s where I am.  I hope you will all stay, but I understand if you cannot.

Strangely, it seems I have ended up where I started four years ago…  which I guess really isn’t so bad.  Just different.

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Proof my life revolves around Infertility and Handbags

Posted in Blogging, Fortune, Fun, Infertility, you've got to be kidding by

I’m not one for blog statistics, but once in awhile I dig in to see how people have happened upon this blog.

I call it the Keyword Boredom Buster. Last time I posted about this I focused on some of the serious/heartbreaking search terms, so this is the more lighthearted version.

“is a 5 day transfer a good thing?” well, sure, if it works!

“jack sparrow pregnancy” oooh, is this the new twist for the next Pirates of the Caribbean installment? Something tells me this is stretching Johnny Depp’s acting range. No- a pregnant male pirate is not an image I want in my head. But thanks for putting it there.

“fortune for getting pregnant” well, I can tell you it hasn’t appeared in any of my fortune cookies, but if it does, I’ll let you know.

“i’m infertile and I hate celebrities” yeah, me too.

“help, I’m trapped in a zoo” I hope you’re not in the lions den. Good luck with that.

“cheap handbag looks expensive” You are KILLING me! This just does not exist. It DOES Not.

“is ringing in my ear sensing danger” Are you on my favorite show, Heroes?? …either that or you have an ear infection. I’m betting ear infection.

“only infertiles are intelligent” I like you.

“is transfer implantation” I hope you are someone googling this because you are intrigued by the media’s apparent lack of intelligence in that they simply CANNOT get the terminology right (especially with regards to recent events in the news). You TRANSFER embryos, not IMPLANT them. Using the word “implant” implies that people that undergo IVF should SUCCEED, and we ALL know how untrue that is. Oh hell, I just stepped onto my soapbox. Stepping down now.

“I love coffee more than husband” Disturbing and truthful.

“I’m stored in the closet” Hopefully, you have some nice handbags to look at. Is it dark in there? Wait, are YOU a handbag?

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Trivialities

Posted in basketball, Blogging, dieting, Donor Egg, family, Infertility, New Jersey Moms Blog by

It’s Friday, and I’ve had a long week at work, so forgive me for these most random thoughts.

I don’t know if I mentioned it here (I did a few weeks ago over here), but I started W.eight W.atchers again. I cashed in on my head start (being sick after the holiday), and went into serious detox mode. Lost 5 pounds on my own, and another 8 since. My quick goal before starting my DE cycle was to drop as much weight as I could, and basically get myself to a healthier place.

To my surprise, I’ve been hanging in there. And after two weeks of hard-core detoxing, I must report I am feeling wonderful. My energy is back again! It’s as is I flipped a light switch. Who knew? It was just the right time, and the right place of mind for me to do this. I am eating foods I never would have touched before. It seems a radical approach, BUT it is working for me right now.

David is having a great time @ basketball. The first practice was, well, hard for him. He seriously needed some help dribbling. But one basketball purchase later from T.arget, (and some practice time in with his Mom the “former teen basketball queen”), he is doing a lot better and loving the game. He especially loves the warm-ups (as evidenced to the right>>>>)

Also, I’ve been obsessing over something that is driving me crazy lately, and it has nothing to do with infertility (surprise!). It’s my anonymity as a blogger. I am slowly coming to grips that some people might find me on the web whether I want them to or not. Either that or I need to drop every social networking tool. lol. Check out my latest post on New Jersey Moms Blog )and you’ll read what I’m talking about.

Last but not least, next week I should hear something (in the form of a schedule) from the RE on the donor. She has an appointment on Tuesday to get the ball rolling.

That’s it from here! Have a great weekend friends!

Complicated

Posted in Blogging, Infertility, Recurrent Pregnancy Loss, Reflections, secondary infertility by

This post has sat in my drafts folder for a a few months. Reading it, you’ll understand why.

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When I first started blogging almost three years ago, I blogged for me. I didn’t care who read my blog… I was just excited to take all the thoughts swimming in my head and write it down, because I am a writer. Not by profession, but in life.

I have notebooks of short stories and poems. Writing was an outlet for me as a young girl. It even got me in trouble more than a few times. I lost that in my early twenties and coming here to THIS BLOG was my re-emergence into writing. I found joy in that.

My early posts were all over the map…. thoughts on parenting, life, people… and things. Handbags…. favorite foods…. likes/dislikes. I was never part of the elite “mommy blogger” circle. I stayed under the radar.

And around the same time as this blog was born I had my first miscarriage. And then another, and another, and another.

Somehow I crossed the line of writing about “stuff” to writing about lots of deep feelings. Over the course of time, I started reading infertility blogs and making connections with others. Developing common bonds.

And then it got complicated.

All of a sudden I was an infertile. My posts became heavily slanted to infertility. My readership went through the roof. Women came in droves to support me.

Just as many sent me hate mail. Because, having secondary infertility is different to some. I once got an anonymous comment to a post after one of my miscarriages that “I was SELFISH…. “ and, “You should be happy that you have ONE child because some of US have NONE”.

Well, well, I guess you set me straight.

I deleted that comment, because it stung so bad. But as level-minded as I was at the time, I figured, well, there’s always one idiot in the bunch… and I ignored it. But guess what? I got e-mails like that more and more. I even had some (again, anonymous) that deemed me “CRAZY for putting my BODY though five miscarriages.”

Oh, there were many days I could have just wrote a post with this phrase “Fuck Off”.

But just as welcoming it was to be a part of a virtual network of “positive” support…. that support that I treasured started to wane. Comments started to slow down, and as my fellow infertiles became pregnant and had their beautiful babies… I was left in the dust. And I, the doormat to the blogging world, still reading their blogs… but they are not reading mine. Crazy, since among all this infertile mess, I am still a Mom, and so are they.

How is it that a person can just disconnect so easily? For me, I never set up my RSS reader to ignore my pregnant blogging friends, so why were they ignoring me?

I blogged many times over my real-life family and friends who ignore me. This isn’t an exaggeration… it’s the truth I hate to think about. It’s as if I have a disease, and if they ask how I am doing they might catch it. It HURTS so deeply when I shared such intimate detail of my treatments that no one asks how I am. It’s the purest form of rejection.

But I never, EVER expected my blogging friends to give up on me too. But, many have.

Is it because I am not truly a textbook infertile? Is it because they are sick of hearing how often I keep failing?

Somehow, along the way I got wrapped up in the feedback and the comments. There were many days that the comments kept me from totally going nuclear. I loved the support (I still do), but now I find myself in the same place with the blogging community as I am with my real life-community.

I am invisible.

And, for this reason my love for blogging is waning. I am tired of being judged. So I censor my posts (if you’ve been wondering why my posts have been so generic). And that makes me more angry because THIS is my blog. This started as a place for me to be me.

I know that this situation is not unique. Two of my fellow bloggers are pondering “where do I go from here?” for entirely different reasons.

The truth is… I’ve shared almost 500 posts to the world (on this site, anyway). And I am just now understanding that you can be just as exposed and hurt on the internet as you can anywhere.

Where to go from here…. I don’t know.