A Guest Blog Entry. Brought to you by the lovely people at the Great Blog Cross-Pollination!

Ooh! Slammed by the International Date Line! I got an e-mail first thing this morning from TopCat, reminding me that while it may be 7 AM on the 8th of November where I sit and drink my coffee, it's November 9th in Australia where she is, and thus it's Geohde's Inaugural Blog Cross-Pollination Day! She also sent me her blog post for the day, for me to post on my blog. The ball is clearly in my court. Where's my post?

I've been putting off writing something for the cross-pollination, because I have had a big, serious post brewing on my own list of partially completed entries for some time now. And so, with apologies for the perhaps less than uplifting nature of my thoughts, I thought I'd put this out there now, before I lose my nerve and write something lighter in nature about where I'm at with my current pregnancy. And so, here it is.
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After being an avid reader of infertility blogs for the last year or two, I have begun to notice the same themes cropping up over and over again. Different people of course have different perspectives on these themes, all colored by their own individual experiences, but out of the jumble, I have recently noticed how often I see similar ideas popping up all over the place.
One of these is the idea of things being fair. As in, someone pointing out that they've now had four losses so now they must really deserve a pregnancy that goes to term. Or that their sister-in-law is completely oblivious to other people's feelings and that they cannot believe she is pregnant again without even trying. Or that they've been trying to conceive for so many years now that it surely must be their turn.

I also see bits of the other side of this particular coin. The women who have barely begun their blogs about their infertility experience only to discover they're unexpectedly pregnant. They continue to blog throughout the first trimester, and then the inevitable post appears in which they ponder whether or not they should continue, and in which they explore their feelings of guilt about setting off down the pregnancy path when so many others have been trying for so much longer, or have experienced more losses. They always apologize and hope they're not offending anyone by being thrilled to be pregnant.

And always, you see a comparison of pain. A miscarriage brings the question-- how early was it? There's the thought that early losses (or even chemical pregnancies, which are still miscarriages in their own right) are less painful than later losses. Or that a woman who gets pregnant but then miscarries is luckier somehow than a woman who can't conceive at all. At least *she* got to see the two lines...

I think about these things a lot, both inside the infertility world and outside. Living in Southern California, we're all recovering from the recent fires that burned down so many homes. We evacuated for a day and a half and came home safely to a house that was still standing, though covered in ash. Others weren't so lucky. How do I be grateful for our luck without being disrespectful to those who lost their homes?

It's this last thought that nags at me as I read my blogs every day.

I've been writing mine for just over a year, but I already had my daughter when I started it. I have PCOS, but I don't have much trouble getting pregnant. I've had two miscarriages, but both were very early. I spent twelve weeks on hospital bed rest, but I took home a healthy baby at the end of it. I'm nearly 30 weeks into a high-risk pregnancy, but I'm becoming more confident by the day that I will again bring home the sought-after child at the end, and that our family will be complete.

So many others whose innermost private thoughts I read on a daily basis have been so much less lucky than I have. I have been silent on my blog for the past few weeks as I wonder where I go from here. I don't want to stop writing, and yet I'm running out of things to say that don't compromise my anonymity. I also don't want to leave the infertile/repeat loss community, which has brought me a huge amount of much-needed support and a sense of belonging, but what do I write about once we stop trying to have children? Do I give in, and become the dreaded "Mommy Blogger"?

The irony of this whole post is that I'm sure there are at least five others out there that are very similar. I don't think I'm going to go anywhere, but it may take me a while to find my new perspective. I hope you're willing to hang in there while I figure a few things out.
Part of the cross-pollination game is that you're supposed to comment below if you can guess who I am. Then, you can find my blog here.

And finally, here's your token bit of inappropriate humor for the day:
Having misspelled "evacuate," my spell-checker kindly suggests I replace it with "ejaculate." Even my laptop has a dirty mind.