Pregnancy has turned me antisocial. I hide out in my room and avoid contact with people whenever possible. Being social just feels exhausting right now. With all that alone time I should be writing. But I'm not. I've slowed way down on my blog recently. Here are the 3 reasons why I think things have changed:
1. I'm too tired to come up with anything to say. I never realized just how exhausting pregnancy would be.
2. I've been pretty busy with my house full of people and with packing. Yes you heard me-packing! I haven't shared the news publicly yet because it didn't seem real, but we are buying our dream house! We close in less than a week. Which means I will probably be writing even less for a while very soon.
3. I'm just not sure what to write about. When I started writing about infertility I never thought about how my blog might change or what I would write about once I got pregnant. Infertility became a part of my identity and with my pregnancy I feel like part of my identity changed.
My infertility is still not cured. I know it might be just as challenging to get pregnant a second time. I also know that there's a slim possibility that this might be my only pregnancy I ever experience it. On the other hand, if endometriosis truly is my only obstacle, this pregnancy could be healing enough that I get pregnant right away next time. The truth is there is no way to know for sure.
I feel like I should still be addressing each post from an infertility standpoint. I know we have lots of people out there cheering us on and celebrating our success with us, but I also know what it feels like to be envious of the success of others and cry when a friend gets pregnant. I don't want to be the person who hurts a woman's feelings by always talking about how happy I am to be pregnant. I hope my success can give others hope, but I know that what they take away from my story is up to them.
I keep reminding myself that my blog is called "The Road to Baby Madsen" and pregnancy is part of that road. Really this is my blog and I can transition it into any kind of blog that I want it to be. I'm not ready to be a "mommy blogger" though--in fact, I have never wanted to be a mommy blogger.
For now I still don't feel like an ordinary pregnant woman. I probably never will. I don't feel like my pregnancy is more or less important or special than anyone else's, it's just that after trying for so long to get here I still feel injured somehow. I feel so fragile and think about our baby constantly. I count down the days to doctor appointments when we get to see our baby or hear the heartbeat to make sure she's still there-that this pregnancy is still real. I'm sure there are moms and other pregnant women out there who can relate. Because of all of these feelings I am not ready to let go of the infertility part of my blog.
Even though I write about pregnancy most of the time these days I still remember how painful certain experiences used to be. For example I went to a baby shower for a friend a couple weeks ago and had fun. It was the first time I wasn't fighting back tears or feelings of envy while trying to celebrate a mom and baby. Even Ryan could see how comfortable I was there.
I have had 2 friends announce pregnancies on Facebook in the last month and both times I've thought about how that might have made me want to push away from them in the past. I'm so excited to be expecting with them that instead of pushing away I have daydreams about how being pregnant together and having babies within a few months of each other is going to bring us closer together (which it hasn't actually...yet). When I heard those announcements though my first thought was how that news would've killed me 6 months ago. I don't think most pregnant women associate baby announcements with pain, but anyone who has ever struggled to get (or stay) pregnant can probably understand.
I do still have some infertility topics that I did not get to write about before I got pregnant. I even have a couple of blog posts I started writing but never completely finished or posted. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even if I write a lot about my pregnancy you can still expect to see some posts about crazy feelings and fears rooted in my infertility experiences. I don't think I'm going to relax until I'm holding this baby in my arms.
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