Blogging Infertility
Printer-friendly versionby Anna Baker
Being accepted in the ALI [adoption, loss and infertility] community gave me a place where my voice was welcome, heard and acknowledged. I couldn't talk to anyone about my feelings regarding infertility. Who could bear witness to my pain? My husband, who was going through his own issues, my friends, who had kids already or were pregnant, my mother, who has dementia? There was no one. So I poured out my secrets, my fears, my pain, my bitterness and instead of someone telling me I'm obsessed, that I should just get over it, or swallow baby dust, women told me they understood. They just let me be what I needed to be. They told me that they had been there. They didn't judge, they just listened and if they could help, they did. They just held a space for me to vent, to ponder, to cry.
-A blogger who goes by the name of “Deathstar”
About a year and a half ago, I was miserable. I felt completely alone in my infertility – both my sisters had children, and so did pretty much everyone I know. People close to me knew we wanted our family to be larger than the two of us, but they didn’t know what to say, and neither did I. My husband is a wonderful man, but listening to my endless, tearful, angst-filled rants was wearing him thin. We were facing male factor infertility and we hadn’t yet begun treatment. I didn’t even know whether I could call myself infertile. The pain was real, but I didn’t know where I fit in.
Then one day I was online, half-heartedly searching for some kind of support, some place where I’d feel understood, and I found someone’s blog – a woman who was struggling with infertility and writing her story as she went along. I read for a little while, fascinated that someone out there was brave enough to share the details of her life and her suffering with the world. To one side, I saw a list of other blogs and thought to myself, “There are others?” The very first link on that list was called “Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters.” When you see a name like that, how can you not click over? So I clicked. And my life changed forever. Stirrup Queens is one woman’s blog, but it is also the nerve center for what its author, Mel, calls the ALI blogosphere –where people write about Adoption, Loss, and Infertility.
Before I found the ALI blogosphere, I only had a vague idea what blogs were. I knew they were personal web pages where you could write about whatever you wanted, but my experience was limited to political ones or the ones that trash celebrities for wearing ugly outfits. I’d heard blogs referred to as “online journals,” but the potential in that had never really occurred to me. A blog is like a journal, but it's one that you can share with other people and receive feedback on – it's a journal with an audience that participates!
At Stirrup Queens (www.stirrup-queens.blogspot.com), there is a categorized, searchable list of over 1800 blogs – the stories of women, couples, and families from all over the world. The list is categorized according to topic, often by diagnosis or treatment method. I found people writing about miscarriage and stillbirth, IVF, donor eggs and donor sperm, IUI, family building when single, gay and lesbian family building, and life after infertility, whether it was with children or without them. Basically I had found what seemed to me at the time to be a kind of paradise – I’d found a community of people who understood exactly what I was going through, a group of people who I would later come to call friends, a place to share information and experiences. I had found a place to belong.
I’ve always wanted to keep a journal, but never seemed able to stick with it. I have probably half a dozen diaries dating back to elementary school, but not a single one of them is even close to half-filled. I could never get into the habit of writing regularly when it felt like I was just talking to myself. Blogging, on the other hand, offers me a chance to let it out and engage in a conversation about what I’ve written with other people who understand me. It gets me out of my own head. I can figure out my feelings as I write them down. So often, the responses I get challenge me to look at my own situation differently, to get out of whatever trench I've just dug for myself and seem determined to wallow in. Pieces of advice or words of reassurance stay with me, and I find myself passing them on to others when I recognize my own experience in their writing.
As a blogger, I not only write my own story, I also read other people’s stories and comment on them, and I’ve been able to build an online network of support. Especially in the beginning, it was so helpful to me to find people who were struggling with the same diagnosis and the same treatment that I was. Having felt completely isolated for so long, it was a revelation and a huge relief to find out that I was definitely not alone. There were countless times when I found myself nodding or even crying in recognition – I was seeing my own struggles, grief, and frustration reflected back at me by someone I had never met. I found understanding and compassion for what I was going through, something that was often hard to come by with my friends and family in real life, and I also found a way to share my own strength and experience with others who needed it.
The ALI blogging community became a support group for me, and I think this can be a vital aspect of online communities, particularly in Canada. Until I started an IAAC-affiliated infertility support group here in my city last year, there was really nowhere to turn other than private counselling. Many Canadian communities do not have a fertility clinic or even a doctor who performs more advanced fertility treatment or testing, let alone an organized group where women and couples can go for emotional support and information. Infertility isn’t limited to major cities, and for people in smaller towns, the emotional isolation of infertility is often compounded by physical isolation. The bloggers I read and connected with became my support group. The response was often immediate – I didn't have to wait for a monthly meeting – and insightful, coming as it did from people who had often struggled with the same issues I was writing about. It didn't matter that I was entering into conversations and friendships with women from all over the world; there is a lot of common ground when it comes to the diagnosis, treatment and emotions associated with infertility. Now that I am a part of a real-life support group, I still turn to my online community between meetings and because of the strength of the relationships I've formed. It can be healing and special to sit in the same room with people who can understand your sorrow and frustration, and it can also be a valuable thing to know that a shoulder to cry on, a compassionate ear, or a celebratory hug are all available any time you need them.
The ALI blogging community is extremely democratic – if you want to join in, you can start your own blog in a matter of minutes, and begin jumping into the conversations that draw your interest. There are a couple things to consider before you begin.
Infertility is a pretty private experience in many ways, both because it involves physical processes that we don’t always want to share and because we are often misunderstood when we talk about it openly. If there is a gap between what you tell your family and what you want to write about, you will need to think about how you protect your privacy as you write. There are many ways to do this, including blogging and emailing under a pseudonym, not posting photos or identifying information, or taking advantage of some of the different features offered by different blogging platforms, including having a private blog which can only be read by people you have invited, or password-protected posts, so that you can have a public blog but keep certain posts private. Everybody has different comfort levels with disclosure – many bloggers write under their real names and would be easily recognizable to someone who knew them in real life, and others are completely shrouded in mystery, so that even family members would be hard pressed to discover their identities if they happened to find their blogs. What is important is that you really think about what you are okay with sharing – once a blog is out there, it’s out there. How would you feel if a co-worker or a family member or an old high school friend was reading about the gory details of your latest disappointing cycle? It’s best to know your boundaries before you start writing.
The other important question to consider is what you hope to achieve with your blog. Are you looking for a network of support, or are you writing your blog primarily to keep family and friends updated on your fertility treatments? Do you just want a place to vent and get things off your chest, or do you want people to read and comment? If you’re looking to make friends and get personal responses, you need to know that the very best way to start is by commenting on other blogs. Just like in real life, you need to reach out and foster those connections. Everyone has their own reasons for blogging, and there is no right way to do it. It’s about creating a space that meets your needs.
Just like in real life, there are ups and downs in blogging. Friendships can be formed quickly online, but they can evaporate just as quickly. Sometimes circumstances change and there is just not as much common ground anymore. Sometimes we realize that maybe the connection we felt initially is just not as strong as we thought it was. It has helped me to see my online friends as complementary to, but in no way a replacement of, my real life relationships. Celia, who blogs at www.breederbeware.blogspot.com, put it this way:
I have met so many wonderful women this way, since I don’t have any peers in 3-D that are infertile. It really has helped, and it has also lifted a lot of the burden from the few friends I did speak about my infertility with. Because as supportive as they were, no one that is not part of the community REALLY wants to hear about your cervical mucus. I think blogging has saved me from falling into a bottomless pit of sadness.
When I started getting the support and understanding I needed about my infertility, I was free to just be myself with the people in my life, and that has helped me to keep things in perspective.
For me, blogging has been a way to find community and a way to find my own voice. It's been a way to figure out my feelings and thoughts, a way to understand my own experience, and a way to keep a record of my journey so far. Being able to do it as part of a community of people who send me their thoughts, prayers, warm wishes and good advice has been an invaluable part of my own healing and working through the complexities of infertility. I am so grateful for the support I've received, and for the way that I've been welcomed into the lives of so many friends I've never met. And I'm excited to keep writing and keep reading to find out what happens next – to all of us.
Anna Baker blogs at www.annacyclopediaisworkingonit.wordpress.com and can be reached by email at annaleigh.baker@gmail.com. If you have questions or feedback, she'd love to hear from you.