Hi Jitters (yes I'm talking to you)


So DD can't stop talking about me - I guess that's what happens when a girl from Nebraska meets someone from a more cosmopolitan, sophisticated area of the world (ah... that would be Canada).

All that aside, the idea of what I "need" from a blog intrigues me a little. I hadn't thought of it in quite those terms. What I needed when I first started was simply an outlet for my rage (although I don't know that the rage really made itself felt to people who stopped by, for an example. there's this post or this one . I don't think the rage really comes through). I started just after miscarriage #4 and just before my in-laws were going to descend for the Christmas holidays - two reasons to need to get some things off my chest.

Then I continued to blog because I found something I wasn't expecting - a number of people who could relate to what I'd gone through. To be fair, I hadn't told hardly anyone IRL how my husband and I had been spending the last few years (IVF, pee sticks, blood tests, semen samples, ultrasounds, miscarriages...) But I also didn't expect anyone IRL to understand if I had confided in them.

My mother is a good example. I generally told her little if anything about trying to obtain child #2 but after miscarriage #4 (or was it 5?) I told her about the recurrent miscarriages and her response was "I guess they're just not going to stick" - said in much the same tone as "we're all out of orange soda". I don't blame my mom for this - she just doesn't have much of the empathy gene for reproductive woes.

So I was amazed to find the whole community of IF bloggers out there. I only wish that I had started blogging way back when we were going through IVF.

And surprisingly, I still find the need to have some contact with people who understand where I've been.

Since the birth of my daughter, I have "come out" to almost everyone. As soon as someone starts asking about my children and makes any sort of remark on the age gap between them (seven years), I respond with something along the lines of "well, we had five miscarriage between them".

Almost universally, this statement makes people uncomfortable. I have yet to have anyone express any empathy or even sympathy (or even vague concern). They almost always nod and then change the subject. Again, I don't blame them - what do you say to someone who blurts that out?

I haven't really thought about it before but I guess it's a little strange that prior to my daughter I told almost no one about the miscarriages and since her birth I'll tell complete strangers. Maybe it was all just way too close to the surface before she came. I don't know that I could have told someone about the miscarriages without tearing up and possibly gnashing teeth and rending my clothes and I carry a little too much weight now for that to be a pretty sight. Now it somehow seems important to acknowledge what it took to get us to where we are and maybe to acknowledge other people facing recurrent miscarriage and IF - I don't know.

So my needs have changed but being the needy sort of person I am, I still have them. But now I think it's the need to just be part of a group that understands IF and SIF.

And of course, the bonds that come from baring your soul are far stronger than the bonds that come from everyday chit-chat. And the bulk of my everyday relationships are of the chit-chat variety. The bulk of my blogging relationships less so.

DinoD