In my view, this whole to do got started because people were feeling left out and I was wondering what we could do to ease that feeling. I think the first thing we need to do is talk. Here are some of the things I really feel we need to talk about...
- If you're still fighting infertility, do you feel uncomfortable continuing to visit a blog after someone finally becomes pregnant or becomes a mom? Does it make a difference whether the blog belongs to someone you are close to or someone who is just a casual acquaintance?
- Is there anything an ALI community member who is pregnant or a new parent could do to make you feel more comfortable?
- If you've manage to get pregnant or become a parent, have you noticed a drop in support from the community? Do you feel like you still belong or do you feel left out?
- Is there anything the ALI community can do to make you feel like you belong even after you've become a parent?
- Enter the Salon with the understanding that each blogger is a unique individual with unique personal, cultural, and social identities that inform her/his perspective. Every person's experience is significant and valid.
- Comments in the Salon will encompass respect towards all three entities: a) yourself; b) the blogger/commenter with whom you might disagree; c) the ALI community at large.
- It's okay to agree to disagree.
- Avoid scapegoating or assigning intent to a person. Only respond to the words on the screen.
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My experience in this community is very different from a lot of people's experiences. I didn't really find the ALI community until after I already had 2 kids and we were fighting secondary infertility. I never felt like I didn't have a place here. Because of this, I can't really speak to a lot of these issues. Truly, I feel that those of us who have made it through infertility play a vitally important role in this community. We're a resource for hope and for ideas as to what works and what doesn't. Because we've made it through, we often have the emotional fortitude to support our friends who are still in the trenches. I hope opening up my bloggy home will help heal the rift in our community.
Logging you in...
battynurse · 684 weeks ago
Steadfast Warrior · 684 weeks ago
Ouch!
Now granted it was only one person, and I have been lucky to have an amazing group of people who saw me through the difficult times. But it still hurt… a lot! I felt as if I and others who were pregnant or had live children had been shoved into one area of a room and someone threw up a soshi screen. Yes, we were still there, but maybe if people didn't see us so easily, our presence could be tolerated.
I remember having a strong response to the comment and though I got over it and moved on, if others like me (who had their own struggles let me remind people) came up against something like this, I can absolutely understand why people would seek a 'safe have' of sorts where they didn't have to worry about their very presence being objectionable
I am always cognizant about leaving comments that take into consideration a person's situation. That didn't change when I got pregnant, and it certainly hasn't changed now that I have a 2-year old. But ICLW means you can participate with a wide range of people and how can I know if my comment, even if it's perfectly supportive and doesn't mention that I am parenting now, is welcome or not? I'm not out to cause people undue harm. I tend to keep away for that reason and also because I simply have less time for blogs than I used to.
missusgamgee 50p · 684 weeks ago
Sarah (SLESE1014) · 684 weeks ago
But as I write this, I feel out of place. I’m no longer a member of the TTC IF club. I have my miracle. I’m still an IFer, but I have my miracle.However, I don’t feel comfortable just joining a mommy club or looking for mommy blogs. They just don’t get it. They don’t understand how grateful I am to have my little one after everything we’ve been through. They don’t understand if I want to try for number two I have to go see a doctor and have blood drawn and ultrasounds before we can even really talk about when we can try. I have to stop breastfeeding for a month before that. I have hoops to jump through before we can even think about trying. I had to start planning for number two before Raegan was even born. Pumping extra to stock pile milk so I can continue to give her breast milk when I stop attempting to breast feed. Normal fertile mommies don’t get that.
There was not necessarily a feeling of not belonging, but being out of place. I'm just in a different place and wanted people who were in the same place for support. I did lose a few readers when I got my BFP and when my daughter was born. I understood, but I don't think I felt a change in the support. The readers I had were wonderful in their support, but some of them just weren't in the same place and our stories didn't relate. I still follow them and support them as much as I can. But I needed a little more common ground blogs to read. It was a way of branching out for me.
I haven't turned my back on the ALI community and don't feel as if they turned their back on me. I don't think the community itself did anything wrong, I was just looking for something more, in addition to what I had. I saw PAIL as a community within a community.
As far as commenting goes, I comment when I can and when I feel I have something to contribute. I do my best to share my thoughts and knowledge and maybe a little of my feelings too. I don't think I have ever commented to offend and if I have it was completely unintentional. I have never participated in ICLW so I can't comment on that in particular.
I don't think the ALI community needs to do anything to make me feel like I belong. It's simply a matter of what I need and what's available. With Mel's blogroll, one I just joined in January, I didn't think of it as a "community" but more as a resource. I thought of PAIL as a group of women who recently gave birth after struggling with IF and loss. The 2 women who suggested it and ran with it literally gave birth within a week of me. There was a connection there based solely on our experiences being so close together.
I'm grateful for the ALI community and what Mel has done for all of us. When I stumbled onto the blogging community I was amazed at the support from complete strangers. And the stories these women tell helped me through my darkest times. Even a success story while I was miscarrying helped give me hope to move forward. I felt like this was a place I could belong. It continues to feel like I am a part, but in a different place....
Sorry for the rambling, I'm not the best at getting what I think out, part of why I blog in the first place. Thanks for hosting this, I really feel like I've been given a different perspective on how others perceived PAIL and why feelings were hurt. I'm relatively new to blogging and am not familiar with the proper etiquette regarding blogging. Thanks again!
kh99 26p · 684 weeks ago
Anyway, on to your questions.
3) I didn't really blog through our surrogacy journey and was absent during our early years of parenting, so I've never felt personally ostracized. However, I've read enough bloggers who parent discuss how they lost readers and I remember this issue always being a topic of conversation for years, so I know it happens.
4) I guess I just want an acknowledged space in the ALI community. I don't feel comfortable posting on a lot of blogs of those still in the trenches, which is sad because I feel like I could offer support. At the same time, I don't want to feel stuck in a tiny box and ignored because I have a child. I don't know. Honestly, I don't.
Kat · 684 weeks ago
I guess the only thing I think a parenting or pregnant blogger could do to make me feel more comfortable would be to know that if you participate in the ALI community, you're naturally going to have readers of are TTC, and really, don't take it personally if they aren't that into your blog if your focus is on parenting. At times during this past week I kept thinking...why would you look for parenting support from infertiles? And then, if you don't get it, you complain? Is there not enough parenting support out there for you? I'm not trying to be snarky here, I honestly am wondering if this is how some people felt. So I guess my answer to your second question would be, A) don't censor yourself, but B) don't ask people to give that which they can't give, and C) don't blame them or guilt them when they can't.
Jo. · 684 weeks ago
AnotherDreamer · 684 weeks ago
We have subgroups, but we're all members of the ALI community. I would have listed myself under PCOS, infertility, and recurrent miscarriages- now, I'd say I'm still PCOS, I'm still infertile, and I still had recurrent miscarriages, but I'm also parenting and dealing with what I've been through and how it applies to my life now. I have had followers leave, and I knew that would happen... I only had one openly tell me they were leaving, but I suspect others have left as well. It seems inevitable when you cross over.
Did a group of PAIL feel alienated and feel like they needed their own group? I can somewhat understand how they might feel that way, since I personally can't relate to non-PAIL moms... but I can relate to ALI members, because I am still (and will always be) a member of the ALI community. So I don't particularly feel a need for a different subgroup, I wondered what I should do once I transitioned from ALI to PAIL and I decided ultimately that I am still ALI and it still effects me day to day... so I try to blog about how I'm coping with that. Not to mention the uncertainty of whether we will ever try for another child through fertility treatments or adoption. Which is hard for other non-ALI members to understand.
I'm rambling. So, yeah, I don't really know what happened that upset people so much. I'm just not understanding this who issue.
Pamela Jeanne · 684 weeks ago
i couldn't agree more! however, i'm speaking from the point of view of someone who has had a different but no less profound resolution to infertility. Can only address one of your questions as the others don't directly correspond to my little niche of the ALI community, but you're more than welcome to answer my questions -- aimed at a entire ALI audience ;-)
To answer your question: Is there anything an ALI community member who is pregnant or a new parent could do to make you feel more comfortable? Um, yes, please keep in mind that those of us who have come to terms with infertility but are not raising children find it easier to move forward and feel acceptance when we're not made to feel invisible.
loribeth · 684 weeks ago
If you're still fighting infertility, do you feel uncomfortable continuing to visit a blog after someone finally becomes pregnant or becomes a mom?
As someone who is no longer in treatment, but never had a child, I think that ALL of us, parenting (achieved by whatever means) or not, continue to fight infertility throughout our lives. I can't imagine too many of us feel that our lives are untouched and that a baby somehow makes it all better.
That said, I do know ALI parents who have said things to me & others that have me scratching my head -- stuff you would expect from the "outside" world but not a trenchmate. Perhaps a case of temporary amnesia?? I only feel uncomfortable visiting parenting after ALI blogs when the minute details & daily crises of parenting seem to have taken over the blog. It's not something I can relate to or comment on.
loribeth · 684 weeks ago
If I followed your blog and made a connection with you while you were going through treatment or loss, I will likely continue to be a reader, if only because I'm now invested in your story & want to hear how things are going. But I have started reading some blogs by ALI parents after they've had their babies.
loribeth · 684 weeks ago
Ummm, yes. As Pamela noted above, it's nice to feel acknowledged once in awhile. We know nobody wants to live our life and nobody who is still ttc wants to think about it, but really, we're not contagious & we don't bite. ; ) Stop over & say hello once in awhile. Although it's not the life any of us expected or wanted to be living, really, it's not such a bad life, all things considered. At least, it doesn't have to be -- it's really up to you.
kmina 14p · 684 weeks ago
2. I second Loribeth's answer. It also matters if the story is compelling - not necessarily with many twists and turns, because is is life, not novels, but if I like how the blogger writes and the attitude towards things in life, I keep coming for more.
3. People are people. With some you click, with some you don't. Just because someone told me to shut up because I only miscarried, and only once, that does not mean that I do shut up or that I hold the entire community responsible for that. Feelings are not easily controlled and we should just accept that as it is.
loribeth · 684 weeks ago
ninapintasantamaria 11p · 684 weeks ago
Mel · 684 weeks ago
1. I'm okay going to any blog except hate blogs. Does this mean that it doesn't sting when I'm uploading pregnancy announcement after pregnancy announcement for the LFCA -- no. But it stings for me while there is also a sweetness. We have a song in Hebrew about this: al kol eleh -- http://www.hebrewsongs.com/song-alkoleleh-bikel.h... -- that has become a shorthand to refer to that idea of even the sting (the bee) also brings the sweet (honey). I don't avoid anything. Except those hate blogs.
2. Talk to me as they would have wanted someone to talk to them. Try to pick language that makes the listener lean in rather than pull back.
3. I've never seen big readership drops or increases. It's all been pretty steady, based on how long I've been around.
4. They could buy me dinner :-) I do love how the community has grown to love the twins. That they've grown up with people knowing about them; caring about them from afar. I think of everyone here as their Internet aunts. And they know about all of you. They sometimes know you by your blog name or your sign-off name or they know you by your real name. I tell them about your kids and show them photos. I love that they have grown up knowing all of you just as much as you have known them.
Mali · 684 weeks ago
2. Yes, but not always. Again it is that connection, the spirit and voice of the person, that attracts me. It doesn't worry me too much if they have children or are pregnant, if I think they're interesting.
3. Yes and no. Whilst I would like our tribe (the no kidding tribe) to be acknowledged, I think blogs are individual and should be how they want to be, and so if they want to be focused only on parenting, that's fine, it's their choice, and I'm happy if they are. But I'd point out that that they have to accept that people will leave, though others will probably join. It's just life - I'm not going to visit a blog that doesn't, occasionally, acknowledge that I exist, for example.
4. I've "crossed over" but to the happily living a life without children side. But I only started blogging after I'd stopped treatment, so I can't comment on whether support would have dropped off. I can say it is hard to build support when you're living the life no-one wanted. And so of course we feel left out. For example, none of your questions here acknowledged that we even exist in the community.
5. I'm not a parent. But I can say I've been surprised the question has been asked at all though. I mean, Mel's blog is the ultimate parenting after IF blog, and the majority of her commenters are pregnant or parents. If that's not belonging to the community, I don't know what is. Perhaps, simply by the nature of infertility, we're all always going to feel a little bit vulnerable and left out, no matter where we are in our journey. If these Healing Salons can help us all acknowledge that, I think we're in a better place.
Sara · 684 weeks ago
2. I never felt uncomfortable being pregnant or a parent in the ALI community after an initial (unavoidable) period of survivor's guilt. It's all very unfair that some people "win" the lottery and some don't. But it also just is what it is, and feeling horrible about "winning" doesn't help anyone. I think that being aware that there are people all around oneself on all sides of the divide (in the trenches, living child free, haven't tried yet but afraid of ttc, dealing with a crisis pregnancy, blissfully pregnant, etc.) at all times, not just while blogging, is just good form, and it's what I strive to do, although obviously being human I often fail, and fail badly.
3. No, I never noticed a drop in support. If anything, I noticed that the other parents rallied around me. Of course fewer "newbies" show up as regular blog readers, but that's not exactly surprising given the subject matter of my blog. It seems to me that there's a balance. I'm happy with it all. I feel like I belong.
4. Again, I feel like I belong. I agree with Mali above that I'm surprised by the question, given that Mel's blog is the ultimate parenting after IF blog.
This whole argument surprised me, and I'm still trying to process it. Obviously there is something afoot in the community that wasn't there (or wasn't as loud) when I was pregnant or a new mom. While it obviously needs to be addressed, and better communication among new parents might be a good way to address it, it's clear that missteps have been made along the way. I hope that we can all put this behind us at some point and stop focusing on the little hurts of the past.
loribeth · 683 weeks ago
embracingtherain 19p · 683 weeks ago