An Interesting Turn of Events

I sat at the keyboard the other day, checking gaming forums, reading your blogging updates (heavens I really need to update my sidebar!), perusing flights to somewhere sunny for the Christmas holiday season (you know, to forget that this is yet another holiday without a child), among other things. And as I frequently do, I opened up my g-mail account to check my messages. What I saw there piqued my interest.

I received an e-mail from a writer for a prominent Canadian newspaper. She had stumbled across this blog and she wanted to know more; would I be interested in speaking with her?

Here, I have to confess (because I know she'll be reading this!), my initial thoughts were, "Riiiiight," (insert sarcastic voice), "Who's yankin' my chain?" So I do what any technologically inclined blogger would do: I Googled her. That lead me to some of her previous articles. She is real and no one is yankin' my chain. Neat!

Now the best part: she's not just interested in me per se, she's interested in the community of IF bloggers. Get that girls?! Yes indeed, you read that right. Our community.

Well, after I got over my initial shock, I replied to her via e-mail. In short, my answer was, "Oh yes, I'm interested in speaking about this. Here's my number, give me a call."

This morning I spent about 30 minutes on the phone with her. I answered her questions surrounding blogging in general: why do I do it? What lead me to it? What sorts of readers do I have? And other questions about my personal journey on this road: where are we now? What are our next steps? What does having a baby mean to me?

You know... the questions we all have answered a dozen times in our minds. It's interesting to know that someone out there is listening.

I can say this with absolute certainty: Even if we never get anywhere with our quests, if we never reach our goals, if we never fulfill our dreams, at least we can educate. We can put a face on the pain and hurt. We can show the world that infertility is real. Infertility affects many people in a myriad of ways. Infertility is not something to be ashamed of or afraid of. Infertility is part of our lives, it is a part of who we are now.

What we go through here makes us stronger. We never realized how much we could do until we were pushed beyond our limits. We never understood that there was an entire world of women (and men) out there going through the SAME thing and with whom we can relate.

You, ladies and gentlemen, you GET IT. And I am proud to have such a wonderful community to turn to for advice, assistance and emotional support. You have helped me more than you can possibly know. Kudos to you. YOU make the difference.


By the way, as a follow-up, I expect a photographer at my house on Sunday. Frankly, I don't think he'll get much to work with (not unless they want to frighten their subscribers!) but hey, if I can put a face on infertility and tell part of my story, shining a light on this subject for other suffering infertiles, our government and policy-makers, then I'll do everything to make that happen. Wish me luck. Oh, and if I can find out when said article is going to be published, I'll let you know.