My thoughts on the recent upheaval

There has been alot of talk going on in the blogging community about inculsion/exclusion and blogrolls and such.  And I wanted to throw my two cents out there.

I blog for me.  I started this blog almost 5 years ago as a way to vent my frustrations with our struggles...a way to document everything that we went through.  I have been a TTC blogger...a pregnancy blogger...a parenting blogger (I cringe at the term mommy blogger)...a pregnancy loss blogger.  I've moved in and out of these topics here...I haven't deviated from this space except for one situation which I didn't think my daughter needed to read about later in life.  See, this blog was also meant for her.  Or, for whatever future children I had, if any.  It was meant as a way for my children to understand why their mom was crazy protective of them...why they never went to bed without saying I love you.  I had hoped that one day, I could pass this link on to them, and they could read what my life was like before them.  While I was pregnant with them.  While they were babies.  Etc, Etc, Etc.

While doing this, I found some really wonderful people who were at the same stage I was.  Most of the people I still follow have children who were born right around the time my daughter was...and some have just had recent additions.  Most of the people I follow, I now know on other social media sites as well.  I talk to them on Facebook, or via email, or via Google Talk.  They are people that I've never met in person...but who I consider my friends.  Who I cry with, marvel with...I'm happy when they have momentous moments...and feel their frustrations when things don't pan out they way they'd hoped.  These blogs I comment freely on. 

But there are also the people that I follow that haven't had their miracle yet.  That don't know if they will ever have their miracle.  I cry with them and feel their sadness through their words.  I can empathize with them, because I know how it feels to want something so badly, and not know if you will ever get there.  But I will be honest and say that I don't comment as freely.  And it hurts my heart to admit that.  To know that these are the people who might need support more than ever, and not feel like I can freely tell them that I feel their pain.  Because I have my miracle.  I have what they are trying for...or what they lost. 

I don't participate in things like ICLW or NaBloMoPo because I don't want someone who is hurting to come across my blog ranting about the pains of potty training or the woes of a toddler that doesn't want to eat and feel more pain.  Perhaps that is a judgement on my part...that they wouldn't want to read my ranting...but I know I didn't want to read about that before I had my daughter.  So I choose to exclude myself from those activities...and by doing so, I lose the possibility of finding NEW readers who are in the same place as me...of discovering NEW friends.

So I find myself wondering sometimes why I continue to post here.  I don't receive but maybe 1 or 2 comments per post...if I'm lucky.  But then I look at my daughter and realize that I post here for her.  So she has a history of her life from her mom's perspective.  So she can look back when she's a mom herself, or when I'm gone, and know that she's not alone...that her mom loves her more than anything and chose to put it out for all the world to see.  To shout from the pages of this blog that she is important.  I blog for her.  I blog for me.