So, I recently underwent a little project to clean up my blog. Those of you following on readers are aware of it because you had random posts flying at you about IUIs and BFNs and sperm counts each time I had a date-stamping snafu. When I moved to this blog from my former home, I copied all of my previous posts into one big catch-up post. This worked fine to catch people up, but lately I've been wanting to go through some of my archives and it's hard to find things when they aren't separated out by the date they were written. It's done now and my clean, chronologically-sound archives index makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. My next project might even include... wait for it... tags. I know, I know, I am truly a blogging wonder.
An interesting thing happened to me while I was working on my little project. I made the mistake of copying them over in reverse chronological order, so like from try #9 (or something like that) back to the beginning and into our pre-ttc planning stages. Reliving your journey in reverse is a truly horrifying experience and I don't recommend it. With each post I copied over, I was getting more optimistic and bubbly instead of less. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion and knowing there is no way to stop it. I wanted to shake the computer monitor and scold myself for my naivete: "It doesn't work! That never worked! Nope, this time will not be different. Ugh, you sound like such a sucker going on about this symptom or that hunch! I am embarrassed for you, truly." I was so adorable and clueless. It's one thing to smile and nod at another bright-eyed newbie. It's another when that bright-eyed newbie is yourself. I really had to fight the urge to edit out some of my Pollyanna musings during those first few tries.
That said, it was neat reading through my thoughts from other times along the way. M and I were talking last night about my blog (I made her vote on the Creme nominees, too!) and she mentioned that she is really glad I kept one throughout our process. From a practical standpoint, it provides a record of what, when, where and how everything took place. It's amazing how many details we have forgotten already. From an emotional standpoint, it's an invaluable time capsule that contains my every thought, hope and fear as we moved through each stage. At some point, I'd like to print and bind the entries from the beginning through Elliot's birth. I think I'd even like him to read them someday. He would need to be old enough to understand it and not get freaked out by it, so what is that... about 35 years old? LOL. I might edit out a few of the more graphic details (but everything relating to breaking laws is in!) and some of my angrier rants, but when he is old enough to see the forest and not the trees, I hope he would read it as a story about how much M and I love him, and have always loved him, even before we knew him. I like to think he'd be proud of how hard we fought for him and impressed by some of the gutsy things we did to get him here.
In mostly unrelated news, I read this hysterical blog where the author has a daughter exactly one month older than Elliot, to the day. She just posted about planning for an FET in the spring. *crickets* Seriously?! I guess that would give her (us) kids about two years apart. Holy crap. I am soooo not ready to go through ttc again any time soon. (Go ahead and exhale, M.)
ETA: I was thinking about this post in the shower this morning and I realized I wanted to clarify this last bit. I am in no way judging this woman for her timeline. My brother and I are two years apart and I always thought it was a good separation - probably one I would try to replicate in my own family someday. My "Seriously?!" wasn't aimed at her making the decision to pursue an FET in the near future, it was in reponse to the reality that we're approaching that time and if we wanted our own kids to be two years apart, we'd have to start trying again in a mere six months or so. That thought is just very overwhelming to me and my hat is off to those who are able to face it head on!
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