My English Friends - Long Live the TTC'ers!

There is a place on my blog in the statistics tab that I can go to and see all kinds of interesting information.  It shows how many hits I've had that day, that week, that month, and for all time.  It also shows which posts are being looked at the most, how the posts were gotten to (whether it's the direct blog address, Facebook links, or referring blogs that have links to my blog on them), and, most interesting to me, it also shows what countries are looking at my blog.

Not surprisingly, my largest amount of followers are from the United States.  But I have had all kinds of countries hit my blog including Canada (Hi Canada follower!  Thank you!), Denmark, Russia, Vietnam, China, Slovenia, etc.  And you may find it interesting that I have somewhat of a regular following in England.  But I know why!  Want to know my secret?

It all began when Jamey and I decided to get pregnant.  We had told everyone, for absolutely forever, that we were not going to have kids, but that we reserved the right to change our minds.  And so one day, we did in fact change our minds.  But we didn't want to tell anyone.  We had seen too many couples who had gone before us make the mistake of telling people they were trying to have a baby.  Talk about pressure!  We'd hear it all the time for these poor souls - So any news yet?  Do I need to start shopping for baby clothes yet? And all other kinds of questions, that frankly, we felt might be inappropriate.  I mean, what if those people were having difficulties conceiving?  So we decided right away that we would not tell anybody. 

But that was hard.  For me, anyway.  I mean, I wanted to share with somebody about it.  Particularly with someone who was also trying to have a baby.  I don't know why, but I did.  I wanted that connection.  But for a while, I just bumbled along on my own.  I'd be at work and on the sly, I would look at websites that talked about charting your fertility cycles and tips to maximize your chances.  (Can you believe that?)  And then one day, I don't even know how, I ended up on yet another website that was all about having babies.  This one was in the United Kingdom.  And I looked and they had - discussion boards.  Hallelujah!  My prayers had been answered!  I could go on there and talk to people who had no idea who I was!

But I started to get nervous.  You know, because I was sure that there would be someone on those boards who would recognize me.  So I pretended I lived in England too.  And I posted something on the board.  And then someone answered me back.  And then another.  And pretty soon, every day (while I was supposed to be working of course), I was chatting away with a lovely group of ladies from "across the pond"!

We checked in with each other almost every day.  People started getting pregnant.  Then we had a few miscarriages, including my own.  And these ladies were all a huge support to me during that time.  I didn't have to suffer by myself.  I will never forget them for that.

We decided at some point that we were going to move over to a private board on MSN.  And around the same time I had cooked up a story about us "coming home" (from our fake home in England to our real house in the United States), and I made up a silly story about our dog having to be quarantined when he came back and all, because I was really tired of pretending to live in England (seriously, isn't that the silliest thing you've ever heard of?), and so almost as soon as our board went private, I told all of them.  We had such a good laugh over it.  (Do you remember that ladies?)

And then eventually, almost every single one of us got pregnant.  One of the ladies had several more miscarriages, but she now has two lovely little boys.  Only one of us didn't conceive.  I don't know whatever happened to her, because the board got to be too much for her.  I don't blame her.  I am sure that would have been extremely difficult to read about all the pregnancies and babies day after day.  But I hope she is well.  That is the sad part about our board.  Not all of us got that lucky.  So Suede (her name on the board), I truly hope and pray your life is well. 

We have finally moved off the board and are all Facebook friends.  We still have our own page on Facebook, and we post updates from time to time.  We are all so busy with our lives.  But I will always consider this group of ladies my friends.  And maybe one day, I'll get to go across the pond and meet them. I would love it.  Love all you ladies!  Long live the TTC'ers!!!  ;o)

I hope you enjoyed this little story from my past.  I enjoyed the trip down memory lane.  Have a great afternoon everybody!