I did it--I outed myself on Face.book. I've never spoken about our IF there and didn't really have much intention of bringing it up this way. Obviously, I couldn't talk about it there until after our families knew what was going on.
I always knew I would talk about it there, but I figured I would wait until NIAW or something. I guess it's the impending nature of IVF 2.0 that made me bring it up sooner. It was so hard to hide such an important life event the last time we went through this. I posted lots of vague sad things when we got our last BFN, and those who knew about the cycle knew why, but I think it worried others.
I must say that posting about it felt liberating. I was so nervous before I hit that "share" button, but it felt so freeing once it was out there. So many of us suffer in relative silence, sharing with those in the IF blogosphere, but not people in our lives. Blogging affords a large amount of anonymity, which is necessary when venting, crying, etc. is needed. I have no intention of sharing my blog address with the world, as I still feel that I need the safe space to get out the thoughts and feelings that aren't easy to even acknowledge, much less talk about. After all, the rest of the fertile world thinks that hope is an unqualified good thing, when we all know the double-edged sword that it brings. I don't want to have to explain that to people--I still need to be able to put it out there with a wonderful community who just "get it".
Still, the response to my FB "outing" was incredible. I was afraid I would get some negative comments or people telling me to keep it to myself. What I received was quite the opposite--within minutes, I had messages of love and support. I had 4 people respond that they had been through IF treatments, too--woohoo!--one outing leads to another! Not a single negative comment was left on my post.
I plan to continue posting about our IVF cycle on FB. I will try to ask for support when I need it from those who know me IRL, which is actually much harder than asking the IF blogosphere. I want to continue to put my story out there--who knows who might be helped by it?
Consumption 20
1 day ago
8 comments:
I'm impressed. Could you pass just a tid bit of your braveness my way??? Maybe then we could at least tell our families :)
Doesn't it feel GREAT to come clean!! Keep it up girl, we need more brave voices like you!
You are so brave! I wish I could do that, but every time I think about doing it, I talk myself out of it. LOL! I'm glad you had such amazing feedback. I bet that feels awesomely refreshingly! :)
Wow! That's a big thing. We're pretty out about it in our day to day life, but I haven't said anything on FB. Partly because until recently I didn't say much of anything on FB :-)
You are a brave woman. So inspiring. I am not out on FB but there are a fair number of people IRL that know. Outing on FB scares me. Good for you.
I'm so happy for you Cortney! I definitely think it helps people to be honest about your struggles. I got a lot of positive feedback when I shared our long journey to getting pregnant.
That does take guts! I feel so disconnected because everyone posts about being a parent. What i fear about coming out to facebook about IF is they will feel guilty about posting or they will pity me. But i don't like not being a part of their world. It is a hard one for me..
Good for you! I hope I would have had the courage to do this if we had gone further down the road with treatments, but I'm not sure. But I think it's a fantastic thing for everyone to see, as long as you don't expect them all now to understand what you're going through.
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