I started this blog 100% for myself. I was going through some uncharted territory in my life and had no mentor who had been through it to help me. This became an outlet for me to sort out what I was feeling, even when I didn't even fully understand it myself.
I continued during pregnancy when a couple friends urged me to. Pregnancy is a road far more traveled than infertility but since it is still uncharted territory for me, I've found blogging continues to be therapeutic.
In a matter of weeks I will transition to another personally uncharted realm, motherhood. And blogging about that, along with chatting about the life and times of Hartley, sounds like it will be the most fun (and probably therapeutic) of all.
While I do blog mainly for myself, there is a message to my blog entries that I want people to take away from them. I want people to know that I am far from perfect.
So many women love to keep up a facade of always having all of their shit together all of the time.
I have actually been at the point in pregnancy where I was puking 4-5 times a day and had a woman say to me, "well, that's strange, all my pregnancies were wonderful." And I remembered thinking, "thank you for kicking me while I'm down. How big of you."
But that's the world we live in, especially as women. We can log on to Facebook/Instagram/whatever social media I don't even know about yet, and see a hundred pictures of perfection. We see flawless looking culinary victories, amazing vacation spots, massive engagement rings, perfectly staged interior designs, selfies of people on their perfect hair days, and smiling adorable babies. And while it's wonderful to share our triumphs and cheer each other on, sometimes we seem to be living not just to share our happiness but to paint pictures of perfection that could bring out the green eyed monster in the best of people.
This blog has pictures of me smiling with my giant belly, only in the maternity clothes I deem photo worthy. It has pictures of a nursery I am incredibly proud of. It has entries where I ooze about my love for my husband or talk about the amazing good luck streak that's going on. But I also am very open in sharing things on here that people might not always advertise to others. Yeah, I have budget talks with my husband, and while I think our marriage is the best I've ever seen in real life, we don't always agree. Yeah, I'll tell you about my nervous breakdowns or the horrendous funk I'm in. I will tell you the not so pretty things, like stretch marks, weight gain, leaky boobs and uncontrollable tears. I openly advertised every single set back or failure during fertility treatment. I let you know about vomiting bile for a few weeks there.
I don't put the bad stuff on here so that people feel sorry for me or to embarrass myself or others. I put it on here because, if people do read this, I want them to know that this is REAL life. These are REAL feelings. If you can relate, I'm sending a virtual high five your way.
I will never be the woman who makes another person feel like a freak. I will never be the one to kick you while you're down. I will always be a genuine person because I personally believe that trait to be one of the most valuable that a person can possess.
I am human - with a big personality and a foul mouth. And I have feelings. Hell, I have a whole lot of feelings these days. But when I share them, I'm hoping people can take it for what it is. A person being honest and real. I truly feel if we had more honest people in this world, it would be a much better place. We could all feel a little less inadequate and a little more "normal". Whatever the hell "normal" is.
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