Blogiversary and What To Do About the Blog?

First of all, thank you to everyone for your comments and prayers since my last post. I was truly touched by all your support! I feel so grateful that God has led me to where I am today and I am trying to really enjoy this exciting stage of life. I am so thankful that I am able to experience this. At the same time, I am keeping all of you close in prayer. I heard from a few of you for the first time and still have to stop by a few of your blogs for a visit/comment – this is coming soon!

February 2^nd marked my one year anniversary of becoming a blogger. What a year it has been! It was probably last January when I decided that I wanted to start a devotional-style blog for Catholic women struggling with infertility/pregnancy loss. The August before, I was having a very difficult time (my 30^th birthday and 6^th wedding anniversary were that month) and I decided to get a few books to help me cope. One was a devotional book, and though it was good, it was written by an Evangelical and I found it kind of hard to relate at times. There really is something different about Catholic spirituality and of course the values we hold as far as TTC. I briefly looked online at some of the Catholic infertile blogs, and didn't find anything with a devotional style, so I decided to go for it.

I immediately came up with all sorts of topics and fun titles for my blog posts. I found it interesting that although I started by using those initial brainstorm ideas, for the most part, life brought about topics for each week's blog posts and I rarely had to dig into my "blog brainstorm" file for an idea. I had a laparoscopy/hysteroscopy/selective HSG at the end of January, and starting this blog was one of my projects during my week off from work. I knew absolutely nothing about blogging and had only briefly visited a few blogs at that point. My how times have changed!

It has been great to meet so many of you online and to even meet a few of you in person! What a connection we share through our experiences even if we don't know each other IRL. It seems that every thought and emotion that you ladies have posted this year, I have experienced myself. On days when big news was coming, I would sit at work repeatedly refreshing your blog pages for the latest news. I have been so happy for some of you, your successes have brought tears to my eyes and for those who had difficult times, I found another types of tears pouring forth.

At times I wished I had another type of blog. One where I could just post about what was going on in my life, to pose questions that I knew I could get knowledgeable answers to from experienced women. But except for a few extenuating circumstances, I tried to keep to my format. I often wondered what people might think of me, if I was coming off as "holier than thou" in writing only devotional posts. If people thought that I had devotions to all the different prayers at the end of my posts, when in reality I had often just found them through a Google search moments before posting! I am certainly not a model of faith and have a lot of room for improvement – believe me. These blog posts were often the first time I really meditated on what God was trying to teach me through my sufferings. I suppose anyone who was turned off to my blog format doesn't read my posts anyway, so I need not worry.

At any rate, this anniversary comes at a critical time because obviously things are changing in my life. Although I still have a lot of feelings that I think I could work through, I am trying to decide what to do with this blog. I will certainly keep the blog active so that I can post comments on all of your sites; however, my news posts will probably be few and far between. I would like to keep up working through my post ideas and hopefully providing support to others through the blog, but it is time-consuming. I have a lot going on right now both personally and professionally that will keep me from my original goal of posting once a week. I am also a bit nervous about some new person finding my site one day and posting supportive comments, only to find out later that I am pregnant and feel like they were "lied" to.

Will I start a new blog? I'm not sure. I would like to be able to post some updates for anyone who would like to follow along with me. I know at times over the year, I had wished I had a "regular" blog so I could post about funny things that were happening in my life, but now, I'm not quite sure what I would write about in a new blog (other than the obvious). One of my IRL friends who blogs recently posted with questions about what purpose blogging serves. Does it do help me in any way? Am I a better person because of it? Does it make someone else's life better? The answers are different for each person/blog. This is part of my quandary about whether to start a new blog at this point. If I just post with pregnancy updates, would that really be helpful for me or others? I know all the comments/camaraderie are definitely helpful, but is the time spent worthwhile right now?

I wish there was some way to write posts that don't necessarily get posted on my main page, but that could be linked on the side. Anyone know how to do that? I tried to figure that out for my pregnancy announcement, but couldn't find anything. I'm sure that once this baby is born, I will start up a new blog, but I may go on a hiatus in the meantime as there is a lot to do, and I find it hard to keep up with blogging/commenting as it is now. So, what to do, what to do? Any thoughts are welcome.

On an unrelated note, I know that there are a lot of more urgent prayer requests right now, but if you happen to remember, please say a prayer for my husband and I's discernment. We are trying to decide whether my husband should take a new job position (if offered) which we had always thought would be the "dream job." Of course, nothing is perfect, and taking the job would involve a lot of risk and sacrifice. It would also mean we could move close to family which would be awesome at this stage of our life. Last week we were leaning one way, but this week we are leaning in the opposite direction, and both feeling at peace with it. However, we don't have the offer yet, and still want to get some questions answered and make sure we thoroughly think through all the benefits/drawbacks so that we come to the right decision. Thank you in advance for any prayers you can spare!