You Have a Story Worth Sharing (And you can decide how)

Oh my goodness I’ve been AWOL for a while now, and I’m so sorry about that.

I figure it’s time for a bit of a life update blog, plus some insight into what’s going on with my writing career, and I think I can sum all of it up in just two words:

I’m pregnant!

I’m almost 16 weeks pregnant which means we’re going to have a little Thanksgiving baby, and we are so excited. We recently found out it’s a boy, and we are in full planning mode for the Star Wars/Doctor Who nursery.

We found out in March which is honestly why my blogs stopped around then. The news took over my whole mindspace and I just didn’t have the time or energy to crank out blogs or newsletters or Instagram posts as regularly as I had been. I definitely still find joy in writing, but as I’ve written on before, I’ve been pondering my career goals for a while now and this baby just altered all of my priorities. It no longer seems important that I become a traditionally published author, at least not right now. So if I’m not seeking a literary agent or a book deal, I don’t have to put so much weight on regular content. I don’t have to play the social media game. I don’t have to build an email list. All these things that had been mentally draining me, I just let go. 

Unfortunately, in giving myself some grace to be in the happy baby bubble for a while and not write every day, I kind of stopped writing altogether. I missed a couple weeks with my podcast, I didn’t write any blogs, I didn’t send out any newsletters, I ran out of planned Instagram reel content, so that stopped, too. I need to figure out some sort of balance. Some sort of project that keeps me writing fairly regularly even if it’s not every day. Because even if I’m not actively pursuing a full-time career as a writer at the moment, it’s still my passion, and I believe God gave me this gift to share, in one way or another. So I’m going to share a little bit of my heart in this blog post and just continue to offer my writing up for free on this website (as regular or irregular as that may be), and that will be good enough for me until God tells me otherwise.

So it took us a while to get pregnant. We had been trying for a solid year before it happened for us. And I wanted to write about it so. bad. But I felt like I couldn’t, because that’s a taboo topic. And others have tried for years and years, so my story was nothing compared to theirs. But that didn’t stop all of my feelings of discouragement, inadequacy, impatience. With every negative test, I became more and more convinced that this just wasn’t going to happen for me. I wanted to talk to people about it. People who had gone through something similar but came out the other side with children. People who had gone through this but ended up without children. People who were still in the midst of it just like I was. But aside from the strangers on my TTC app, I had no one. You can’t just message someone on Instagram and be like “hey, how long did it take you to have kids because if it’s over six months, I want to talk.” I felt I couldn’t blog about it because it’s a very personal topic and, again, I didn’t feel like my story was worth sharing because I hadn’t been trying as long as some people who struggle with infertility for years. So I took to journaling. 

I have pages and pages of heartbreaking journal entries, detailing all of my rambling thoughts throughout the year it took us to get pregnant. Throughout that year, over 7 people I knew announced pregnancies, 3 of those were very best friends that I talk to every week or even every day. And even though I was thrilled for them, I was constantly surrounded by baby talk that I couldn’t truly participate in. It was a very long 12 months for me, but there are a few things I took from this experience:

1. My story is worth sharing. God gave me this gift and passion to write and I need to use it. Even if I have it better or worse than most people telling their stories, that doesn’t make mine insignificant. So I will be taking my journal entries and turning them into a larger project that I hope will be helpful to some of y’all out there. I’m hoping to have it posted under my “Faerie” section by November, but we all know it’s gonna get real crazy between now and then, so bear with me if it’s not up at that time.
2. I get to choose how to share my story. Like I said, I decided not to pursue a full-time writing career or a traditional book deal at this time. While that might be the best route for some, it is not where I need to be right now. So I’m going to just keep blogging and podcasting and posting my major projects for free on this website as little or as often as I want, and just hope and pray it is helpful to some readers out there. I do not have to share every little detail of my life on social media. I do not owe anyone any part of my story I do not want to share. But I also can share my story even if I don’t think it’s 100% perfect, because…
3. I am not alone. I know there are other women out there dealing with similar feelings. So here is your open invitation. If you want to talk to someone but don’t want to go public with it, my DMs are always open. I’m here. And if you don’t want to talk one on one, but you want to hear more from me, I will continue to post little bits of my story here, so feel free to read that and know you are not alone either.

So all of that to say, I’m sorry I haven’t been regularly posting, but you’re going to have to get used to that. I will still be sharing my story in various forms when I can but I’m taking most of the pressure off myself as there are bigger things on my mind. And you need to know that you have a story worth sharing and you can decide how (and if) you’d like to share it. Thanks for coming on this journey with me, and stay tuned for cringey mommy blogs;P