Feeling A Little … Adrift

Hey, Lovelies!

So, technically, the blog tour wraps today over at A Mama’s Amusing Musings– If you weren’t in the know that’s the new home for the lady from At Least I Still Have Humour, remember that awesome chick?!… check it out. And so does the Giveaway of my book that I have been running here! I will contact that winner today! But I really wanted to turn towards other things today. Becuase if we’re honest, now that the book launch is winding down, I’m not sure how regularly I’m going to be posting anymore. So I wanted to address that head on and talk about what’s been going on in my life the last few months while I was swallowed alive by my book.

First things first, the support I have recieved for my book project has been incredible. Some of the cool stuff I posted about as it was happening (Amazon charts and what have you) but I wanted to give a huge shout out to The Butterfly Run Peterborough group in Ontario, Canada, who purchased 10 copies of Extra! to donate as part of their infertility initiative to local libraries! That’s right folks, this group bought infertility specific books to donate them to libraries to increase access to infertility literature and broaden public knowledge about the condition. I am BEYOND thrilled to have been included in this initiative and hope that those copies of Extra! touch the hearts and minds of the littles that come across it on the library shelves.

Secondly, I am proud to say that a picture from Extra! has been included in the upcoming ART of infertility exhibition which will be starting in Salt Lake City, UT next week. I have booked my plane ticket to go attend the opening and am fairly certain I will cry. Be warned. BUT! If you are also planning to go to the Art of infertility exhibit in SLC please feel free to introduce yourself. I would love to meet some online friends IRL at this event. If we’re lucky enough to be there together let me know to look for you.

Ok, ok. But really, enough about the book! What else has been going on… Well, I finished my Still Birthday doula training and have submitted my final projects to get the certification completed. So that’s all kinds of overwhelming and exciting. I won’t be actually practicing as a doula yet as I am too far along in this pregnancy now and will be waiting till this little is over a year to jump into it. But I am excitedly dipping my toe into the birth community in my area and getting my feet wet. It’s been a cool transition and I hope to be able to support many rainbow families in the future. This is reason #1 why I intend to step back a bit from the blog now. I will be using that time to research more about making connections in the area.

Speaking of babies, did y’all remember I was pregnant? I haven’t been talking much about this pregnancy on the blog because I feel a little weird about it since it was a natural conception and because there was just so much else going on. But, I am indeed still pregnant and am in my third trimester. This baby will be here before we know it and I’m feeling the pull to nest like mad. With everything that’s been happeneing, I haven’t been able to dedicate the kind of time or energy I want to get ready, but the time is fast approaching where I will be MADE ready, and so we soldier on. This is #2 for why I will be posting less in the immediate future. I need to reorganise my household, and family structure, and furniture, and pre-make some fucking freezer meals so that I can survive the malestrom that is infancy. I haven’t done anything yet… So the time that would have been spent blogging will need to be reallocated.

And finally, I also just don’t know what to say anymore. I wish I had a lot in my head that would benefit the infertility community right now to keep writing about but I just don’t. I find the well is more often dry than not. I really poured myself into creating Extra! for the community, I worked my ass off to be able to give that book to the people who need it and I hope so hard that I was successful in it… I hope it moves you, and your kids, and future generations to embrace your journey and to discuss the extra ways families are made. But it really was a grueling process and it wrung me out dry. I have been/intend to still be supportive of the followers I know are in the trenches on Twitter and FB, but as far as extending that to blogging… I just don’t have it in me right now.

I don’t know what will come of all this in the future. Blogging has been an incredibly cathartic release for the past 3 years and so I anticipate that as things come up that are relevant I will continue to post them but I don’t know how often that will be. This blogging journey has been wonderful. I can’t recommend it enough. If you are keen to follow in my footsteps, then visiting www.hostiserver.com would offer you a great amount of information about web hosting options. Once you’ve sorted all of that out and created your actual blog, you should really start creating content. Once you’ve established your blog a little more, you could then consider trying to grow it by using an SEO company to help you with some search engine optimization marketing (look at this here to learn more). That could boost the blog’s search rankings, helping more people to learn about your blog and follow it. That should start your blogging journey, helping you to gain more followers straight away. If we’re being honest here, and I do strive to be, I need a break personally. So in the immediate future expect me to be pretty quiet in this space. All of this transitional stuff has me feeling pretty adrift. I struggle with change and this is a lot of change, but it’s necessary at this stage that I heed my own feelings and take a much-needed breather.

Last but not least, Squawk Boxes. I have 1 Squawk Box sitting in my folder to publish, it will come out next Thursday. I intend to keep publishing these as I get them becuase I know how helpful writing this journey out can be and how awesome it is to read other people’s words. So don’t worry about that. If you still wanted to send in your story please do and know that I will publish it. I’m not dissappearing completely, I just cannot continue to post 2 x a week, every week, at this time.

So, Squawk Box next Thursday but otherwise TTFN. Y’all are some bad ass chickens and I absolutley fucking love you. Check back in periodically and I wish you all the luck in the world. Til next time!

XOXXO,

The Chicken