Wow. You really are bashful about revealing yourselves. In two days, my stat counter tells me I had 70 visitors...yet two of my regular commenters were the only ones who commented. Not exactly an epic de-lurking experience. Is it the term lurk? Vanessa said that "lurk" sounded too creepy, and preferred "peruse". So are you a peruser of this blog? It's okay. I don't mind. You can tell me. Would my own de-lurking experience help you feel less bashful?

I too was once was a lurker of sorts. I was on Myspace about a year and a half ago, and was killing time by searching through random profiles. I would click on my friend’s profile, and then I clicked on one of their friends, and then one of their friends, and then one of their friends. Eventually I ended up at girl’s profile named Brooke. I was surprised to see that she actually had a blog. Not many people do on Myspace, so I decided to take a gander. I was 6 weeks pregnant at the time and lo and behold! So was she. No one else around me was pregnant, so she and I were a bit of a kindred spirit of sorts. I thought she was hilarious and enjoyed even just her meandering posts. That girl found a way to make surveys of all things funny. I checked back often, continuing to read her blogs.

When I was 10 weeks pregnant I miscarried and lost the baby. It was a huge loss and devastation to my husband and I. I was going through so many emotions and thoughts and feelings. After a month or so of letting my heart heal, I went back to Brooke’s blog. In a strange way it was a bit cathartic for me hearing about her journeys through pregnancy. I mean yes, it did make me a bit sad, but it also made me really excited to be pregnant again. I went through some bitterness in my heart and had thought “Well, if this is what pregnancy and having a child is about – pain and loss – then I don’t want it.” But reading Brooke’s blog affirmed to me that pregnancy and having a child was a miracle, and I could hope and be excited for it to happen to me again one day.

I continued to read her blog. Viewing her pictures of her growing belly, reading about her cravings, the baby’s movements and each and every ache and pain she was experiencing. This whole time I never came clean and told her I read her blog. I never asked her to become my myspace friend. I was too shy. I just couldn’t do it.

Then she had the baby. She posted pictures of the labor, the newborn baby and all the crazy things that come along with being a new mother. Just as I started to feel sorry for myself and pine over the loss of my own baby which would have been born at the same time, we were blessed. We found out we were pregnant again! The whole journey I had viewed from Brooke’s blog made me all the more excited to go through it again this time around.

Last year around fall, Brooke’s blogs started coming less and less frequently. I missed her wit and journey’s of motherhood. A couple months passed. I searched for her and found her on Facebook since I was no longer a Myspace member. I got up the courage, messaged her, told her my whole story and DE-LURKED! I thought she would write me off as some crazy person, but she didn’t. She was touched that I cared enough to read her “silly little blog” she called it. We have since become Facebook friends, and soon-to-be real friends (more on that another time).


So there you have it. Do you feel any better about commenting yet? The only other thing I can think of is bribery...but I won't succumb to that :)