Having told family and some friends about this blog recently, I've been interested in their reactions. I feel bad that several felt guilty: certainly that wasn't the intention.
I expected more embarrassment - we Brits are so stiff-upper-lippy and tend to believe personal information should be kept private. And I can be a bit 'heart on my sleeve'. But there have been no expressions of regret about my putting all this stuff online.
Lots of people read the blog as a reinforcement of what they already think: if they have decided we must feel x, then they focus only on the bits of it that support that theory. (That is the same with most readers of most texts, of course.)
The number of people who see the blog as some sort of lamentation is disproportionate, when it is actually written in a fairly lighthearted way.
All in all, the exercise - in a rather uncomfortable way - makes me see this whole thing as not just my (or our) story, but one owned by many. All of whom need space to work out what it means to them. I accept that, in theory. But I have to fight my dishonourable instinct to yell: "Get your hands off! This is my story! Only I know what it means!"
infertility
