399th Friday Blog Roundup

This is the 399th Friday Blog Roundup, by which I mean it’s actually the 299th Friday Blog Roundup.  Many years ago, the numbering went off the rails and it jumped 100 Roundups.  But I can’t really go back to fix it because there was a Roundup already labeled the 299th Roundup.  It would mean changing the number on several hundred Roundups, and as much as I love all of you, I wasn’t going to do that.  So this is really the 299th Roundup, which makes next week the 300th Roundup (called the 400th Roundup).  Still an impressive feat all things considered.  How many blog projects last six years and occur weekly?

To celebrate, I’m going to ask you to find one post between now and next Wednesday on someone’s else’s blog within the last 2 years (going for the last 100 possible Roundups) that you still think about.  But here is the fun part…

• You’re going to submit the URL for the post.  Make sure you have the permalink that takes you directly to that post and NOT the main URL for the blog (main URLs will not be uploaded).  Yes: https://www.stirrup-queens.com/2012/06/supreme-court-affordable-care-act-and-infertility/.  No: https://stirrup-queens.com
• And submit the blog title — NOT the post title.  The list will be a gathering of blog names, and you won’t know which post it directs to on that blog until you click over to read.  Yes: Stirrup Queens.  No: Supreme Court, Affordable Care Act, and Infertility.

Think of it like a Christmas crackers blog list — you don’t know what you’re getting until it pops open.

When you know which one you want to submit, please click here and fill out this form.  Don’t overthink this one because I can only take submissions until next Wednesday evening (let’s say the cut-off is 9 pm EST).  The list will appear next Friday in lieu of the normal Roundup.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Lesson 36: Choosing to Live Child-Free” (The Stir)
• “Hey Everyone!  Train Wreck Over Here!” (Mommy Odyssey)
• “Nada” (Kmina’s Blog)
• “Thank You, Leslie Brown” (Life As I Know It)
• “So You Want to Feel Normal Again” (Infertile First Mom)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Baby, Borneo or Bust has a brilliant, thought-provoking post on internal vs. external change.  She writes: “I have come to realize that as much as external change is important and rewarding, internal change is even more vital and exponentially harder.”  It’s a post that explains why we bring the weather with us, even when we switch locations.  Why we can’t un-run ourselves.  I love love love this post.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has a raw post about stopping fertility treatments and what comes after.  She marks the end of those 2 1/2 years stating: “There have been tears and anger. Despair and numbness. We both feel lied to, blaming ourselves and the world for this pain. Yet, in the end, both Grey and I know that this is the end. We’ve fought a good fight; it’s time to let go.”  It’s about finding the ability to let go.

Mrs. Spock has a post about wrapping her brain around a change in life plans, something that many of us have had to do numerous times.  She admits: “It is difficult to re-program my brain. I had never expected a family of four, so I don’t have those memory banks full of daydreams with a family of four. Something always seems missing. How very human of me.”  It’s beautiful, lilting writing.

If You Don’t Stand for Something has a great post about becoming an aunt-by-choice to her fictive kin, and how she turned out to feel different from how she predicted.  She says, “Something happened between prepping for the momma’s baby shower and now and things are so much smoother and the baby stuff surrounding her is so much easier on me.”  It comes down to feeling understood, feeling heard.  Amazing how that can release you to feel so much love.

Infertile Fantasies has a post about using her leftover embryos amongst other things.  There is a lot to chew on here.  But I love the points she makes about finding that balance between being everything to her children and reaching a point in life when she needs to also return to having some of her own achievements and milestones.  Gorgeous post.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled has a brilliant post about her confidence over the years and how she feels that with age, she is fading aside as younger, faster people move into the slots she used to occupy.  But how that lack of confidence may not necessarily be a bad thing.  She so eloquently states: “In some ways, age and experience do bring wisdom. But in other ways, I find the older I get, the less confidence I have. Perhaps I’ve seen & experienced too much to be too certain or confident of anything any more — least of all myself.”

Who cares about the summer slowdown when moving slower makes people write such dense, wonderful posts?

The roundup to the Roundup: Tell me one post you still think about from someone else’s blog and honour their writing in the Roundup Extravaganza next week.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between June 22nd and June 29th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.