It's very easy to assume the success of a website or a group is down to number of likes and the analytics and I got a bit hung up on that for a while. Then I realised that quality is always better 0r is it ... 'it's not the size that matters but what you do with it that counts...!'
How many of you were on Fertility Friends? Or other sites like that, where hopeful men and women who are trying to conceive shared tips from the weird and wacky to actual science? Do you remember that 'room' called Moving on? As my cycles failed I realised I was getting close to the doorway to that place and I think that traumatised me as much as the phone calls from the clinic to say I hadn't conceived - I still cannot believe it's done by phone, can you? Anyway I'd look at this area of the thread and feel the pain and it still makes me anxious thinking about it even though I'm coming to terms with life as it is.
It begs the question, who wants to engage with a site like mine.
Walk In Our Shoes is the bit that sits beyond the 'moving on' and gives you a helping hand to get that story out but it's not easy being here.
Yes you can shout about the utter shit of it all and which really does help you to pull it back together by giving you hope and visual links to a tribe. Saying it anywhere else can feel like breaking a secret can't it? Facebook, Twitter and Insta are so open, but Walk In Our Shoes is the very opposite of social in a way.
Who wants to say 'this is me'? I do, but then after four years was a relief. The first time I said 'I can't sadly have children' was in relation to this site, standing up in the middle of my postgraduate degree and saying I want to do what became Walk In Our Shoes. But it's still a struggle to mention it, and to do with tact and care for me and other person so we don't have the 'just adopt' conversation they pity me when I don't feel pity for me at all.
So when I get testimonials, forgive the tears. Sometimes, someone who is on our amazing gallery will pop an email to say thanks. Our spanky new site means I can share them with you and I've a few to add so, like our links page, this will update.
To know that this site made a difference to a life is worth a million hits. It's primary cause is to connect us and make us less isolated.
What's just as lovely is a like on our blog posts, just click on the little heart and I know you've loved it too. And in keeping with our ethos, a click on the heart is completely private.
Now pass me the tissues!
B