And...we're back. I think.

Hello Blogo-universe!!!

It's me, Jo. Single mom to O, now 3.3 years old. Here we are during a recent trip to California (we still live on the East Coast while mama Jo hopes that one day we'll make it back to Cali for good).

So, yes. My blog identity went to sleep for the past 2 years. I didn't even look at a *single* blog. Hmmm...Something about all my mental, physical, and emotional energy focused on well, the obvious? Blogging for me during the "thinking" and then "trying" stage was very important. I valued the community it created so much, and I often credit my blogging experience as partially responsible for my decision to go-for-it and have a baby on my own. When I started blogging I *literally* thought I might be the only one. Hilarious, right? Within a day I was assured that not only was I not the only woman out there with this "dilemma", but that I had a lot to learn from many, many others who had gone before me. When I wrote my first blog post I was completely unsure of what I would do. Nine months after my first blog post, I was pregnant.

So SMC blog world, I really do love you! 

Just recently, I started reading blogs again. Now that I am mothering, my issues and questions and problems are totally different....known donor relationships, logistics (and logistics and logistics...), career guilt, bad parenting decisions, finances (oh lordy)..SCHOOLS?....And all of a sudden, I was like: HELP! I've made it past the physical endurance of the infant stage and the mental endurance of age 2, and now, I need to TALK ABOUT ALL OF THIS! Where is my community?

I still struggle with community in my current city (the topic of many future posts, I am sure). My parenting friends are all coupled-up and while I do have one (or two) closer friends, let's face it, my  issues are DIFFERENT. In some ways, I've become so good at "hiding" my unique situation--the word would be normalizing it I guess--that many of my friends and colleagues don't even see me as "different" any more. I know I've purposely created that, and I wouldn't really want it another way, but the result is that I don't really talk about the issues unique to my situation with, well, anyone.

Well, hello SMC bloggers--- gee whiz, but aren't there a lot of you out there with the SAME issues and questions and problems! Why am I surprised yet a a second time??  Ladies, I have to say, thank you again.

Life with my little man O is totally amazing--he is loving, smart, and very funny. And crazy challenging. And yet to sum up the challenges in this first "I'm back" email would be so fruitless. The challenges are awesome, and the rewards are awesome. Life is so completely altered and I am so completely altered. And yet in many ways my struggles are still the same and my successes are still the same.

I wouldn't trade a single day.

Hope to see more of you all soon!