Six degrees of devastation ...

"Blogs are just little diaries for people who can't actually get published." --Lauren Weisberger, "Everyone Worth Knowing"

I'm sure that a lot of women would say that the hands-free breast pump, or maybe the swaddle blanket, is the greatest mom invention ever, but I'd have to give that distinction to blogs. Granted, the pump is pretty useful -- I'd actually blog while rocking my Medela -- but I can't help but think that being able to read and find comfort through other mothers' words is priceless.

I have met some of the women whose blogs I read, and others, I will never meet.

But I have shared their elation and their heartaches. I have laughed and cried along with them. It's pretty profound when you consider that these emotions are invoked over the Internet. But you don't have to see someone with their child to know the love they feel for them. You don't have to hear a woman's quiet sobs to know that it took a mere moment to shatter her world into a million pieces.

When I started blogging in 2007, I didn't know much about the process other than that it was a good way to get my words and feelings down on paper. Or screen. Whatever. I told a few of my friends that I was starting a blog, but I didn't really anticipate anyone reading it. It was my outlet for dealing with my miscarriage, where no one could interrupt me or tell me that I should feel this way or that way. It was my own space, and I so desperately craved it as I got asked on a daily basis how I was doing.

Fast-forward three years, and people ... actually ... read ... it. I still have trouble comprehending that sometimes; that anyone would care what I have to say. As I have said before, I don't consider myself particularly interesting. I'm a journalist and a mom, not a rockstar or a superhero. But I'm extremely flattered that people do read my ramblings -- because I'm certainly reading other women, who are reading other women ...

It's like some form of the six degrees of separation, of devastation, of elation. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who has a blog. It's kind of fabulous. And it never fails to amaze me how easy it is to become wrapped up in someone else's story; to feel, to cry, to pray for them. So no, I don't buy the quote above -- not one bit. Blogging, especially about such issues as the difficult, wonderful journey that is motherhood, provides a way of reaching out and relating, of offering support, even in the most unconventional means. And two of the blogs I have been reading are proof of that.

"The Heir to Blair" tells the story of one woman's battle with postpartum depression in the wake of a miscarriage -- and then having her first child. Her words are painfully real -- her description of her feelings of inadequacy, how she would go huddle in the corner of the shower as her baby screamed in his crib; how she hit rock bottom and ended up in the perinatal psychiatric unit at the University of North Carolina. Ironically, I had read a big story on postpartum disorders and the groundbreaking unit that hospitals all over the country -- including in Seattle -- are working to emulate just a few months ago, but her words gave a face and a name to something that no woman should EVER be ashamed of.

"Enjoying the Small Things" is the tale of a happy family of three that expanded to four -- and found their world turned upside down. When the author's baby girl was born, they learned that she had Down Syndrome. Sitting on the couch, reading her recounting of the birth, how this tiny baby locked eyes with her mother, as if to say that she knew that she wasn't what she had been expecting, but asking, hoping, for her to love her, had me in tears. Her anguish, her heartache, her joy -- and the love she has for both of her daughters -- is breathtaking. You don't have to have a child with a disability to understand, to sympathize, to applaud their achievements.

I can say from personal experience that there is something extremely liberating about blogging. It is so much easier to be open and honest when you don't have to look someone in the eye as you confess your darkest secrets and deepest wishes. When you don't have to answer to anyone for feeling the way that you do. I can honestly say that I wouldn't say some the things I have written about out loud, to even my best friend -- as evidenced by the fact that she said to me, upon reading my post about nursing guilt, that she had no idea the emotional struggle I had gone through.

I only wish that I had found a blog with which to relate after my miscarriage because I truly think it would have helped. After all, my greatest source of support (other than Chris, of course) came from women I talk to through the DSL connection in my study. And some of them have become what I honestly believe will be lifelong friends.

And speaking of friends, their blogs also provide a wonderful source of reading material, of support, of entertainment. I absolutely love seeing their children grow and the journeys they go on; their expressing of hopes and fears and smiles and tears. My heart broke along with one friend's as she wrote of the pain of weaning her son; I understood oh-so-well how difficult it was, and felt a pang of wistfulness that she was so successful at nursing. I was ecstatic as I read of a friend's son's progress in physical therapy, and cried happy tears as the words of another friend's birth story flowed across the screen.

It's free therapy, as both the reader and the writer.

It's the power of the Internet at its best.

It's something that I truly love.

Oh, and for what it's worth, I found the swaddle blanket to be completely useless.