Some background

Since we have now moved (phew), and unpacked a reasonable amount of stuff, and have an Internet connection up and running (no thanks to BT, who were aiming for the Chocolate Teapot award of usefulness), I thought I'd write about what decided me to start blogging.

When I was on maternity leave, and spending my time browsing through maternity-related newsgroups, I found a link to Julie's blog, and via her to the rest of the Vagina Posse (believe me, it isn't what you're thinking) and to a bunch of other, related blogs, and thus I discovered an entire, hitherto unsuspected, community of blogging mothers/expectant mothers/would-be mothers who have the following in common:

1. They achieved motherhood (or, to date, didn't achieve it) by an unusual, and frequently rocky and torturous, road. They had infertility problems, and/or recurrent miscarriages, and/or underwent fertility treatment, and/or sought adoption. All of which, plus the actual experience of motherhood itself, left them with unusual, thought-provoking perspectives on motherhood in its many varieties.

2. They can write. I don't know whether there's some sort of inverse correlation between fertility and writing ability, but, dammit, there are some seriously good writers out there in blogdom. More than one of them could simply send her blog off to a publisher with extremely minimal editing and get it published just like that, and it would be a bestseller.

The result of 1 and 2 combined is that there are some inspiring, soul-stirring, moving, hilariously funny and extremely readable blogs out there, and I have a new addiction to feed.

I don't (still to my own astonishment) qualify for 1. I'm embarrassed to admit this, because I know how dull and how disgustingly lucky it makes me sound, but I achieved motherhood in the completely conventional way - stopped the Pill, had sex with my husband now and again, found myself staring in astonishment at that magic second line a mere three months later, proceeded to have an entirely straightforward pregnancy and birth, and now have an extremely gorgeous seven-and-a-half-month-old son. Um. Sorry. Don't hate me 'cause my ovaries are beautiful.

So, if my inverse-correlation theory in 2. above holds true, this will probably be a boring, uninspiring, dismally badly written blog. But I've been inspired enough by the blogs out there that I eventually decided to go for it. After all, however I got here, I'm a mother too, and have occasional thoughts to publish on the matter. And I'm also a doctor, which, as my friend Emms pointed out, gives me some other stuff to write about. And, most of all, I'm an opinionated loudmouth. Ultimately, I couldn't resist the temptation of having my own forum in which to be opinionated.