Mommies Here!

One of the all time highlights of my BlogHer’10 experience was meeting Pam Spaulding of Pam’s House Blend. I have admired her work for many years. I visit her site several times a day for updates on the state of LGBT America from a progressive point of view. Pam is an African-American lesbian who is really rocking the blogosphere. And I’m one of many people who think the world of her.

As stated on her website, she launched Pam’s House Blend in July 2004 as a personal response to the anti-gay state of the political landscape. Her website now averages 120,000 visitors a month (you go girl!).

Pam’s House Blend is ranked in the top 50 progressive political blogs. Michael Rogers, editor and publisher of gay blog PageOneQ.com: “Pam is certainly the most important lesbian blogger in America. She’s a lesbian in a gay blogging world that is overwhelmingly gay men. She’s a blogger as a woman in an overwhelmingly male-dominated world and she’s of color and the internet is so skewed to the privileged.” So what is not to love?

She has provided commentary on CNN during the 2008 presidential election cycle, and contributed to and participated in a gazillion progressive political forums. Let’s face it, she is seriously impressive.

Anyway, I knew that she was going to be at the conference but since I had never been, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know if I would get the chance to meet her. I mean before the conference began I asked myslef: would all of the speakers be cordoned off in an exclusive green room? or would they be separated from the blogosphere minions, like me, by a velvet rope?

Imagine my surprise when I ran into Pam Spaulding exiting the exhibit hall. I am not exactly shy, so I ran up to her and said, “OMIGOD, I am one of your biggest fans! I go to your website several time a day.” And then I thought to myself, “okay, that was stupdi, Eva. Here we go…”

But she turned out to be one of the nicest, sweetest, most down to earth people that I have ever met. She was warm and supportive. When I told her about my infertility, my blog, and my adopted son, she encouraged me to keep blogging to tell my story. She said that I had an important perspective, as a lesbian, to share with the world.

“You think so?” I said in the midst of about 2400 other bloggers who also consider their stories important.

“Yes,” she replied.

And that ‘yes’, really made my day!

I told her that I wrote anonymously and that I was nervous about showing my face on my blog and she encouraged me to take my time but that it would be valuable if I could be more visible. So she empowered me to  take a picture with her to post on my site.  And  if you see any additional  pictures of me on this site, it’s thanks to Pam (thanks, Pam!)

I also asked her what strategies she used to build her site in such a competitive environment and she gave me some tips, encouragement, and an wonderful opportunity.

She encouraged me to create a diary on her site  in which I would write about infertility and adoption from a lesbian perspective and boy do I have lot of material, starting with some of my experiences  with wacky doctors ,my crazy insurance fights, and some never disclosed adoption teachable moments. She said she would promote it  (fist pumps!) So I have been reflecting on my experience , and thinking about what fresh stories I want to tell about my life as a lesiban infertile and adoptive mom. That series will start soon, so stay tuned.

At any rate, I just wanted to reiterate something that I’ve been saying for a long time about this community. The blogosphere, with all of his drawbacks, is a great place. For example, I’ve cried over the life stories of people that I’ve never met; shared information about the intimate details of my reproductive organs that I would never even share with members of my own family; and I’ve found my “voice”– something that I struggled to find for many years.

It also provides opportunities to meet incredible people.  It is always a thrill to meet a blogger, particuarly, one whose blog you’ve followed for years, who really exceeds your  in real life expectations; and that was certainly the case for me when I met Pam Spaulding.

I had a great time at BlogHer ‘10. What struck me the most is how much I don’t know about blogging.

I learned that I don’t have any “influence” and that in order to get it I need to understand many, many technical things. For example, do you know the difference between internal, inbound, outbound links? Or  how to leverage  SEO optimization, stat counters, and RSS feed? Lastly,  do you know anything about google juice? Well, I think I do but just don’t ask me to explain it.

One of the things that I really learned was that I’m not sure I’m ready for prime time.  There are some serious mommy bloggers who really know how to work the crowd and I’m not sure I will ever be up to speed.

Oh well!

Anyhoo, the swag was awesome, I got new and improved weebles wobblers, a playdoh kit, and, of course, the ubiquitous water bottle, which never goes out of style in  NYC heat!

I must say one of the highlights of the conference was meeting other bloggers from the Adoption, Loss, Infertility community.

I was a little nervous to meet the fabulous, Mel, from Stirrup Queens who brought us all together last Friday, but she was awesome in person.  And I also to meet Calliope, of IVP fame, from Creating Motherhood! Yippee!

 I had fun such lovelies as Dora from My Preconceived Notion, Briar from Unwellness,  and Kir from, Kir’s Corner.

And, last but not least, I met a fellow adoptive mom, Lori from Weebles Webblog, who is  featured in this month’s Parenting Magazine as one of the Must Read Moms; you go girl!

Lunch was such a gratifying, wonderful experience I can’t wait to do it again next year. In San Diego?

Later that day, I met one of my blogosphere idols and I was so moved by that interaction  I will devote an entire post to that meeting later this week, along with photos.

All in all, BlogHer ‘10 was a great experience;  just  don’t quiz me on anything.

The past three years have been whole heartedly devoted to trying to concieve but in addition to fantacizing about becoming  a mom, I also secretly fantacized about becoming a mommy blogger.  I always thought it would be really cool to join the ranks of many of you and to write about the trials and tribulations involved in being a mom.

When Baby Jaycame into our lives he made so many of my dreams  come true like providing unconditional love, helping me to relive moments of my childhood, and allowing me to connect with my mom in unimaginable ways. But he also opened up the door to mommy blogging.

And I can’t thank him enough.

Recently, I emailed the good ladies at BlogHer to inquire about my network status. Since I joined the BlogHer network three years ago, I have been in the infertility category, which means that my headlines are broadcast to other infertility bloggers. I was really nervous because I thought I would have to reapply to the network to be considered under another category. Here’s what I wrote.

<<Hi, I am Eva from the Egg Drop Post. I have been writing under the infertility category but I would like to be moved to the parenting category now that I have a son. Do I need to reapply? Please advise. Thank you.>>

Thankfully, here is how they responded…

<<I’m  an editor with the BlogHer Publishing Network.  Thanks for getting in touch!  Actually I apologize that we haven’t done this ourselves already, we try to remember to email folks and invite them to switch when their blog / life changes, and we just dropped the ball on this one.  We’ll be happy to get you moved to parenting.  It might take a couple of days, but you should see the headlines under your ad change and then you’ll know it done.>>

Whew! The response was perfect.

I’m a mommy blogger and I’m attending BlogHer ‘10. Today was the first day of the conference and it was great. I met a lot of wonderful bloggers that I’ve been following for years, got lots of swag (aka free goodies) and I can’t wait to go back tomorrow.

Soon, I will write a complete update about BlogHer ‘10 and my life with Baby Jay!