Top 25 Most Inspiring Families: 2 of 8

What inspired you to start blogging?

I began Bio Girl in January of 2007, just a couple of months after we got married. I had been writing a blog for a group of friends, documenting the different things we did together, for the previous year and a half, so I already knew I enjoyed the blogging process. I knew we were going to be trying for a baby soon and I wanted to document that time, along with wanting to have a record of that time in our lives as we started our married life together.

I knew I loved writing and enjoyed keeping an electronic scrapbook of our lives, but what surprised me was the amazing support I found in the blogging community. That support through our infertility, pregnancy and birth of our son, as well as through the ups and downs of life in general. That has been what has kept me here. I have loved recording our life, and I have loved the community I have found while doing it. 

What are three distinctive features of your blog?

1. I am honest. I talk openly about our struggles with infertility, the ups and downs of parenting, and the fact that sometimes life is hard. But I am also honest about the good times. I share the happy moments of our family life. I think it's that balance that keeps people reading.
2. I have a strong voice. I write like I speak, and I think that appeals to people. I may have (do have) a lot of grammatical errors in my writing, but it is me, and that is clear. My blog reads like I am actually telling you a story, and I think people like that.
3. Sometimes I am kind of funny. I can find humor in small things, and I have the ability to get that humor across in writing. 

How has blogging changed your journey as a family?

They say it takes a village to raise a child, and Bio Girl has allowed our village to be much, much larger. There are more people reading our little story than I ever would have dreamed -- people who love us and support us as we move through this amazing, but sometimes difficult life. I know that support has helped to make me a better mother, and has given me strength while trying to have a second child.

What are your three favorite posts?

1. Pretend
2. Care Bears and Rainbows and Heart Ache
3. A Letter

What inspired you to start blogging?

When I started blogging, I had suffered the loss of my first daughter to SIDS and a miscarriage, I had celebrated the birth of my son, and then suffered another loss of yet another daughter at 20 weeks gestation due to a chromosomal abnormality (Trisomy 18). I realized that I was consumed with my parenting journey, and wanted to get back to myself. I started challenging myself to stretch outside of my comfort zone once a week. Then I was really stretched (literally and figuratively) when I experienced the pregnancy of healthy and beautiful twins. The blog morphed into an exploration of the experience of parenting coupled with the effort to still be the cool chick I (thought I) once was in pre-parent days.

What are three distinctive features of your blog?

1. Honest, heartfelt stories about parenting through loss
2. Funny observations on life and this world from my perspective
3. A very firm rule that my blog will not be a judgmental conversation about parenting methods, but rather my perspective on the experience of parenting. 

How has blogging changed your journey as a family?

I wouldn't necessarily say that blogging has changed our family journey, but rather that it has given us a way to talk about our journey. An outlet for the big thoughts and feelings and a place to process my often twisted outlook on life. 

What are your three favorite posts?

1. Snippity-Do-Dah
2. Nothing Good Comes After "At Least"... 
3. Real Mom Confession 

What inspired you to start blogging?

I started blogging in 2008 as a way for our out of town family to follow along on our adoption journey. It also helped to connect us with other families who were adopting from Kazakhstan (which at the time was the best way to get accurate program information). When we spent two months living in Kazakhstan in order to bring our daughter home, the blog was an invaluable link back to friends and family. I continued blogging when we went, a year later, to China to adopt our fifth child, and once again it helped connect me with other adoptive parents. 

My blog has served as communication tool, travel journal, baby book and cheap therapy. Today it's most useful purpose is advocating for the needs of orphans and orphan-related causes.

What are three distinctive features of your blog?

1. Orphan advocacy including photo profiles of waiting children in need of families
2. A positive voice about adoptive, special needs and bio kid parenting
3. Posts (characterized by typos, misspellings and a complete disregard for any rule of grammar) about the mostly mundane, but always real antics of an already large and STILL GROWING, multi-ethnic, globe-trotting, bio/adoptive, working mom/stay at home dad, "we ALL have special needs" sort of family

How has blogging changed your journey as a family?

I didn't even know what a blog was until I began researching international adoption. If it weren't for all the great information supplied by fellow adoptive-mom bloggers I don't think I would have had the information or inspiration to adopt. Also, now my kids are on their best behavior because they know that I WILL write about them.

What are your three favorite posts?

1. Choice
2. Little Miss "I'm Perfect"
3. My Twenty-Six Year Old Baby Boy