"And Never the Twain Shall Meet"

"Oh, East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

  Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;

  But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

  When two strongmen stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!" *

I was over at a friend's house for dinner recently and our talk of blogs and bloggers came up. We were sharing funny stories that we had read and new blogs that we discovered. A lot of the blogs we both read are Subfertility blogs and she reads more Catholic mommy blogs these days as she has a one year old. The mommy blogs I frequent are usually the ones who have gone through infertility/subfertility and have now had biological or adopted children. I occasionally peruse mommy blogs of those who did not have trouble conceiving but not often because it can be difficult for me to take. My friend said she understood why women dealing w/ subfertility would not want to look at mommy blogs but not why mommy bloggers would not want to look at subfertility blogs. We asked are they scared of us? Why isn't one or a few subfertility blogs often found on the side reel of  mommy bloggers? Is there a click of mommy bloggers and IF bloggers? Are we archenemies that shall only meet and team up on the battlefield of opposing things anti-Catholic? Are we the twains that shall never meet?

These questions started to ruminate in my head for some time and I was reminded of the opening lines to the famous Rudyard Kipling poem The Ballad of East and West. Thinking about this divide between the "haves" and "have nots" I felt myself challenged and convicted as well as wanting to challenge Catholic mommy bloggers. Now, if you look at my blog side reel I don't just read blogs from those who are childless or have struggled with fertility issues. I also read blogs from women who to my knowledge have not struggled with fertility issues, single women, as well as blogs from two religious, a priest and a soon to be priest.

 I know for me personally I can very easily get caught up in an "us" vs. "them" mentality because I tend to lean toward self-pity especially when this cross gets too heavy to bear. It is sometimes difficult to read how chaotic their lives are with their many children and how they are doing God's will by having many children, so there are certain posts that I choose not to read. My desire to isolate myself is overcome by my desire to promote the Catholic faith and promote Catholic families(whether they be big or small). I notice on IF blogs we write about how women who have not gone through IF or miscarriage do not understand us and our struggle and we lament over it. We are saddened at their hurtful(often unitended) comments and their pregnancy complaints.

Well the truth is, NO they will NEVER understand what we are going through! Is that cause to isolate ourselves away from them in the blogosphere or real life? Should we just not interact with each other and just give each other a passing "hey" nod in real life or stalk their blog once in awhile?  I understand that for some women the answers might be yes to these questions and I don't presume to know why. Sometimes my answers can be yes to these questions especially in real life when those Catholic families with children seem to be ignoring us after Mass but overall my answer to this question is NO.

Here is why:

1. I have a huge desire to support Catholic women and femininty however it is lived out.

2. I think we could all use support and true compassion for whatever state in life we are in.

3. Mommy blogs often have great craft and recipe ideas as well as money saving ideas.

4. If I am striving to be a mother to children here on earth then it is nice to learn how other Catholic women are living this out and know beforehand where I could get support.

5. I can't resist pictures of adorable kids doing adorable things!

There are times where I do feel like there is a huge distance between us. It is like they(mommy bloggers or Catholic moms) are on the other side of a cliff and the bridge to get there is hard to see so I am yelling to ask them where the bridge is and no one seems to hear or see me. This "ignoring" of infertiles/subfertiles could be to no fault of their own. Since they have never struggled with this they may be unaware of the pains this cross brings much like how I do not understand fully the pains of child birth.To some women the inablility to get pregnant is as foreign to them as the idea of getting pregnant easily is to me.

So how do we bridge this gap between east and west? Well let's remember the ending lines of the refrain from that famous Kipling poem:

"But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strongmen stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!" *

Let these lines be our guide that at the heart of our very different lives that seem to have nothing in common, that we have our humanity and femininity in common. It is also my goal to get on the blog list of Catholic mommy bloggers! This is so that there can be more awareness of Catholics dealing with infertility/subfertility. Plus what else is a blog but shameless self promotion, right?

No matter what side you are on, how are you gonna bridge the gap in the blog world and in real life?


*Poem taken from refrain of Rudyard Kipling's The Ballad of East and West published in 1889.