Guest Post: From Single to Forever

Hello my blogger friends! While you read this I will be on vacation. I've asked my dear blogger friend to do a guest post! I'm so excited to! She has really been an encouragement to me through this season of my life! Even though we have never met in person I do consider her a friend! So make sure you show her some love!

Here she is Valerie @ From Single to Forever 

I took this from her blog. Are they not the cutest?

Hey everybody!  I want to first thank Ms. Lauren so much for asking me to be a guest on her blog.  It really is such an honor to have someone request I write something for them.  So, to anybody I haven’t met yet, a big South Carolina hello!  To those of you who came over to say hello from my neck of the woods, please give Lauren lots and lots of love because she’s kind of awesome like that.

We decided I would talk a little about me and what blogging has done for my life.  Let me just give you a little synopsis of who I am before I tell you about my blogging history.  I grew up in Columbia, South Carolina as an only child. I watched my mom struggle with infertility my entire life (this will be important to my story later) and that was always in the back of my mind, even from a very young age.  I have no family in Columbia and both my parents now live in Massachusetts and Georgia.  I kind of bounced around from state to state until I finally settled back in Columbia in 2006, got my crap together, finished my Bachelor’s degree in English in 2009 and got my Master’s degree in Library and Information Science in 2011.  I am married to my sweet husband Josh, we have a little boy named Oliver who was born on December 16, 2011, and I am currently expecting Dos to make his/her arrival at the end of January, 2013.

I’ve been a blog follower for a very long time.  I love reading about others’ lives and getting a glimpse into how other people live.  I originally started my blog back in 2009 when I was 31 and it was a really sad space.  Honestly, I was desperate for love and wanted so bad to be anywhere but where I was in my life.  I was so alone and wrote about that whenever the mood would strike me.  I’ve struggled with self-esteem forever and the beginning posts of my blog very much reflected that and the space I was in.  My posts were very sporadic if for no other reason than I felt boring and nobody wanted to hear about how my life was going on a day to day basis. 

I guess you could say I completely abandoned blogging until February 2011 when I had the suspicion that Josh was about to propose to me.  About two months after that I posted again that I was pregnant and terrified.  I watched my mom either get pregnant and not stay that way or go month after month with a negative result so I was beyond scared about being pregnant.  I’m not really sure when the light bulb switched on and I began to blog regularly but I started reading more and more blogs and I even found a mommy who has a little boy who was born on the same day as Oliver (hi Natalie and Elliott!!).  Now, I check Blogger quite often to make sure I’m up to date on what’s happening in my friends’ lives.      

So, I guess that brings us to the present day.  Now I have cultivated some wonderful relationships with women that, although we have never met in person, I think about them and wonder how they are doing.  When I got pregnant with Dos, after the initial shock wore off, my next thought was I am so very blessed but why me?  I know it may sound trite but I see women who go through treatments or who have just started the process and are frustrated and my heart breaks for them.  I try to be not only a cheerleader but just a listener as well.  There is no greater feeling than hearing a friend tell you she’s pregnant after weeks/months/years of struggle.

Well, that’s a little about me.  Thank you so much for stopping by and reading a little about who I am and why I blog.  Again, thank you so much Lauren for allowing me to guest blog while you and hubby are on a much needed vacation!!