Time Warp Tuesday: All-Time Favorite Post

Let’s do the Time Warp again!

Welcome to the second installment of my new blog hop/writing exercise called Time Warp Tuesday here on Four of a Kind!

In case you missed my original post about this, here is the background of how and why I came up with the idea. If you are here to participate and link up your post, you can do so with the Linky Tools at the end of this post (or if you have any difficulty using it, you can share the link to your post in the comment section here).

The gist of Time Warp Tuesday is to revisit and share some of our favorite blog entries from our archives and reflect on our journeys since we wrote them.

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The theme for this week’s Time Warp Tuesday is: All-Time Favorite Post

In my post last week I encouraged participants to pick and share your “all-time favorite post.” Then write a new post on your blog about why you chose it and what has happened in your life since. I thought this prompt would be interesting and timely in honor of the upcoming 2011 Creme de la Creme, in which we choose our favorite blog entry from this year to submit for Mel’s list that will go up on January 1, 2012.

Participants can write about whatever you want in your new blog entries. However, for those who might need some help and inspiration to get started, here are some questions to consider:

Why did you pick this post? Of all the blog entries you have written over the years or months (depending on when you began blogging), what made this one stand out to you? Has your perspective changed since the day you wrote the post? If so, how? Do you think you would still feel the same way now if you were writing it today? What have you learned about yourself, your family and your life since you wrote your original post?

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Time Warp Tuesday: All-Time Favorite Post

To Crème or not to Crème? As I began to ponder this week’s prompt, I wondered if my “All-Time Favorite Post” would be the same as my favorite one in any given year that my blog has existed? I have participated in the Crème de la Crème for the past three years and thus submitted one post to the list each time.

Also, I typically have not chosen posts for the Crème that Mel has already highlighted in her Friday Blog Round Up (which she has done once each year for the past three years as well), as I feel like those posts have already gotten more attention than usual and I want to give another post that I am proud of a new opportunity to speak to and resonate with others.

My early blog entries, especially those in 2007, were very focused on the details of our ART cycles that year. That is the initial reasons I began this blog, so I was writing to a select group of close friends and family members who knew we had chosen to try IVF to expand our family, after dealing with secondary infertility and pregnancy loss for three years. In these posts I would share about things that were going on in our life, especially during times like the our “two week waits,” when I was trying to get my mind off of whether or not a given cycle had been successful.

In 2008 I mostly wrote here about our pregnancy/journey with our daughter Molly, who had a rare, severe and fatal combination of congenital heart defects (CHD) and heterotaxy/left atrial isomerism. Molly was born and died on April 17, 2008 at 29 weeks 5 days gestation. In the months following Molly’s death I wrote frequently about my experience with grief and loss. I shared about the difficult times and also the things that brought me peace, comfort and strength.

In 2009 I wrote a lot about our pregnancy with our daughter Abigail (a.k.a. Abby). It was a very happy and also scary time in my life, as I had trouble believing that Abby would be born healthy and able to come home with us after our previous experiences losing Molly and our other three early pregnancy losses. However, Abby was born with a healthy heart in September 2009 and we just celebrated her second birthday last month!

After we lost our daughter Molly in 2008 and then went on to have Abby in 2009, I was in somewhat of a fog — still dealing with my grief, as well as balancing caring for our older son and newborn daughter. I did not blog very often last year (in 2010). This year I have found my voice again and prioritized taking time to write, to read and to comment more.

In the end I kept coming back to the posts that I chose for the Crème, as they truly were my favorite posts from each year that I submitted them. I didn’t participate in the Crème de la Crème for 2007, as it wasn’t on my radar back then. So in preparation for this post, while reviewing my archives, I decided to pick a post that I would have submitted had I known about the Crème that year. I wrote up my own introduction to it and added it to a list of my readers and my favorite blog posts (which is a work in progress).

When I reflect on the four years that I have been blogging and specifically the four posts that I have chosen over those years to represent what I believe has been my best and most inspired writing, I keep coming back to a post that I wrote in March 2009 during my pregnancy with our daughter Abigail. It is the blog entry that I submitted for the Crème that year and it is my “All-Time Favorite Post” because I feel that it encompasses so much of what I have experienced and learned on our five year journey through secondary infertility and loss.

This is the blurb that Mel wrote about it for the 2009 Crème de la Crème list:
A beautiful post that will make you cry knowing that the author is currently holding the baby discussed in this post. A post about still having hope after being on the wrong side of the odds more than once.

Here is the link to my post called: Grace and the Odds

Please go and read the post that I am reflecting on today (and comment if you choose), if you haven’t already, and then come back here to see what I have to say about my journey since then.

***Here is where you left off before you stopped to read my old post.***

When I revisit this post is amazes me that two years later I am living the life that I wanted, hoped and prayed for, for so long. I can vividly remember the fear that I held inside of me throughout my pregnancy with Abby. Even though she appeared to be healthy and developing on track, I understood that there was no guarantee that she would get to come home with us after she was born.

This is one of my favorite parts of my post:

I view each day on this earth to be a gift and want to make the most of it. I don’t spend my time worrying about Bob, Sean or me dying. I know that could happen, but I chose not to dwell on it. So likewise I want to try to believe that our baby will be healthy and live too and hopefully get to a point where I will really be able to enjoy our pregnancy and feel a stronger connection our baby.

I still believe that though death could come knocking on my family and my door again any day, that we need to do our best to make the most of the time we have together in the here and now: This is not always easy in our busy day to day lives, but it is something we can work on and strive for.

Another thing that I really appreciate about my Grace and the Odds post are the comments. It means so much to me that my words resonated with so many other bloggers both at the time that I wrote it in March 2009 and again in January 2010 after people found their way to it via the Crème de la Crème list.

As I wrote at the end of my favorite post and I will share again with you today,

I hope that what ever trials you are dealing with in your life today that you remember that you do have a choice. At least you have the opportunity to choose your attitude and how you are going to deal with it. I hope and pray that you are willing and able to both face and fight your fears too. It isn’t easy, but I know that we can do it. We can do it together.

Thank you for reading, for doing the Time Warp with me and for being a part of this awesome community of bloggers who are here to support and encourage each other during the best and worst moments of our lives.

I look forward to your feedback about this post, as well as reading and commenting on all of yours. Please feel free to comment even if you didn’t write your own Time Warp Tuesday post this week. It is not too late to participate if you are interested, click here for the details.

Below you will find next week’s topic and I hope that you will join me back here on Tuesday when we “do the Time Warp again!”

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The topic for next week’s Time Warp Tuesday is: Song Lyrics

I know that music plays a significant role in so many of our lives. During happy moments and milestones we celebrate good times by listening to, singing along with and dancing to our favorite songs. When we find ourselves facing challenges and uncertainty in our life we often turn to music and lyrics to find comfort, peace and inspiration. Choose a post from your archives in which you included song lyrics. Then write a new post on your blog about why you chose it and what has happened in your life since.

Participants can write about whatever you want in your new blog entries. However, for those who might need some help and inspiration to get started, here are some questions to consider:

Why did you pick this post? What was it about the particular song and/or lyrics that moved you to include them in your blog entry? Is this a song you still listen to during happy or difficult times in your life? What memories does the song call to mind for you? Has your perspective changed since the day you wrote your original post? If so, how? Do you think you would still feel the same way now if you were writing it today? Would you still include this song? What have you learned about yourself, your family and your life since you wrote your original post?

Updated (10/5/11): If you do not have any posts with song lyrics in them and you still want to participate next week. Here are some options/suggestions for how you can do so:

• If you have any posts that mention music or songs that have moved or inspired you over the years, even if they do not include actual lyrics, you could use one of those.
• If you have an old journal entry (for those of us that journaled long before we began blogging) that includes song lyrics or references music or favorite songs, you could transcribe that for next week.
• You can write a new post between now and next Tuesday that includes song lyrics and then reference that on Tuesday. With this option, maybe you can pick a song that has helped you celebrate a wonderful event or get through a difficult time in your life.
•  You can write a post for Time Warp next Tuesday that includes song lyrics and not link back to anything and talk about why those song lyrics have meant something to you over the years.

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For those new to Time Warp Tuesday, here is a quick recap of how it works:

1) Browse through your old blog entries to find one that fits the topic for the given week. The topic is shared at the end of the previous week’s “Time Warp Tuesday” post here on my blog (see above for next week’s topic).

2) Write a new blog post in which you introduce, link to and then reflect on your journey since you wrote the older blog post and put it up on your blog on Tuesday. Please include this link http://chicagobensons.blogspot.com/search/label/Time%20Warp%20Tuesdays in your blog entry, so your readers can find their way to my post with the list of other participants, in case they would like to read more or participate themselves.

3) Share the link to your new post here on Tuesday and then visit, read and comment on the other blogs.

4) After you have done all of these things, you are welcome to grab the code for the the Time Warp Tuesday button by clicking here and put it on your blog. The link will take you to a Google Doc where you can copy the code. If your browser does not allow access to your computer’s clipboard, you can use Ctrl-C for Copy and Ctrl-V for Paste, or use your browser’s Edit menu.

5) Check back here every Tuesday to find out the new topic, theme or question for the following week (I welcome your ideas and suggestions) and then return to Step 1 of this recap to participate.

Please let me know if you have any questions and I hope to see you back here on next Tuesday when we’ll “do the time warp again!”

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Thank you again for reading, commenting and participating in my Time Warp Tuesday blog hop. Link up below and click through to visit others who are doing the Time Warp! (If you have any trouble with Linky Tools, please share the link to your blog entry in the comment section.). Also, please don’t forget to comment on my post here, as I do not have a link to this (my own) post below, but I would still really appreciate your feedback. xoxo

1. Stumbling Grace

2. Here We Go Agai

3. The Kir Corner

4. Once A Mother

5. HWSL

6. 2ManyFish2Fry

7. Sisters

8. WMOpenHeart