Linkfest, Or, We Are Legion

There are, as we all know, huge numbers of infertility blogs. However, there aren't very many UK fertility-related blogs; there are scads of US-based blogs, but hardly any based in the UK. I have a few that I read regularly, and I have noticed something.

A large number of these lovely people are themselves from the US. Forgive me if I've got it wrong, but in the adoption crowd, we have Drawing Baskets from the Nile (who has another blog, but whose adoption journey is on this one), and we have 3rd Culture Mum. In the IVF crowd (tried or was successful with), we have Barren Mare, BarrenAlbion, and Everyday Stranger. And in the let's-have-another-miscarriage category we have Blogapotamus Rex. Of course, some of these categories overlap; and I may have missed someone who knows I read them but who I've forgotten is in one of these categories, or American. Sorry.

I count about 6 regular reads from UK infertility/miscarriage/adoption bloggers in the UK (and one German, hello perceval!). When I find a UK blog dealing with these issues I tend to bookmark it - though I've not counted a few that are dormant, that have moved lock, stock, and nappy pail to a parenting blog, and I've left out the Irish in my total (sorry!). So it seems to be approximately equal numbers, despite the small proportion of Americans in the UK.

I would just like to say to my compatriots - look at your babies. Then look at me. I have no American accent (except apparently I can "do" a bit of one on the phone, to get myself understood, and I can say my first name in a way that sometimes gets spelled correctly here. No, it's not spelled with a D, but I can gamely say it that way with the best of them). Neither, you would probably think, has my mother any more. Mind you, another American friend was accused of losing her accent entirely due to living with her British husband for about 5 years and really - not so much. She just sounds a bit more East Coast Posh than she did before.

I have, however, grown up with low-key Independence Day and Thanksgiving celebrations; with summers at the beach with my American grandparents; with only a US passport until I was 20 (and France, of all places, started demanding visas for US citizens); with standing in the long line at Heathrow; with being nagged to say You're Welcome; with quite a few things (lunchboxes, peanut butter, Cat in the Hat) that are now commonplace in the UK but then were, frankly, Weird.

I am your babies' future... I hope that doesn't scare you too much.