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Sparkle (5)
In May of 2005, I joined my first on-line forum to talk to and learn from other women trying to become mothers in unconventional ways. I sat and looked at the screen asking for a username for twenty minutes. A wave of anxiety washed over me and I knew that I could not, would not be using my real name in this forum. No harm. No one uses their real name.
On a total lark, I decided to use the name Cali Hope. Cali was short for California, the state of my birth. And Hope. Well let's just say in 2005 I was totally a girl dancing in glitter. I signed my messages and questions in the donor sperm boards "Cali" and slipping into the skin of the username was easy.
A few months went by and within a thread someone said to me, "Oh! I just sounded out your user name realized that your real name must be Calliope!"
In 2005 I did not conceive a baby but I conceived my alias. Calliope.
It was such a perfect online name for me, it felt so right. It was unique enough and yet it was a name people had heard of. I didn't feel like I was creating a new identity or like I was donning a disguise. I felt like I was borrowing a name to use because everyone needed to have a name online and, well, they couldn't possibly be told my real name.
So why not use my real name? In September of 2005 I started blogging Creating Motherhood and my posts were all about a very, very specific topic: trying to get pregnant as a single woman. The truth is I was afraid. I knew I needed to, wanted to write about my experience. I loved connecting with other women and couples going through similar stories and I loved the community of blogging.
But what if! WHAT IF! What if someone from my life found my blog? What if people I used to work with, work for, men I used to date, men I might want to date... what if they found my blog and read post after post about my journey to be a Mom? Using an alias allowed me to feel in control of this. It was like living in the country but keeping a secret apartment in the city that only I had the key to.
A year into blogging I met someone from the internet in real life. She was another single woman trying to start a family the same way I was. I still remember e-mailing her in the, "and here is how we will know each other" e-mail. "I have red hair, I am very tall... oh and my real name is..."
This is the part that will absolutely sound narcissistic: I loved telling people my real name. Gifting it to them. In the early years of blogging very, very few people knew it and by trusting someone with that part of myself I was saying to them that we were more than just wires and wifi. We were more than an avatar. If I gave you my name I gave you myself. It was, for me, a wonderful way to be on-line.
A few years into blogging someone who I didn't want reading my story was sent the URL of my site. She then called me. The first five minutes of the call I wanted to hurl. I wanted to delete my entire site. Then I just listened to her. This call was one of my fears and it was happening. I agreed to remove the one post that she took a particular objection to and hung up. It was liberating. So that's what happens when someone you worry about reading your site reads your site. I can deal with that.
I continued to use the alias of Calliope through all of my attempts to become pregnant. I was Calliope when I went through the process of being an egg donor and I was Calliope when I had my miscarriage. I was Calliope when the internet helped get me pregnant by raising funds for my treatment. I was Calliope when I wrote about the heartbeat and told you all that I was having a boy.
Somewhere within my pregnancy the desire to say goodbye to Calliope surfaced. I thought and thought about it and at the end of the day it didn't
