Metal Meredith

SNDM Weblog

I am so very pleased to be able to bring this new blog to you. After all, I have been wanting to share this group of people with everyone for quite a while. For anyone who has heard me tell stories and reference them to my ‘Mom Message Board’ “My online friends”, then you will be pleased to learn that they are all real people. I wasn’t making them up, they are not invisible.

Please stop by and take a read. Sit and hang out a while. Leave comments on the posts. I know we will all be thrilled to have a new audience for our stories, ideas and advice.

http://sndm.net

In late 2002, I found out I was expecting my first child. I was terrified and overjoyed, but mostly terrified. So I did what any internet addict would do, I searched all over to find out information.

In doing so, I stumbled upon BabyCenter’s birth month section. Each month and year has its own message board. New mothers and mothers-to-be all join these boards looking for comfort, ideas, friendship, help and laughter. Mostly, they are looking for someone to share the pregnancy with that is going through exactly what they are.

I logged on to the June 2003 section in December of 2002. Mostly, I just read posts and laughed. I picked out the people I identified with and the ones I was scared of. I was addicted to it and read it all day long in between emails and phone calls at work. It wasn’t long before I started posting, made a few friends and was in on all the inside jokes.

After we all had our babies, we started getting closer. We had online chat times when up to 20 of us would do instant chat on the site and our personalities really started shining through. Then, all hell broke loose.

The problem with the internet is almost the same as the advantage; one can remain as nameless and distant as possible without feeling the real-life rudeness and discomfort of others. Along with this distance comes the real possibility of hurt feelings, people stirring up crap with others and being downright mean.

One of the members decided to branch out and create a place where the only initial rule was ‘respect each other’. Soon, we grew to 60 people and she gave us the name “So Not Drama Mammas”.

Since that time, I have spent 2 years getting to know many women that I would have never taken the time to speak to in person. In this situation, I was allowed to ‘listen’ to others opinions, voices and experiences without having to offer up feedback. I was able to share my experiences, as little or as much detail as I wanted, without worrying about someone being hurtful. We all felt safe.

I can honestly say that I have grown as a human in the past two years because of the friendships I have made with the SNDMs. I enjoy these women so much that I wanted to offer a space for all of them to share their voices with the world. So, I asked Phil (my wonderful web designer husband), to help me make this site.

Hopefully, as more people read and see this version of the SNDMs, they will also come to appreciate the universality of motherhood, love and family.