Just out of curiosity, I visited IG yesterday to see what was going on over there. It's amazing how altered my attitude is toward the site I used to be utterly addicted to. Oh, and I do mean [I]addicted[/I]. I visited it almost hourly, especially to check up on women who were waiting for the gender scan or were in an especially rough place with their GD, and to look over all the sways to mentally plan my own. I had it all written down in a notebook, and I even still have my pH meter, Aci-jel, ion fan, aspartame tablets and other supps for a traditional, IG girl sway.

I can't begin to say how happy I am to be here. It's not just that I got my daughter with a Gender Dreaming sway (although I can't say that didn't help!) The entire attitude here is lighter. The sway environment isn't a shark tank, with women tearing apart "failed" sways the second the gender is confirmed, letting a poor, disappointed mom know that her pH was too high for too long, that she should have watched her salt intake better and been on the diet longer. I have to admit, I was guilty of it too. Not in actually posting something like that (especially since I'd gone through my own horrific GD and knew that I'd be devastated if I were in that mom's shoes,) but in mentally correcting everything they did and deciding that [I]my[/I] sway would be picture-perfect. [I]My[/I] sway would have perfectly low pH, almost no salt, potassium levels[I] just[/I] on this side of safe, and no shortage of lotions and potions for a sway that could only possibly provoke a "I have no idea how that failed," response if anything went wrong.

In typing that, I'm realizing that I was certainly worried most about getting my DG, but the worry about judgement from the IG community was a close second. I never worried about that here. I'm so happy to see that even loose sways and non-sways get lots of support (and are surprisingly successful often!) The "Well, next time I'd definitely drop the RepHresh and up the exercise" comments are very few and far between, and quickly corrected when they pop up.

The GD community is different here, too. I've seen more supportive, "I've been there, this sucks," commiseration comments than on IG. Admittedly, they've had a problem with trolls, and "You should be grateful you can have kids at all" comments clearly are not coming from people dealing with the messy business of trudging through the GD trenches, but the admins never seemed to ban them in any sort of timely manner. I saw women who confessed to considering suicide and/or abortion who were handled very roughly, instead of as fragile flowers about to be destroyed by life.

I'm glad to be here. This is my happy place. It helps that so many of the women I loved in the IG community have come here, as well, but even without them, this is the place I'm happy to spend my time now. It's just flat-out more positive. I spend my time rooting for the women I love to have happiness in their lives instead of mentally criticizing them for how they could handle their sway or their GD better.

So, I think I'm done on IG for good. I just deleted my bookmark for that page and didn't save my password that I can't ever seem to remember anyway. I'm a die-hard Gender Dreaming girl, not the In-Gender lifer I thought I'd be!