June 27th

Monday, work day.

I am so grateful to have two whole days to myself of uninterrupted time (I forgive the kittens their interruptions), to work on my business.  The time is spent posting links, anecdotes and answering one question a day on the facebook page, and consolidating, writing and updating white papers for the website.

Facebook is an incredible resource of information.

Yesterday, I learned more about the practice of cord blood harvesting, about fallacies told to women in pregnancy and labour of low amniotic fluid, and I learned about a fantastic upcoming 3 day workshop of Creative Ways of Making Space for Baby, run by two amazing birth workers.  I would not necessarily have come to know of these things, without this forum.

Not only that, Facebook has opened up a community of people with whom to share my information with.  Facilitated a supply and demand relationship between two parties that would never have otherwise met.  That's more than just a little bit awesome.

When I first met Ben, a more-anal-than-your-run-of-the-mill privacy freak, he was completely against the idea of sharing personal information on Facebook.  He had registered his name (with a fake birth date) so no one else could pretend to be him.  And that was it.  He has since softened a little on his previously held stand, perhaps intertwined with a fatalistic view of the inevitability of Facebook and weighing that up against the realities of potentially infinite networking possibilities.  (Or it could very well have been he wanted another way to stalk me on line in the early days *grin*.)  Whatever the case, he now uses the tool daily. 

But, I do still remember heeding his words of warning.  Whatever is posted on Facebook, stays in Facebook - and indeed in the greater cached internet for eternity.  There's no taking it back.  My thoughts during our discussions back then are much the same as they are today.

I could very well be hit by a bus when I leave my house tomorrow.  But that doesn't stop me walking to the beach.  I could very well be involved in a motor vehicle accident.  But that doesn't stop me driving to visit friends.  My child's photograph could be uploaded and used for abusive practices.  But the chances of that happening are more unlikely than the previous two examples (just enter 'child' into a Google images search result and see if you can find her before a million other images of children come up ;o).  And I don't want to eliminate an avenue for friends and family who live overseas, from feeling a little more involved in her life, just in case.

So in the same vein, I will let be what will be.  And manage any potentially terrible consequence if and when it happens, rather than live my life attempting to protect myself from something that may never eventuate.  And that includes Facebook.

So for today, the stand out gratitude kudos goes to Facebook.

For making my world a richer environment through enabling interaction with many a gorgeous soul.