I am responding to Julie's Hump day Hmmm from August 8, 2007.

I got big into the Internet looking for information on infertility. I did not have anyone IRL dealing with infertility and did not get much beyond a hug for comfort. I found an infertility message board in April 1998 when searching for, of all things, pregnancy symptoms. I had no idea what these message boards were at the time. I had heard of chat rooms and was sort of afraid of them. The info that I was hearing was that these chat rooms were full of crazy people and pedophiles!

I found a page called "In pursuit of fertility" and started reading. I first liked that, unlike chat rooms, no one knew you were there unless you posted. I started reading posted questions and then responses to the questions. It did not look like crazies or pedophiles. I read for a few weeks and these seemed like real people and they were answering questions that could help me.

I posted. The support and answers I got from these women was nothing short of amazing.

I only knew I was talking to women with problems like mine. I did not think of race or even sexual preference. I was from a small town where most were like me with similar economic status, religious beliefs and racial background. Not much diversity. I thought of people as people and did not realize how much that money, race, sexual preference, religion and race could shape your views.

I liked meeting people this way thru the internet. I only knew them from the inside as I could not see them. I think we should meet everyone like this. There we no photos on this board and our conversations were limited to infertility and baby making. Lots of feelings but they were all about babies or lack of babies.

Funny example. One woman's login was "lindavicki". She was from Canada. She spoke of her spouse Vicki. It never occurred to me that her spouse was as woman! I just thought that "He" had a strange name you know, them being from Canada. LOL at me. I think I was talking to lindavicki for 2 yrs before I realized that her spouse was a woman. Up to then, I did not know a lesbian and don't know how I would have reacted if I had known that fact prior to getting to know her.

I also found out another woman was African American years after getting to know her as well. It was only after seeing a photo of her gorgeous kids that I thought about it.

I am glad I got to know the inside of these woman before seeing what they looked like. I have greatly grown as a person because of this. I try to avoid making assumption based on outside appearances because of it.