I swear I’ve started this blog a thousand times in my head. In May of 2012, my then eight-year-old daughter was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. I immediately turned mom-vocate, and became very vocal about DD, Crohn’s, and everything in between. When you have an eight-year-old, the immediate social ramifications of blogging about her life are almost non-existent. I was always nervous, however, about how she would feel five, ten, twenty years down the road when anyone with a search bar could have access to all of the dirty details of living with an incurable, chronic illness. Trying to be respectful of DD, I fought the urge to reach out to other moms and kept notes for someday when the time was right. Private groups on Facebook became my safe haven to discuss all things IBD-related with other parents who could and did empathize with the daily struggles of raising a Crohn’s kid.

Fast forward to late August 2015 when my fourteen-year-old son was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis. Yep, that would be two kids with Inflammatory Bowel Disease, but I most certainly can’t blog openly about the struggles of my middle schooler, now can I? Imagine the social backlash from that. However, it does feel like the universe–besides having a huge laugh at my expense–is trying to tell me to share my story. My list of potential blog topics has grown exponentially over the past two weeks as I’ve come to terms with this second diagnosis, and I realize that even if just for my own mental health, I need to do this.

While I hate these monikers, you’ll come to know my family as Dear Daughter (DD), Dear Son (DS), and Dear Husband (DH). You can just call me Momma. We live in middle America with a sidewalk, a picket fence, and a dog. My kids fight with each other just like yours. DH and I argue over the same things you do. We’re about as all-American as it gets. One might even call us typical except for the fact that both of my kids have digestive systems that insist on trying to eat them from the inside out…

My plan is to publicize this through my IBD connections and not my personal social media. I’m sure, however, that friends may put two and two together. Please, please respect my need to blog anonymously do not tie this to me publicly. DD and DS thank you in advance.

So welcome to my new reality as a mom of not one, but two IBD kids. I’ll post about daily frustrations, IBD-etiquette, medical innovations, and just about anything else that comes to mind. Let’s see if, together, we can’t squeeze a little more sanity out of every day.