Certain interactions make me write. Here's one I wrote about yesterday...
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​This afternoon, I went for a massage. It’s been a couple years since I’ve had one. The massage therapist I used to see wasn’t available so I was booked with another named Kim, who, I was told, focuses on relaxation.
When I arrived at the clinic, Kim greeted me and held out her hands to take my coat. I had already started to hang it myself, but she took the coat out of my hands, put it on a hanger and said, “This is me being a mom.”
When I was settled on the massage table, Kim explained that she doesn’t talk a lot while giving a massage and has been doing this for about thirty years. “I just love doing this for people who care for other people,” she said.
While her ‘being a mom’ and ‘people who care for other people’ comments made me wonder if she was going to ask if I have children, Kim stopped talking and I relaxed into the experience.
Near the end of the session, we exchanged some small talk and I said, “Whenever I have a massage, I always hope the massage therapist gets to have massages too. I hope you do.”
Kim looked at me and said, “For me, massage is about helping other moms. Helping moms - it’s so important.”
I nodded, took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
After the massage was over, I walked toward the reception desk where Kim was waiting for me.  She asked how I was feeling. I described how relaxing it was and thanked her. Then I took a deep breath and said, “There’s just one more thing I want to mention.”
I stepped into an open room beside the reception area and Kim followed me.
I took another deep breath then calmly said, “You mentioned moms a few times. I’m childless not by choice. I went through infertility for a long time. I want to suggest that you could use the word caregiver instead. Because not every woman gets to be a mom.”
Though a little wide-eyed, Kim nodded, “Yes, caregiver is a good word. Thank you.”
As I walked to my car, the phrase ‘public service announcement’ came to mind. It felt like I’d just made one.
In the past, I would have left quietly. Now, so many years into living and learning how to be more comfortably and confidently childless, I felt like I was speaking up for the next person like me and the next…for all the people who didn’t get to have or who chose not to have children but are caregivers too and just as deserving of a relaxing break.

In August 2024, my story The Empty Nest was published in Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail. Originally published on this blog and later by Stephanie during 2023 World Childless Week,  this story is proving to help chip away at invisibility, to be more open about this part of my life experience .
To read on AppleNews, click here.
To read on The Globe and Mail, click here.
Note...the headline on print version are my words. But the headline of online version wasn't written by me (...and it doesn't reflect my thinking!). 

While I Quietly Gardened
A few days ago, while raking the last of fallen birch and maple leaves in the front yard, it occurred to me that for many years I gardened my way through grief.
During the years I was trying to get pregnant, then grappling with infertility and stagnant adoption efforts, I gardened. In the beginning, every spring and autumn, I spent hours outside planting. I planted roses of every kind and colour: floribunda, David Austin, climbing and creeping roses. I planted numerous shaded and full sun perennials: peonies, fountain grasses, hostas, Japanese anemone, ferns, hydrangea, hellebores and a variety of succulents.
Then, I tended to these plants every season. Each spring, summer and autumn, I spent hours gardening. As needed, I meticulously applied bone meal and manure and split older irises, yucca and hostas. I deadheaded and pruned regularly. I painstakingly checked and cleared pests and any leaves showing signs of mold or mildew.
Through it all, gardening distracted me while I moved from the unfathomable prospect of never being a mom to the hard reality that I would indeed be permanently childless. Throughout this heavy time, I quietly gardened. Then, one year, I felt too tired, so I stopped.
I was tired from the long grieving process and gardening had come to feel too isolating. Adding to this, new, younger neighbours were starting their families and, while their babies and young children grew and played in their yards, I found hard to work in the gardens alongside.
Instead, I’d settle myself into a chair on the back deck with a book and watch the plants grow from afar. When neighbours’ yards were empty, I’d walk around the planted beds, cutting some blooms to enjoy inside. Now and then, I deadheaded. Often, I gathered arrays of colourful blooms to photograph. I always enjoyed the beauty of it all.
This autumn, I’ve taken to raking and pruning again. One afternoon, as I raked, the thought came to me that, for years, I'd gardened through grief. Now, on the other side of this grieving and thankful for all that I do have, I miss the fresh air and peace of mind that gardening gives.
After this coming winter, I, like the perennials, shrubs and trees, intend to put my energy into a cycle of renewal. And, it feels right that gardening will inspire me along.

The Empty Nest
In mid-June, a robin built a nest atop an outdoor lamp on my back deck. The nest then sat empty for more than a week. Until one morning, I stepped outside and saw the robin sitting on the nest. That day, she left and returned from morning to night. A few days later, she sat on the nest all day and remained in place throughout the following three days and nights.
​On the fourth day, she started taking short breaks. She'd fly to a nearby birch tree and perch on the lower branches. During one of the robin's breaks, I gingerly used a mirror to peer into her nest. I could see the reflection of three perfect blue eggs cradled at the bottom. In the evening, the robin returned to resume her quiet, constant wait on the nestled eggs.
Two mornings later, I stepped out onto the deck and immediately noticed bird droppings and small feathers on the ground. The robin was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t on her nest nor was she perched on any branches nearby.
As the day went on without the robin’s reappearance, I began to worry. I searched online about robins and their nesting habits. Do robins leave eggs unattended? Could this be normal to have a nest with eggs and no bird? Yes, it could, I learned. Bird experts advise that one should leave a nest with eggs alone as the mother may return two to four weeks later to begin incubation.
That evening, I used the mirror again to carefully check on the eggs. The three perfect eggs remained nestled together.
Encouraged by the bird experts’ advice, I left the nest on the lamp and waited. But I also wondered and worried. Would the robin return? What would happen to the eggs?
In time, this nest with three eggs and no mother and my waiting and worrying began to feel quite personal and poignantly familiar. I’d wanted to be a mother with three children And during the many years I wanted this, I waited and worried. 
Hmmm...what stirs my childless grief-related feelings still surprises.   
Each morning, I checked for the robin’s return. During the third week, I began to feel strongly that these eggs were not going to bring life. They’d be forever unhatched (...ah yes, dare I write, like my eggs...another stirring...).
For over five weeks, I waited for the robin. She didn't return. So I decided to bury the eggs, return them to nature.
Yesterday evening, I carefully lifted the nest down off the lamp. Looking in, I saw that the eggs were gone. The nest was empty. No broken shells. No sign that eggs had ever sat there. 
I placed the nest on a garden stone and felt sad about its emptiness. Then, looking at the delicate yet sturdy creation, I marvelled. The nest was beautiful. A robin had incredibly and intricately woven grasses and twigs together to create this nest for her eggs, to raise her baby birds. And, though the nest was empty, it was beautiful too.
Later in bed, I thought about the nest. Its emptiness and beauty moved me still. Then, I realized why. Because my home is like that nest. I created beautiful space, anticipating my little ones. Because my life feels, like the nest, incredibly woven and beautiful though empty of little ones. Because when we don't have children, it is left to us to fill our lives in other ways.
As beautiful as the empty nest is, I felt that it needed to be full. So this morning, I filled the nest with roses, snapdragons, begonia and sprigs of lavender. A beautiful nest filled with more beauty. Nothing empty about it.
Like the beautiful nest now full, I enrich my home and life with beauty as best I can, with art, music, books, playful dogs, gardens, nature, with the laughter of friends and loved ones, with comfort, lightness, and open windows with views of the morning sun and the night sky, and the sounds of songbirds who return every day.
No more thoughts of empty nests for me.

Lightness
​Only when I was able to cry and laugh with others who didn’t have children to talk about was I finally able to laugh again fully with those who do…
This past weekend, at a bridal shower for a neighbour’s daughter, I found myself seated at a table with 6 women I’d never met, all moms. They all knew each other.  They shared stories about their moms-and-children trips together. There were also many laughs about non-parenting memories and topics too. The women were very friendly, and I felt fairly included and comfortable enough.
At one point, one woman asked us all, “Who has grandchildren?” She then expressed that she doesn’t because her son and his partner don’t want children. With this, my internal cue started signalling ‘washroom time-out’; and I excused myself for awhile…
The first book I read on the experience of involuntary childlessness was Silent Sorority​ by Pamela Mahoney Tsigninos. I read it in less than a day. Reading this book felt like an awakening and marks when I first realized I wasn’t alone. Not alone with the profound sadness and isolation being felt while struggling to accept that I would never be a mom. And not alone in taking washroom time-outs when surrounded by parenting-focused conversations. I read this book in the autumn of 2015, and, clearly, I continue to make the most of such time-outs when the need arises.
In that same autumn, I came across Jody Day's Gateway Women website and ordered her book, Living the Life Unexpected. In the years that followed, Jody and her work, including her Reignite Weekend Workshop, helped me move through heavy grief and feel fully engaged in female group conversations again. Through my GW connection, I’ve made many friendships that are and will always be precious to me.
While seated at the table of moms I didn’t know, thoughts of my precious friends without children carried me through. Their understanding and support is ever present.

Any suggestion that my dogs are replacement children was always negated by the pain of my childless grief. But these dogs have given me so much. They comforted me through painful times and helped my life feel lighter. They gave me a lot of reasons to smile. I had so much love that needed somewhere to go, and they cheerfully received it...click Read More​

Where Love Can Go
When our dog Max died last year, Mario and I received numerous messages from friends and family. They expressed condolences for our loss and sadness. Many expressed what a great life we gave Max. They said Max couldn’t have had it better than he did with us. 
While I believe that’s true, I also know all that Max gave back.  He gave me complete love and devotion. There was no one else Max wanted in his line of vision more than me. His tail wagged constantly, and even wider when he’d see me.
Max was a beautiful black cocker spaniel rescued from a high-kill pound in Kentucky. He joined our family when he was about a year and a half old and our shih tzu, Mia, was six-years old.
Mia bossed all of us around – me, Mario and Max. Max let her be top dog. He was in awe of her and stepped aside whenever she made it clear that he was getting too much attention in the room. I loved them both deeply.
When people tell me that these dogs had the best life, I agree. And yet, I also know that Mia and Max gave me more than most people would ever understand.
Mia came into my world the same year I was married, when my hopes for having children felt so close to being realized. Then, she comforted me through the years that followed when the prospect of being childless became reality. I cried often. In those moments, Mia would jump onto my lap or crawl up my chest and look straight into my eyes. For a dog that didn’t typically engage in eye contact, Mia’s gaze into my crying eyes felt like a balm. It was like she was trying to absorb my pain. And she did. Mia absorbed my grief more than most people would ever understand. Mia also absorbed a lot of the love that I would have otherwise given to my children.
Max joined our family after I realized I would never give birth. But I still had parenting hopes. Adoption training was underway and it would be another five years before I faced the fact that I would never be a mom.
Max wanted nothing more than food and to have me beside him. He became my sweet boy. Though I called him this, I never felt that my dogs replaced the children I’d long wished for. In fact, I bristled when a neighbour suggested that my dogs were my babies.
Any suggestion that my dogs are replacement children was always negated by the pain of my childless grief. But these dogs have given me so much. They comforted me through painful times and helped my life feel lighter. They gave me a lot of reasons to smile. I had so much love that needed somewhere to go, and they cheerfully received it.
And now, we have Ella. She joined me, Mario and Max after dear Mia died.
By the time Ella came into my life, I knew having children was never going to happen for me. Since most of my tears have been shed, Ella and I will not have the same experience together that I did with Mia and Max.
Ella’s a shih tzu whose disposition is mainly about being happy. Happy is her nickname. I’m grateful for the pure joy this little creature brings each day.
I’ll always be grateful for all that each of these loving, little creatures have given me. Mia’s direct gaze and bossiness helped move me through heavy grief. Then, Max’s constant sweet, loving energy lifted me beyond grief. And now, Ella inspires me toward playful days again.

June 28, 2019, I wrote...
If you had asked me in recent years how I came to be a woman without children, you would have heard me stumbling through my story. I couldn’t keep my story straight around how I wasn’t a mother.  I couldn’t process that reality or any reasoning around it in my mind, much less articulate what had happened. 
When telling my story, I would have focused on my belief that I started trying too late. I would have starting by saying that I always wanted children. Though there was a time in my twenties I questioned that, I always thought I would eventually be a mom. I kicked myself for a long time for ever having any doubt. 
I would have told you how I had two long relationships, both times thinking that this would be the man whom I would have children with. Despite knowing in my heart and gut that neither man was right for me. In the first relationship, we were young. We met in university and were together for about seven years. I long doubted the relationship, but he was educated and ambitious so I envisioned us having a conventional and happy enough life together with children. The second man decided he didn’t want to have children after we were together for about four years. When we met in my late twenties, he would go on about how beautiful our children would be. We talked and dreamed about having children together, but he already had a daughter and when I was 31 he decided he didn’t want any more children. The relationship ended.  We told people we wanted different things, although I knew deep down it was a troubled relationship that I should have ended in its first year.
I stayed in two long relationships that were not good for me because I wanted children. Before I wrote these words just now this hadn’t occurred to me.  I’ve always blamed myself for my decisions to stay with these men as part of why I wasn’t able to have children.  
From age 31 to 35, every man I dated knew I wanted children.  I made that clear. 
At 37, I got married and thought I still had a lot of time to finally start trying to be a mom. And, I kept trying until I was 47. First naturally, then later by trying to adopt. These were demoralizing and soul-crushing years and experiences. 
As I write this, I am thinking that this is the most linear version I’ve ever used to explain my how-I-came-to-be-childless story. When asked, my mind has always been a jumble. I feel like I have been trying to explain myself in a way that will make people have sympathy, since I have had so little for myself. I've relentlessly blamed myself for what I’ve always regarded as my ‘bad decisions’ that led to me being childless.
Today, I am getting ready to meet my mother, my sister and my mother’s long-time friend and her daughter for lunch. We are meeting because my mother’s friend’s daughter is going through a biopsy for a nodule in her thyroid. And, my sister and I both were diagnosed with thyroid conditions in our thirties. It should be easy to talk about and reassure this woman that probably everything will be ok. I’ve had three biopsies on a nodule and have been reassured by doctors that nodules in a thyroid usually are of no concern.
So why all these thoughts this morning? Because I will be the only woman at the restaurant table without children. And as I usually do, I am anticipating the situation and the dynamic that usually unfolds.  When the other women at the table, all moms, bond over the stories about their children.  When I feel out of place and awkwardly silent.  When I feel like someone might ask me why I am not a mom.
And, today, this morning with this anticipation and these thoughts being dredged up, I realize something else. That my story has really changed. That I feel that I would be able to tell my story without my usual self-recrimination. That, for the first time, I no longer feel that I have to explain these backstory parts of my story to anyone any more.   
That today, if I were to choose to explain to someone how I became a woman without children, I would simply say, “Because of early menopause.” 
When I was 43, the new endocrinologist treating my thyroid condition told me I was post-menopausal. That means I would have been menopausal throughout the many years that I was trying.  I would have been peri-menopausal throughout many of the years that I was dreaming and hoping I would be a mom. 
I didn’t know this at the time.  And it’s really not been until this morning, anticipating today’s lunch with thyroid being a topic of discussion, that I’ve realized…this is a big part of my story.  I wasn’t able to have children because I experienced early menopause. All this other backstory of my life that I’ve used to explain myself and blame myself does not matter. And, while I certainly won’t be sharing this realization at lunch today, this is progress in my own thinking.
I grieved my inability to be a mom heavily for about 15 years. Only with the connection, conversation and company of other women without children have I been able to move through my grief and find the space and time to fully process my story. To stop stumbling through thinking my story is about the way I lived my life and the decisions I made. To stop blaming myself. To finally be kinder and gentler on myself.
Sadly, it has taken me until my early 50s to stop feeling like the loss of my dream and hope to have children was my fault. There is no fault when a woman or man who wanted children finds themselves unable to enjoy that as a part of their life. There is no fault in that.  No matter what decisions were made or how a life was lived, there is no fault. There is soul-crushing grief and that grieving person needs kind support and gentle understanding.  I know this because this is my story.

Inspired Again
In my late twenties and early thirties, I enrolled annually in at least a couple art classes. I played with watercolour and acrylic paints and explored figurative sculpting and drawing. I loved being among other people as we painted, moulded clay, drew, chatted and laughed together. Being creative within a group environment was a bit part of what made me most happy. At that time, I ran a lot too, and running with others al.so inspired me then.
Time moves along. When later in my thirties and coming to realize that motherhood was never to happen for me, I lost my capacity to enjoy these pursuits. I enrolled in some art classes and joined a ‘Running for Women’ group but found myself feeling isolated. Others bonded over conversations about their children. And, everyone seemed to assume that every person present was a parent. I recall how one day while running late, the running group leader exclaimed that we would all understand her tardiness since ‘you’re all moms’. In time, I stopped signing up for art activities and avoided group settings. 
But then this morning happened – I attended my first virtual art workshop, Intentional Collage with Anastasia. Anastasia offers wellness coaching for childless women as well as monthly art-focused virtual workshops. There were seven of us in this morning’s one-hour workshop. Guided by Anastasia, we worked with our magazine cuttings and open minds to create whatever felt right.
The workshop was a real lift. Our conversation was inclusive and relaxed. And, my long-slumbering creativity has been stirred. Sitting at my home office desk surrounded by old magazines, scissors and a glue stick and seeing the gathering of women on my laptop screen this morning, I’m inspired again. Thank you, Anastasia! xx