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. Max 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.

​One Mother’s Day morning, I took a quick trip into a grocery store. On my way out, I saw a plastic bucket filled with tall roses on a small table, beside the exit door. A hand-written sign was taped to the bucket. On it, I read, “For the Moms. Take one."
I paused for a moment, then I took a single red, long-stemmed rose and walked out. 
We deserve roses too. Whole bunches of them. 

Here's a post I wrote and shared with some friends in June 2019. I've not written here much about how I came to be without children. This website is about providing support, regardless of 'how' one has come to be childless. Because every person's grief is valid - the how we got here does not make it more or less so.
I want to post this now, as tonight I have created the 'How to be Supportive' page with hopes to build understanding and compassion for our experiences and community. May my story contribute to this.
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 because 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.

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 also inspired me then.

Time moves along. When in my mid and late thirties and coming to realize that motherhood was never going 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
​

Last year when our world was first gripped with coronavirus and lockdown began, I thought my experiences of isolation might prepare me better than others. Often being the only childless person in a room, I know what it is to feel isolated and have developed coping strategies.
Then, as stay-at-home orders were put into place, many children returned to their parents’ homes. Families became each other’s bubbles. In time, my feelings of isolation that stem from being involuntarily childless were stirred up. Suddenly, instead of coping well, my isolation and childlessness felt magnified. 
I have come to realize that I will always experience life through this different lens. For me, it is not about accepting being childless, or getting over/letting go of wanting children – that’s not going to happen. There will always be moments that create a certain wistfulness.
For me, it’s about learning to live with being involuntarily childless.  It’s about learning how to avoid what provokes grief and pain, about discovering new ways to experience peace and joy, about getting get out of my head and out into the world to experience life, people (friends old and new), movement and creativity again.
My new ways to experience peace and joy tend to be simple. They involve small shifts inside. For me, feeling peace and joy these days is about…

• Doing at least one thing each day that calms me (...no more 'do one thing a day that scares me' - that quote used to be on my refrigerator through my thirties - I've had enough of that)….solo walks, breathing deep and exhaling slowly, soaking in warm water, visualizing my favourite water views, stretching, rubbing my dogs' bellies/chins  
• Finding beauty around me – early spring crocus and hellebores, blue sky, birdsongs, cerulean blue water, waves, water sounds, any form of greenery, roses, peonies, climbing sweet pea and morning glory, the setting sun, my dogs’ soulful eyes and wagging tails, nature's colours, the colours I create outdoors and in, time spent with my parents, my partner’s smile and cooking, conversations with dear friends, the kindness, friendship and laughter of other women in my shoes
• Enjoying visits again with long-term friends who have children because I now also have new friends who know firsthand what it means to be childless not by choice and offer the right words when I need them
• Feeling like I’ve surfaced from the worst of my childless grief, and knowing that when the waves return…and they will…that there are people in my life who totally get it and provide comfort without question

In his book Beauty The Invisible Embrace, John Donohue wrote, "...beauty is so quietly woven through our ordinary days that we hardly notice it. Everywhere there is tenderness, care and kindness, there is beauty....it is often the whispers and glimpses of beauty which enable people to endure on desperate frontiers. Even, and perhaps especially, in the bleakest times, we can still discover and awaken beauty; these are precisely the times we need it most. Nowhere else can we find the joy that beauty brings."  
During this year of heightened isolation, I've realized and accept that my learning how to live with being childless is a work-in-progress.  The grief of involuntary childlessness doesn’t ever really go away. While the pain of loss softens, grief continues like unexpected waves. Some are gentle and easy to withstand. Others smash without warning, leaving me bruised and breathless. This past year has been full of smashing waves.
May we all find simple, beauty-filled moments. May we help each other through the waves. Take good care & stay safe. xo

Last year, I 'stepped out of the shadows' and submitted a piece of writing for the World Childless Week website in response to their invite for submissions about comments that hurt.
Over many years, I've certainly heard a lot of hurtful comments and questions. For a long time, I didn't know how to respond. Now, the more I write here (and the older I get!), the more openly I want to speak about my experience and the more likely I am to have the words and courage to respond.   

It Hurt When
It hurt when a woman at a fertility clinic trying for her second child said, “If you want a baby enough it will happen.”
It hurt when a new neighbour asked, “Do you have children?” then said, “Oh...why not?”
It hurt when overhearing a longtime friend say, “We just find it easier to hang out with other parents.”
It hurt when a therapist said, “Maybe you didn’t want children enough.”
It hurt when my oldest sister said, “You’re not a mother so you wouldn’t understand.”
It hurt when a heartbroken childless friend said her brother told her, “You really need to grow up and move on.”
It hurt when a woman who was drinking too much at a friend’s dinner party said, “Wow, to not have children. To not be a mother. How does that make you feel as a woman?”
It hurt when a formerly childless friend whose husband decided he didn’t want to try for a second baby cried to me and said, “I’m so worried that I’ll regret not having a second child.”
It hurt when that same friend posted photo after photo of herself out with other moms and said, “Sorry, it’s been so long since we’ve gotten together.  We miss you both but we’re just so busy.”
It hurts at work and in social gatherings when the others are all parents and they bond over stories about their children or grandchildren and no one tries to engage me in the conversation.
It all hurt.  Questions and comments hurt.  Even unasked questions and silence hurt. 
Finding community with other people who are childless not by choice has softened the memories and a lot of the pain.  It’s also given me the strength to avoid such exchanges as much possible, and the words to respond in ways that I never imagined possible, back when it all hurt so much.  

This year, World Childless Week is 14th-20th Sept 2020. 
For more information, visit worldchildlessweek.net.

On a Friday in July 2016, I flew from Toronto to Los Angeles and took a shuttle to Pasadena. The next morning, I was to meet 14 strangers in a second-floor meeting room at the Pasadena Playhouse theatre. Like me, they’d registered for a two-day workshop – the Gateway Women’s Reignite Weekend that promises, among other things, “You will explore and understand unresolved grief about your childlessness." 

After a decade of disappointment and loss, my hopes to be a parent were gone. I was bereft. And as the only woman without children in my orbit, I felt completely alone.

One late night in November of the preceding autumn, I'd googled ‘childless support’. While I found only fertility-focused websites in Canada, I came across a UK-based website and an online community – both created and hosted by Jody Day for women who are childless-not-by-choice.

A few years before, Jody struggled with involuntary childlessness herself. She came to recognize the lack of supportive resources. To help fill the void, she created the Gateway Women website with its global online community in 2011; and later, she developed the Reignite Weekend workshop.

On that November night, I explored Jody’s website and the online posts for hours. I found myself reflected in many of the stories posted by Jody and other women. I recognized their complicated experiences and emotions as my reality. Only by reading their stories did I realize that my mixed-up feelings – deep, disruptive sadness, anger, wistfulness, disbelief, more anger, more sadness – were, in fact, grief.

A few days later, I posted a short description of my situation in the online community. Kind expressions of understanding and support promptly appeared. For the first time, I felt my childless grief acknowledged and understood by other women.

These women were in my shoes. They completely got it – the deep loss and grief for our children never met. The heavy cloud of isolation around me slowly began to lift. 

The following spring, Jody announced that she’d be travelling from London, England to California to facilitate her Reignite Weekend workshop. I knew I had to go. 

Fast forward back to my arrival in Pasadena that Friday in July….
Tired from travel and the time change, I went to bed early then learned that some of the other women in town for the workshop were downstairs meeting each other. Though part of me wanted to stay under the bedcovers - literally and figuratively - I got up, dressed and worked up the courage to join.

Fast forward two hours…
Isolation alleviated. From the moment I joined the table of three women in the hotel restaurant, they warmly welcomed me. These women talked as if they'd known each other for years. I soon felt as though I'd known them for years too. They each explained what had brought them to Pasadena, to this workshop. One of the women looked at me and gently asked, “What about you, Susan? What brings you here?”

I took a deep breath. Then for the first time, I spoke openly about what had brought me to seek out the company of other women affected by involuntary childlessness. I told my story. I described my pain. I didn't feel the need, as I usually did, to carefully consider my words or further explain myself. They understood.

This weekend experience in Pasadena was a turning point in my healing. Though the only Canadian in a roomful of American women who’d driven or flown from various states, I felt community. In a second-floor meeting room, over 4,000 kilometres from home, in the company of strangers, I found myself fully part of female group conversation again. We shared stories, tears and laughter. With all of this, I felt a sense of surfacing. I was surfacing from grief, isolation, self-blame, from all the longstanding burdens that stemmed from the loss of my parenting hopes and dreams.

Fast forward two more years….
From January to April 2018, I completed a virtual but intensive training program. Jody trained me to deliver her workshop. Then that September, I delivered a sold-out Reignite Weekend in downtown Toronto.
For two days, a group of 14 women – 13 Canadians and one American – gathered in a ground-floor meeting room in a downtown Toronto hotel. They shared their stories. They described their pain. I led them through the workshop activities and supported their conversation. As in the Pasadena workshop, the women supported each other. They shed tears. And they laughed.

Late on the Sunday afternoon, to close the workshop, I invited each woman to describe her feelings given the weekend experience. Each expressed a heart-felt response and gratitude. One woman said, “I feel like I can exhale now.” 

As I’d felt myself surface, she could finally exhale.

When we struggle with involuntary childlessness, I believe we hold our breath. While hoping, while waiting, while feeling disappointment, we hold our breath. We tense up and hold that tension for years.

When we experience how hard it is to find acknowledgement that our grief is real and valid, we hold it in. When a childbirth story, baby announcement, shower invite, grandchild photo, Mother’s Day or Father’s Day stirs our sorrow, we hold it in. 

We come to dread being asked, “Do you have children?” and retreat further inward. We feel alone, like we're holding our breath underwater.   

To surface and exhale, to move toward healing, we need to find connection. 

More and more communities of people without children are being created - many online. Helpful hashtags include: #involuntarilychildless, #childlessnotbychoice, #childlessbycircumstance, #childless...and more.

Find a community that feels right and comfortable for you. Then, share your story. Surface and exhale. 

A few months have passed since my last post. But, I am still here with more to write and more I want to explore with this site. Of late, my thoughts have been swirling with ideas and possible titles of as-yet unwritten posts...
Surface and Exhale
Words
Acknowledgement
Plan B vs. Plan Be vs. Plan B + Be
Sanctuary
I have been unable to write for awhile. 
My dear dad died in early February. He lived a wonderful life but I miss him terribly, always will.
And we are all now isolating at home. The gravity and impact of COVID-19 weighs heavily. Everyone is experiencing loss and worry.
There are so many layers to experiences, loss and grief.
While I have started writing my thoughts again, they are unfinished drafts. The intended titles may be enough for now....
     Surface and Exhale    Words    Acknowledgement    Plan B vs. Plan Be vs. Plan B + Be    Sanctuary
What do these words and phrases mean to you?
What thoughts do they generate for you?
Surface and Exhale    
Words    
Acknowledgement    
Plan B vs. Plan Be vs. Plan B + Be    
Sanctuary

I am seated in my home office after spending the morning at a coffee shop working on my laptop. During my drive home, I happened upon an interview on the CBC Radio's Tapestry show.  The man being interviewed said, "Happiness is a dish with many ingredients." I love that sentiment. He expressed that happiness tends to be a by-product during one's pursuit of happiness - and that connection is a big part. I agree.
I'm going to find the full interview online and the name of his book. Capturing these thoughts here right now while I remember. And, so glad I had the radio set to that station at the right time.
As I arrived home, I found first Christmas card in mailbox. It's from a thoughtful Gateway Woman in the U.K. I met her as part of the online B program. Her kindness moves me so much - connection does bring happiness in many forms:)  xx

...later afternoon additional note: I checked and learned the radio interview was between the author Meik Wiking who was being interviewed by Mary Hynes.  I've copied a link to the interview and an article below. I've heard of his book The Little Book of Hygge but haven't read yet. They talked today about his most recent book which I'm now really looking forward to reading - The Art of Making Memories: How to Create and Remember Happy Moments. 

Article:  Treasure map of happy memories: a guide to remembering the best moments of your life:  https://www.cbc.ca/radio/tapestry/treasure-map-of-happy-memories-a-guide-to-remembering-the-best-moments-of-your-life-1.5386117