Things I wish I’d known at 40

July 16, 2014 Jody Day 60

This week, I celebrate my 50th birthday. It feels like a heck of a thing, to find myself turning 50 at peace with the past, happy in the present and excited about the future. It didn’t come easily and, looking back over the screenplay of my 40s it does seem to include just about everything from farce to tragedy… So that got me thinking about boldly going into a new decade where no Jody has gone before – if I could talk to my 40-year-old self, what would I want her to know about the decade ahead? Here are some […]

Help! I’m so jealous of pregnant women and mothers!

April 22, 2014 Jody Day 11

A guest post by GW+ Community Member: Marjon Bakker A few weeks ago I listened to a BBC World Service radio programme about envy. It features a British writer, Jessica Hepburn, who is experiencing severe ‘baby envy’ because she cannot have a child. She tells us how envious she can be because she longs for something other women have achieved so easily. On the Gateway Women Google Plus community (or GW+ for short!) someone wrote that she thought it was in interesting programme, but that it was a pity that no answer was given to the question of how to […]

I’m Dreaming of a Childless Christmas

December 22, 2013 Jody Day 31

Yes, I know the words ‘dreaming’, ‘childless’ and ‘Christmas’ look incongruous together.  But for me, it’s really something I’ve been dreaming of all this busy Autumn. Right now I’m at home alone, tucked up in a warm bed with a warm cat delicately snoring at my side. The streets of London are hushed as most people have already left town. After an exhaustingly excellent year with the growth of the Gateway Women Online Community and the publication of my first book, I’m happily in my pyjamas with a steaming cup of coffee made exactly the way I like it and […]

Countdown to Christmas: strategies for a childless celebration

December 16, 2013 Jody Day 14

This guest blog has been written by a member of the Gateway Women Online Community My nephew is fit to burst. He is ten and he is jam-packed, full to the brim, bubbling over with eager pre-Christmas anticipation. He has been compiling Christmas wish lists since September; and whilst for this particular ten-year old, gifts are pretty much the best thing in the world; it is about much more than that. There are school holidays approaching, Christmas specials on TV, family visits with lots of attention and cuddles, and then there is the yummy food, the Christmas songs, and the […]

Self-care and other gremlins

August 5, 2013 Jody Day 27

As someone with ‘a mother’s heart’ you’d think that nurturing myself would be easy. After all, I spend 15 years longing to nurture a child. But you’d be wrong. In my continuing recovery from the heartbreak of childlessness, I’ve found that nurturing myself has turned out to be one of my biggest challenges. It seems I’d rather be of service to just about anyone other than myself. When I was married, this found its perfect home in something called ‘codependency’  – which in my case was a perfect energetic two-step between my ex-husband’s addictions and my own obsessive over-involvement in his condition. It […]

Happy Childless Birthday!

July 16, 2013 Jody Day 25

Happy Birthday to Me Happy Birthday to Me Happy Birthday Crazy Cat Lady Happy Birthday to Me! Sure, it’s not what I hoped, planned and dreamed for. Not what I spent the years from 29-43 trying to make happen in one way or another.  But at 49, it’s more that OK. It’s great. Doing my grief work means that I’m out the other side now – a different person. My busted-open heart has been put back together in a new configuration. I think it might be bigger than before. The scar of my childlessness is a tender spot and it […]

Leaving the story behind

May 20, 2013 Jody Day 30

Sometimes, I feel a bit sorry for myself. At first, it feels quite good to indulge in it, but after a few minutes it starts to feel like shit. Because then the ‘story’ in my head that goes with the feelings will start up – the one that begins with words like ‘if only’ and ‘what if I’d’ or ‘why didn’t I’ and which all boil down to a fairly core position: Why me? I feel a bit sheepish writing it, but there it is. The stone in my shoe. The little Jody that wants to lie on the floor […]

Childless and Miserable? You need to get off Facebook!

April 20, 2013 Jody Day 41

Sunny holidays, funny moments with her kids, her lover taking her away somewhere special for her birthday so that they can have some time, ‘alone’… How come her life worked out and mine didn’t? What about me? How to meet your soul mate, arranging the perfect hen-night, your dream wedding, what to expect when you’re expecting, keeping the passion alive in your relationship… Where’s my soul mate? Isn’t there meant to be one for everyone? Where do I exist in women’s magazines? Where are the articles about coping with a lodger in your 40s just to pay the electricity bill? When […]

Welcome to the Sistership – The Online Gateway Women Forum

January 24, 2013 Jody Day 0

If you’d like to connect, rant, support and laugh with other childless-by-circumstance women, please come and join us on the Private G+ Gateway Women Community. And it’s not on flipping Facebook! Whether you’re still hopeful, not sure or getting stuck into your Plan B, you’ll find good company and candid chat here… Usually busy most evenings (and with women from all over the world joining us so getting busier round the clock!) it’s proving very popular and some great new friendships, ideas and connections are being made. Click here for more information and to apply for membership Welcome to the […]

Christmas will be different next year…

December 25, 2012 Jody Day 13

Having made it through yet another childless Christmas, all of us childless by circumstance women can breathe out a huge collective sigh of relief! It’s over and we can get back to our daily lives, and the coping mechanisms and busy routines that serve to protect us, most of the time, from the feelings of isolation, sadness and loss we often feel. Now Christmas is over, we can move back into the mainstream again; we can pass for normal women again. Well, most of the time, anyway. But there comes a day, maybe after we’ve had just one too many […]

New London workshop, 4th Nov – So You Don’t Have Kids?… Now What!

October 9, 2012 Jody Day 5

A new one day workshop designed to kick-start your Plan B for a meaningful and fulfilling life without children. So You Don’t Have Kids?…Now What! is for you if you’re: A woman who wanted to have children but it didn’t work out for some reason Frustrated with how you are treated, perceived and sidelined by mainstream society because you don’t have kids Damned if you know where your mojo went and where the hell to start looking for it! Worried about growing old alone without children Furious that you ‘did all the right things’ and have ‘ended up’ like this […]

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