Childless by Circumstance Archives - Page 8 of 11

Honouring your experience of Mother’s Day

March 1, 2016 Jody Day 5

In the UK, we celebrate Mother’s Day as “Mothering Sunday”, three Sundays before Easter and so this coming Sunday. It was originally a day when all domestic servants were given a coordinated day off so that they could visit their families and together attend a service at their “Mother” church. It was a family day. However, gradually that original meaning has been lost and has been overtaken by the “Mother’s Day” first introduced in the US by Anna Jarvis in 1914 and falling on the second Sunday in May. Interestingly, Anna Jarvis was childless and the scope of her Mother’s Day also […]

Talking About Childlessness: a video interview with Sasha Cagen www.sashacagen.com

February 8, 2016 Jody Day 6

One of the thing that has helped me enormously in my recovery from involuntary childlessness has been hearing other women’s stories. Over the last few years I’ve got to know some amazing childless women and it’s been a privilege and a delight that I wanted to share with you. I know that it would have made a huge difference to me when I was still struggling if I’d been able to eavesdrop on conversations between women who’d recovered from their childlessness and were moving on in ways that felt meaningful to them. Firstly, because I didn’t know women like that, and secondly because these conversations weren’t (and still […]

May your light shine in 2016

January 1, 2016 Jody Day 21

It’s 11am on New Year’s Day 2016 here in India and last night I had a lovely time at a fancy hotel who had a fireworks display at midnight. I was struck by a deep sense of gratitude and joy for another year of this adventure called ‘my life’. When I think back to the place of despair I was in 7 years ago when I realised (rather late at 44!) that I wasn’t going to be a mother, I could never have anticipated the extraordinary transformational journey my grief would take me on. In many ways now, at 51, […]

Next Christmas will be different…

December 28, 2015 Jody Day 25

Well, we made it through. Another Christmas done. Thank God: any, all or no God. How was it for you? Did you #ReclaimChristmas and shape it into a celebration that suited your life, your situation, your needs as a solo or couple, or did you endure some version of the same old shit you’ve been dealing with these last few years? * Each year, from September onwards many childless women’s concerns about the holiday season escalate, many of them discussed publicly on the Gateway Women Facebook page, or privately in our online community, in sessions with me or in one of the […]

Talking About Childlessness: Jody Day interviews Lisa Manterfield of www.lifewithoutbaby.com

December 13, 2015 Jody Day 7

One of the thing that has helped me enormously in my recovery from involuntary childlessness has been hearing other women’s stories. Over the last few years I’ve got to know some amazing childless women and it’s been a privilege and a delight that I wanted to share with you. I know that it would have made a huge difference to me when I was still struggling if I’d been able to eavesdrop on conversations between women who’d recovered from their childlessness and were moving on in ways that felt meaningful to them. Firstly, because I didn’t know women like that, and secondly because these conversations weren’t (and still […]

Talking About Childlessness: Jody Day interviews Alicia Orre of www.aliciaorre.com

November 1, 2015 Jody Day 6

One of the thing that has helped me enormously in my recovery from involuntary childlessness has been hearing other women’s stories. Over the last few years I’ve got to know some amazing childless women and it’s been a privilege and a delight that I wanted to share with you. I know that it would have made a huge difference to me when I was still struggling if I’d been able to eavesdrop on conversations between women who’d recovered from their childlessness and were moving on in ways that felt meaningful to them. Firstly, because I didn’t know women like that, and secondly because these conversations weren’t (and still […]

Talking About Childlessness: a video interview with Karen Malone Wright, Founder of TheNotMom.com

September 19, 2015 Jody Day 11

One of the thing that has helped me so much in my recovery from unchosen childlessness has been hearing other women’s stories. Over the last few years I’ve got to know some amazing childless women and it’s been a privilege and a delight that I wanted to share with you. I know that it would have made a huge difference to me when I was still struggling if I’d been able to eavesdrop on conversations between women who’d recovered from their childlessness and were moving on with their lives in ways that felt meaningful to them. Firstly, because I didn’t know women like that, and secondly […]

Talking about childlessness: a video interview with Christine Erickson, author of ‘The Mother Within’

June 11, 2015 Jody Day 12

One of the thing that has helped me the most in recovering from childlessness has been, and continues to be, hearing other women’s stories. Over the last few years I’ve got to know some amazing childless women as sisters, role models and friends and it’s been a privilege and a delight that I wanted to share with you. This video interview, recorded in June 2015 is with Christine Erickson, the American author of The Mother Within: A Guide To Accepting Your Childless Journey, published on Amazon Kindle in May 2015 and nominated for an International Book Award. It is the first in a […]

Honouring Your Childlessness on Mother’s Day

March 13, 2015 Jody Day 33

In the UK, we celebrate Mother’s Day as “Mothering Sunday”, three Sundays before Easter and so this coming Sunday. It was originally a day when all domestic servants were given a coordinated day off so that they could visit their families and together attend a service at their “Mother” church. It was a family day. However, gradually that original meaning has been lost and has been overtaken by the “Mother’s Day” first introduced in the US by Anna Jarvis in 1914 and falling on the second Sunday in May. Interestingly, Anna Jarvis was childless and the scope of her Mother’s Day also […]

The love and grief at the heart of a childless Christmas

December 25, 2014 Jody Day 52

A blog of mine from Christmas 2014 It’s done. Another Christmas Day is over. Never an easy time for us childless women, even if we are ‘through’ our grief, as I am. I had a griefy moment in an English country church this morning when the vicar’s adorable children were running around the alter, looking very much like one of them was about to actually get into the manger with the baby Jesus in it! A moment of such cheeky freshness that it took my breath away and I felt the sadness that I never got to enjoy the mischievousness of […]

4 Tips to Cope with (and even enjoy!) Your Childless Christmas

November 2, 2014 Jody Day 34

For many childless women, the best day of Christmas is the 26 December… when it’s all over again for another year! Having worked with hundreds of childless women face-to-face, and thousands of women online over the last few years, the topic of ‘coping with Christmas’ is never far below the surface, and once summer is over it looms on the horizon like a troubling iceberg. Although each woman’s situation is different, similar feelings consistently arise about the upcoming holidays: fear, shame, loneliness, isolation, stress, secrets, pressure, exposure, dread, sadness, anger… I’ve come to think that Christmas is, in many ways, the […]

Hello grief, my dear old friend: why making friends with grief and doing your ‘grief work’ is a good idea

September 27, 2014 Jody Day 22

The number one question I get asked by other childless women is this: ‘Have you really got through your grief? Really?!’ The next one is often ‘So, how long does it take?’ And yes, I am through my grief over not having children. I am absolutely, definitely on the other side of it now and have been for about 3 years. However, what I’m discovering is that my experience of being in this new state continues to evolve and the gifts of grief keep getting delivered. For example, the ‘freedom’ that felt like a life-sentence of misery 5 years ago today […]

The voices of childlessness: ‘A Family Without A Child’

August 17, 2014 Jody Day 8

On Friday 15th August 2014, a documentary presented by the BBC presented by award-winning journalist Sangita Myska was aired on BBC Radio 4. Called A Family Without A Child it featured the candid and rarely-aired stories of four women: Sangita herself, ‘coming out’ about her and her husband’s infertility issues; myself, reliving some of the darkest moments in my journey through the heartbreak of childlessness; Jessica Hepburn on her hardcore experiences in the world of IVF and author Paula Coston on the reality of being a single, childless woman of 59 and once again experiencing loss as friends become grandparents. Although all four of […]

Growing Older Without the Milestones of Motherhood

May 14, 2014 Jody Day 4

Jody Day for the What I See Project ‘Age’ month – May 2014 I’m turning 50 this summer and I’m excited about it – it feels like another powerful threshold that I’m crossing and very different to my 40th when I was still hopeful of becoming a mother. I look a few years younger than my age – I always have done – and it’s interesting how many women suggest to me that I could ‘get away with’ saying I am younger. I find it puzzling – why would I want to pretend I was younger? I remember when I started […]

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 […]