Odds & ends

• I've been following (on social media) the progress of a friend (a fellow loss mom whom we met through our pregnancy loss support group, 25-ish years ago), who has experienced some big health issues in recent years, and recently had a major medical procedure. Her story is not really mine to tell, but suffice to say this family has had a ton of crap to deal with in the years since we met them, and sadly, her prognosis is not looking good at the moment. Please keep her and her family in your thoughts & prayers. 
• A couple of interesting new blogs/Substacks of note: 
• I never heard of Cyndie Spiegel before, but a friend flagged one of the blog posts she'd highlighted on Instagram:  "Not Exactly ‘Emily in Paris’: Child-Free and the Awkwardness of Belonging in the ‘Burbs." I consider myself childless, not childfree, but otherwise, I can definitely relate...! 
• Sample passage:  "As a social child-free couple, it feels like trying to find a way in through closed doors, each interaction a reminder that where we live is designed with a different life in mind. And not ours, one where we chose not to have kids but still want to socialize, travel, host movie nights and enjoy culture with friends and strangers alike." 
• Other posts to date are also worth reading! 
• Katie Dunn walked away from fertility treatments earlier this year. Now she's living in what she calls the Afterglow:  "...the glow, the satisfaction, the happiness and the delight that can come after. After not getting what you thought you wanted. After learning that your life path will involve ‘otherhood’, and not motherhood. After finding yourself on a path you are not really sure about. After experiencing something that turned your life upside down. I write about the success story that is IVF not working out. Because that is also a success story." 
• The above passage is from the "About" page of her Substack. There are already several essays posted, all of them worth a read. Check them out! 
• At the Life Without Children Substack, Nadia Huq pays tribute to the childless people who have had an impact on her life. A beautiful post! 
• Jody Day calls it "the friendship apocalypse:"  what happens when your friends start having babies, while you remain childless.  From The Guardian: "They were best mates. Then one had a baby, while the other struggled. Two brutally honest takes on what happens when motherhood affects friendship."  
• In her weekly Sunday roundup of links for paid subscribers, Anne Helen Petersen described this article -- "Embryos Out of Reach" in The Cut -- as a "harrowing piece by Culture Study reader Rae Hudson on what happens when your IVF clinic effectively ghosts you." (I would add "infuriating." Also, beware the ubiquitous traditional happy ending.) 
• A paywall popped up when I tried to read this, but I was able to read it when I opened the link in Pocket. 
• Also clinic-related, from the New York Times Magazine (gift link):  "An I.V.F. Mix-Up, a Shocking Discovery and an Unbearable Choice." 
• Also in the New York Times (also gift linked):  Sarah Wildman asks the uncomfortable question:  "If My Dying Daughter Could Face Her Mortality, Why Couldn’t the Rest of Us?"  
• There's a lot of interest in communal living arrangements, in the various childless communities I frequent. Anne Helen Petersen's links this week also included this story from Bon Appetit, about several such arrangements. (Note:  one of the groups featured includes an 8-month-old baby. There are photos.)  
• Also paywalled but accessible (only in part, it seems?) via Pocket:  "The crushing truth about being childless at 64," featuring Robin Hadley, providing "the elusive male perspective."  (Subhead: "As someone who had always dreamed of being a dad, there’s a unique grief that comes with unintentional childlessness.")