Odds & ends

• After reading this article about a mother's grief  over the loss of not just one but BOTH of her (teenaged/young adult) sons (!), I immediately added the book she's written to my wish list.  
• Related article from The Guardian. 
•  This story -- about bereaved parents from British Columbia, who mistakenly received an itemized bill for their stillborn daughter's autopsy (!) -- but not the ashes they were expecting -- was featured on the CBC National news recently.
• The doctor interviewed points to the lack of standards when dealing with pregnancy loss across Canada. It's infuriating to realize how little has changed, certainly in the 27 years since my own loss, and it's been going on a LOT longer than that! 
• I found a "print" version of the story on CBC's website too, which includes two radio/podcast links to listen to (one that's 23 minutes long). I have not listened to that one yet. 
• While I was searching for a link for that story, I found another recent story related to pregnancy loss and Mother's Day from CBC British Columbia, and thought I'd share it with you all (even though Mother's Day was several weeks ago).  
• I found this link via Sari Botton's Substack, I think: "I Was Devastated By The Death Of My Newborn Baby. This Unexpected TV Show Helped Me Feel Alive Again." (Subhead: "I laughed — out loud — for the first time in weeks. I had forgotten that I still knew how.")  
• I felt/feel the same way about the book "Bridget Jones's Diary" by Helen Fielding. I've written about my fondness for the book many times before (here, for example). It made me laugh at a time I never thought I'd laugh again. 
• I don't remember latching on to a sitcom the same way, but during the 2+ months I was at home I watched lots of episodes of "The View" (which was still pretty new, I think) and Oprah, as well "A Wedding Story" on TLC.  I could NOT watch "A Baby Story," for obvious reasons, but the wedding stuff was something I could get enjoy. 
• In the Globe & Mail, Aviva Coopersmith asks "Who's my dad?"  and calls for the end of donor gamete anonymity. (Gift link) 
• On the Life Without Children Substack, Charlie Brown asks (in a piece that originally ran on Medium): "How Do You Grieve For Infertility When There Is Always Another Potential Route to Parenthood?"   Sample passage:  

...I feel the weighty expectation that I should try to be a parent by any means necessary, regardless of how much it costs or how stressful and traumatic the process is. I feel the expectation that my own feelings should be shelved as I relentlessly slog through parenting alternatives.

Don’t grieve, it’s not over yet!

When you’re infertile, it’s never over. There is always another round of IVF. Another donor egg to procure. Another sperm donor to use. Another vulnerable child to adopt. And of course, there’s always another payment plan to help make your dreams come true.

• And on her own Substack, On the Outside, Y.L. Wolfe turns the spotlight on the long-ignored power of single & childless women.  A couple of excerpts:  

We aren’t just a demographic that is doing some heavy lifting in society and outperforming many other demographics, but we literally have enough numbers to qualify us as a force to be reckoned with.

We have the power, we have the competence, and we have the numbers.

No wonder they are afraid of the “cat ladies” of America!

and (and this is SO true, I think!!) 

I often think that childless women must scare the shit out of mothers, the same way that childfree women scare men. Childfree women remind men (and all of society, I might add) that women have a choice in what they do with their lives, something our society desperately doesn’t want women to remember. Childless women remind mothers (and again, all of society) that we can make choices…and things still might not work out the way we planned, something our society desperately wants to deny.

Women without children are a scary demographic. And what does it mean when society is scared of a demographic? It means we have power.

And that’s why society works so goddamn hard to try to convince us we don’t.

• I'm not sure whether non-subscribers can access this? But Anne Helen Petersen (who is childfree by choice) hosts a Culture Study podcast on Substack, as well as her Substack newsletter -- and she recently did an episode on the subject of "intensive parenting trends." I have not listened to the episode yet (although I've browsed the transcript) -- but I read her intro, as well as the comments.  She said (in part): 

People often ask me why I care so much about parenting when I am not, myself, a parent. This question is always so weird to me — of course I care about parenting norms, because I’m surrounded by parents! The choices that parents make (in the voting booth, as consumers, as community members, as friends) have so many direct and indirect effects on my life and everyone’s lives. Plus I’m always interested in how people try and make sense of a ton of contradictory information and “best practices” about how to be in the world, and whew, that is contemporary parenting right now.

I commented:  

That first paragraph -- so true! Thank you for that, AHP (from another non-parent, albeit it was not a choice on my part). Just because we don't have kids doesn't mean we aren't interested. (To a point, anyway, lol.)

To which AHP responded: 

LOL LORI YES

(LOL indeed...!)  

• Finally, this is a really, really excellent article that is definitely worth a read:  "If you’re 50, childless, and people keep asking “don’t you regret it?”—here’s what psychology says."  Extremely well said!