#MicroblogMondays: Odds & ends from a busy week

This past week or two has been one huge blur. I am floundering, trying to keep up with email and blog posts and notifications and everything else coming at me, all at once...! 

• First, being sick -- for more than a week now. :p  It started with a very sore throat, and proceeded to sneezing, a full head and loose cough (which is still hanging in there...). I am feeling better overall, but definitely not 100% yet. I have not been out of the house in more than a week. :p  I was so looking forward to getting out a bit, now that my surgeries are over and I'm recovered from those. No such luck...! 
• I took another rapid test for covid this morning -- which, like the previous two, earlier on, was negative. But I'm still obviously sick. :p  Bah humbug. :( 
• Last week, I had to switch my follow-up appointment with the surgeon who did my gallbladder removal surgery from in-office to over the phone. I was supposed to see my optometrist tomorrow as a follow-up to my eye surgery (and possibly get some new glasses), but I called this morning to let them know I'm not well, and now that's been postponed until late October. Sigh. 
• Second, it was World Childless Week. (You can find all my related posts for this year's WCW tagged "WCW 2022".)  I have waded through about three of the seven days' worth of amazing submissions on the WCW site so far, managed to catch several of the webinars live and watch a few more after the fact. All WCW content from every year since it began is archived on the WCW site. 
• Third, of course, the Queen. I was up at 5 a.m. this morning to watch the funeral, and barely budged from my chair for the next seven hours until the last royal disappeared through the gate into the castle after the service of committal at Windsor. Adding to the fun, I spent several hours live texting with my penpal of the past 45 years (!!) from New Zealand (where it was late at night), as we have done for the last several royal events (plus an Oscar ceremony or two, lol). My cousin in Manitoba -- half Scottish on his dad's side, and a retired police officer -- also texted me when he realized I was up -- he was watching too. 
• NOBODY does pomp and ceremony better than the Brits!! 
• I teared up a few times. I got the chills when the Westminster Abbey choir started singing "I am the Resurrection and the Life..."  But I didn't lose it until the long walk up to the chapel at Windsor, when the BBC announcer helpfully pointed out the Queen's pony Emma, patiently waiting near the gates for the coffin to pass by. And then the two corgis, which totally finished me off. ;) 
• Did anyone else notice the Google logo on the search page was totally black today in honour of the Queen?? 
• Every now & then over the past few days, I clicked over to YouTube to watch a few minutes of the live feed of the Queen lying in state and the people who waited hours and hours (and hours!) in "the Queue of all Queues," filing past (and also to check out the live updates on how long the queue was). Many people paused to bow/nod their heads -- but I saw others doing full from-the-waist bows and curtsies. One man dropped to one knee and crossed himself. I saw one middle-aged woman bow her head & then, with a sad smile on her face, blow a kiss at the casket. That one got me teary.  
• Fourth, dh's aunt (his mother's sister) passed away on Friday. She was 89. It was one of those deaths that was kind of a blessing, in a way -- her quality of life has not been good the last few years, especially since the pandemic began -- and we haven't been able to see her in quite some time, because of that (although dh & his brother got to see her one last time in the hospital last weekend, before she died). 
• (His mother's youngest sister lives near us. She's 77, and is the last of her siblings.) 
• Visitation is tomorrow (two hours in the afternoon and then two in the evening, with a two-hour break in between), and the funeral is Wednesday. I've been debating whether I should go, because of my cold. As I said, I've tested negative for covid, but it's still been a bad cold.... but not going at all seems unthinkable. Dh thinks we should go for the afternoon tomorrow, pay our respects and say hi to everyone, and then we'll just go home. I will certainly wear a mask -- I would even if I didn't have a cold (but I am willing to bet I'll be one of the very few people wearing one). (Most of the cousins will likely be staying for the whole six hours -- the daughters have ordered food for the family for in between the sessions, to be served in the funeral home's reception centre.)
• When dh's mother died, 40 years ago, both sides of the family rallied round dh, his younger brother and their dad -- none of whom knew anything about cooking or keeping house. This aunt had them over for dinner just about every single night (and she was an excellent cook! -- dh said that out of all his aunts, her cooking was the closest to his mom's), did their laundry and cleaned the house regularly, on top of her own. They all adored her. I did too, once I met her -- 39 years ago, in the summer of 1983. 
• I'm sure I wasn't exactly what she had in mind for a wife for dh -- I wasn't Italian! -- but she never made me feel anything less than welcomed and loved. Dh's dad asked her to help set things up in our apartment while we were on our honeymoon -- I hadn't been there since we signed the rental agreement a few months earlier, and we did NOT have much stuff!  He gave her some money and she bought sheets & a bedspread and had the bed all made up, and stocked our kitchen cupboards and refrigerator with some staples. 
• I remember her visiting for the first time after we got back, and exclaiming over how clean and neat everything was. "She's obviously not looking too hard...!"  I muttered to dh. 
• We had many meals at her house over the years, especially in the early years of our marriage -- always leaving with leftovers or baking or a jar of tomato sauce. 
• We will sure miss her. 
• On a related note: it's been quite a while since we've had to dress up for anything (pre-pandemic, certainly! -- and we certainly don't dress up very often at all since we both left work in 2013-14) -- so we pulled a few things out of our closet yesterday to try on before dh's aunt's funeral events -- to make sure they still FIT, for one thing! (lol).  
• Yes, they fit -- BUT! OMG... the DUST!!  lol  When I took my pants off the hanger, you could clearly see a line where the dust had settled! And dh's dress shirt -- one of the few he has left -- was slightly (but not too noticeably -- I hope...!) yellowed on the collar.
• Needless to say, everything went into the washing machine. I got out the ironing board and pressed it all this afternoon while watching highlights from the Queen's funeral all over again. 
• Time is zooming along. A week from Friday is our cottage weekend with BIL, SIL & dh's cousins, and then the weekend after that, we'll be heading "home" for (Canadian) Thanksgiving to see my family. And we have a LOT of things that need to get done before then...!  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

World Childless Week 2022, Day Seven: Moving Forwards

Day Seven of World Childless Week  -- the final day -- is focused on "Moving Forwards." (This has been the theme of the final day of WCW for its entire six-year existence.) 

We don’t need a big Plan B, C or D; we don’t need any plans at all. All we need is the courage to make small changes, the time to notice the positive differences and the acceptance that moving forwards can also include stopping points, roundabouts and u-turns. It doesn’t matter how we get to the final destination, or how long it takes. We just need to love ourselves at each point and celebrate each milestone. 

How have you moved forwards? 

The passage of time and looking back on certain milestones will often bring a shock of recognition of how things have changed, how far I've come and how differently I feel now than I did then. (One advantage of getting older is that fewer and fewer people ask and hint and prod you about pregnancy plans... although eventually, you start getting questions about how many grandchildren you have instead...!)

I think back to one particular incident, at Christmastime, a few years after we had thrown in the towel on infertility treatments, which showed me that perhaps I was further down the road of acceptance than I had realized.  I wrote about it here. 

Another measure of progress would be my increasing ability/willingness to enter a Baby Gap store. Once, it was a source of pain, to be avoided. I eventually did get to the point where I could go in to buy a baby shower gift (even if was often just a gift card...!). These days, I love to go there (and other children's wear stores) to shop for Little Great-Nephew -- albeit the little girls' racks still have the power to give me occasional pangs... 

There are probably other markers of progress that I've written about over the years, although I can't recall any other specific posts to share here with you right now. 

One thing I remember from our pregnancy loss support group days is that you never realized just how far you'd come down this road less travelled until someone new arrived, fresh and raw in their own grief. I still see that to some extent today when I read social media posts and responses from younger women who are new to the stunning realization that they will not have the children they assumed they would have. 

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions (new ones being added every 15 minutes throughout the day) and FIVE free, live webinars and workshops:  

• 5 a.m. ET:  "Meditation: Using Gentle Self-Care to Move You Forwards," a workshop with Bindi Shah. 
• 7 a.m. ET:  "Hello You: Online Body Connection," a workshop with Victoria Robinson. 
• 9 a.m. ET:  "Is it Possible to Move Forward?" -- a workshop with Helen Segal, focusing on creativity and the healing arts. 
• 11 a.m. ET:  "The Chanting Circle: Let Flow" with Helen Louise Jones. 
• 2 p.m. ET:  "Accepting the New Me," a webinar hosted by Stephanie Joy Phillips, with Victoria Firth, Kat Brown, Lana Brown and Lucy North. 

All webinars will be recorded and uploaded to the Day Seven page for anyone who cannot make the live events.

World Childless Week 2022, Day Six: "We Are Worthy"

The Day Six theme of World Childless Week -- as it has been for the past four years -- is "We Are Worthy."  

Someone recently said to me, “A peacock is most vulnerable when it shows its beauty.” It made me think of the beauty we all hold within us that can be diminished and feel tainted by the pronatalism surrounding us every day. We need to speak up and speak out until every childless person feels equal and confident to shine whilst showing their vulnerability. 

Today, let’s share and celebrate, why we are worthy and beautiful.

Four years ago, there was an online summit for childless people during National Infertility Awareness Week on the theme of "We Are Worthy," and I wrote about it and my thoughts on the subject of worthiness here. I can't think of any other posts I've written about worth/worthiness in particular, but I have pointed out plenty of examples of pronatalism and how the childless/free experience has been marginalized, when I've found them. I didn't know the term "pronatalism" when I first started this blog, so I started using the tag "mommy mania" -- the best I could come up with at the time. I've gradually been re-tagging them as "pronatalism." 

The "bible" on pronatalism from a childfree (by choice) perspective would be "The Baby Matrix" by Laura Carroll (which I reviewed here).  A real eye-opener, and highly recommended!  

On the flip side, I suppose, would be the posts I've written about or touching on feminism, tagged as "the f word." I was brought up thoroughly steeped in the second-wave feminist messages of the 1970s (for good and for bad);  I have always believed and often said that I am more than my uterus. Unfortunately, that's still not the message that society tends to send us or the people around us....!  

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions (new ones being added every 15 minutes throughout the day) and (count 'em!) FOUR free webinars and workshops! 

• 4 a.m Eastern Time: "Childlessness and Pets," with Judy Graham, Narelle Hudson, Anne Xavier Altamore, Rochelle Trimnell-Ritchard and Sarah Roberts, all from Australia. 
• 11 a.m. ET:  "Pronatalism May Be Getting Louder, But So Are the Childless," with Stephanie Phillips, Jessica Hepburn and Annie Kirby from England, and Hilary Fennell from Ireland.  
• 12:30 p.m. ET: "Mindful Yoga Practice," with Sarah Jane Smith from British Columbia, Canada. 
• 2 p.m. ET:  "We Are Worthy of Your Support," with six childless women from around the world. 

These will all be recorded and uploaded to the Day Six page for anyone who cannot make the live events. 

(On the subject of pets -- dh & I do not and never have had them during our married life -- although I had a puppy and a turtle when I was growing up, and we're constantly being told that we "need" to get a dog. (eyeroll)  I wrote posts in 2013 and 2017 explaining why we choose to remain petless. We do adore & dote on Older Nephew's miniature dachshund. :)  You can find all my pet-related posts here.) 

World Childless Week, Day Five: "It's All in God's Plan"

It's Day Five of World Childless Week, and today's theme tackles the thorny issue of religion. 

Comments referring to religion easily fall off the tongues of strangers, friends and family without consideration of who they are addressing or how their comments may be received. Have you been upset, shocked or angered by the ignorance and cruelty of a religious based comment and how did you deal with the conversation? 

Why do you feel remarks touching on religion are inappropriate? 

Some personal religious background:  I was brought up Anglican/Episcopal, although we attended the United Church of Canada during the five years when we lived in a town with no Anglican congregation, and I attended Catechism classes with my best friend there, who was Catholic. As an adult, my church attendance has been sporadic. We joined an Anglican congregation when we were hoping to start a family, because we agreed that our children should learn something about God and faith and the Bible -- if only because the Bible is the basis for so much of our literature and other cultural touchstones. You miss out on an awful lot if you don't know your Bible stories and verses...!  

The parish we attended was lovely and supportive in the aftermath of our daughter's stillbirth -- we held a small family funeral service there -- but as time went on, and the women in the pews who had been pregnant at the same time as me returned with their babies to baptize -- and then a second, and a third -- it got harder and harder to remain. At the same time, encouraged by the then-minister, the congregation began taking on a more American-style fundamentalist/evangelical flavour, which made both of us increasingly uncomfortable, and we gradually drifted away and stopped going. We have yet to attend a service locally since we moved here six years ago. 

These days, I'm mostly ambivalent about church attendance, and religion generally. I believe Jesus (who, by the way, had no children...!) had the right ideas about how people should treat each other, and think it's sad that so many churches and so-called Christians have strayed so far from those core messages. I take some comfort in the ritual and liturgy and hymns of my youth (some of which I can still sing by heart) -- but I do not believe it's necessary to attend church regularly to be a good Christian, or a good human being. I don't believe any one religion or denomination (and certainly no one person) has all the answers. 

The pronatalism inherent in so many religions and denominations is an obvious and painful problem for many childless/free people.  "Be fruitful and multiply," we are told. The stories of Sarah and Hannah and Elizabeth are hammered into our heads -- barren women whose faith was ultimately rewarded with a child. 

I don't know why some people get babies they don't want and others desperately want babies they never get. I don't know why my daughter didn't get to stay with me. I don't know why I was never able to have another child. "God needed an angel," some would tell me. "It's all in God's plan." (Like that's supposed to make me feel better??) "She's in a better place." (Better than being with me & her dad??)  "Everything happens for a reason... we'll find out, someday." 

Well, vague promises of "someday" aren't good enough for me. What reason could possibly be good enough to justify taking my child from me??  The God I believe in (to the extent that I believe in God) would never deliberately do that, to me or any other parent. 

As I've often said: if there is a God and a heaven, and I get there someday, He & I are going to have a very lonnnnnnggggggg talk....!   

After our daughter was stillborn, someone recommended the book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" to me -- by Harold Kushner, a Jewish rabbi who lost his son. It's been a long time since I read it, but I do remember I found it tremendously comforting. 

Most of my posts on this subject have been tagged "religion/faith" -- although you might find a couple under "WTF?" and "people are idiots," lol. 

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions (new ones being added every 15 minutes throughout the day) and a free, live webinar at 2 p.m. Eastern Time hosted by Stephanie Phillips and featuring four childless women with diverse religious backgrounds. This webinar will be recorded and uploaded to the Day Five page for anyone who cannot make the live event. 

World Childless Week 2022, Day Four: Childlessness in the Workplace

Day Four of World Childless Week is focused on the topic of "Childlessness in the Workplace."  

Have you been bombarded with mum talk during a Zoom chat, swamped with pregnancy announcements in emails, trapped in a maternity leave office party, expected to work late, denied flexi-time, fallen to the bottom of the list for holidays or just felt embarrassed to approach your line manager or personnel department because you are childless? Perhaps you’ve spoken out and instigated changes or helped to create inclusive policies? Have you run to the loo for sanity and to shed a few tears or decided enough is enough and spoken out for change? 

Let’s talk about the problems we face and what we can do to create positive changes in the workplace. 

I'm retired now -- downsized out of my job, eight years ago at the age of 53 -- but before that, I worked in communications for the same large Canadian bank for 28 years. Most of my work-related posts on this blog are tagged "work/office." I didn't have time to go through all of them in anticipation of this topic, but there are a couple of posts and anecdotes that I remembered and wanted to share with you here. 

I never thought much about it at the time but later realized that, for more than 15 years, my closest co-workers were a core group of older women, most of whom did not have children. I knew that several of them had thought they'd be mothers someday, but it didn't happen for them, for various reasons. They rallied around me and supported me when my only baby was stillborn in 1998. 

And I needed their support: in the first year or so alone after my loss, I had to endure TEN office pregnancy announcements/maternity leaves -- and there were many more to come in the years after that. Over time, those supportive close co-workers all left or retired, and I was left to find my way among new (and increasingly younger) colleagues, most of whom hadn't been around at the time of my loss and knew nothing about it, and who were getting married and starting to have kids of their own. I was fortunate that I never once had to work over Christmas and was able to go west to be with my family over the holidays -- but I still endured umpteen baby showers and office visits, mat leaves (and the additional work they entailed for the rest of us, even when the position was covered), excited chatter about ultrasounds and bragging about grandchildren. Sometimes it was harder/easier than others (and I've written here about some of those times). Whenever it got to be a bit too much, I would quietly slip  out the back door near my cubicle for a tea break or early lunch and/or go browse the magazine stand in the concourse downstairs for half an hour (even if I'd just been for a tea a while earlier). 

Canada's Employment Equity Act came into effect in 1986, just as I joined the company, and it was one of the first things I remember writing about for the staff magazine. "Employment equity" gave way to "diversity" to "diversity and inclusion," and I wrote extensively about these issues over the next 28 years.  There was lots about the four groups designated under the Employment Equity Act (which the bank, as a federally regulated institution, had to track and provide progress reports about) -- women, visible minorities, natives and people with disabilities (some of the terminology may have been updated since I left work!).

In later years, employee resource groups (ERGs) were formed for women, natives/aboriginals, people with disabilities, employees from the Caribbean and Asia, Spanish-speaking employees, LGBTQ+ employees, GenNext (younger employees). These groups were formed for the purposes of networking, education and to advise the company on policy issues. I heard lots and lots about the challenges of working parents and how to accommodate them, but nowhere did I ever hear anything mentioned about employees without children and how to better accommodate their particular issues and interests. Jody Day of Gateway Women has called it "the biggest diversity issue HR has never heard of." 

By the mid-1990s, "flexibility" was the watchword -- flexible benefits and flexible working arrangements (such as working from home/remotely, compressed work weeks, flexible hours and job sharing). Early on in this blog, I wrote a post about work that mentioned an interview I did -- with a childless/free person -- for a story in our staff magazine when the bank first adopted flexible working arrangements. This was some years before I realized I was going to wind up without kids myself. and I've often thought about her and what she had to say in the years since then.  

In 2011, toward the end of my career, I attended a workshop on diversity and inclusion that had a huge impact on my understanding of these issues and how they connected to infertility, loss and childlessness. Here's an excerpt, and here's a link to the whole thing, if you'd like to read it: 

Part of the presentation was to open us up to the idea that diversity is more than just the four groups designated under Canada's Employment Equity Act -- women, Aboriginals, persons with disabilities and visible minorities -- that diversity encompasses all sorts of things about us. Our religion, political views, education, age, education, socio-economic background -- and lots of other, more subtle things about us, too. 

The part of the presentation that really hit home for me (& got me taking notes) was the idea of privilege, of insiders and outsiders....  Life is easy when you're an insider, isn't it? 

...As you can imagine, throughout the presentation, I was thinking about my own particular frames of reference -- bereavement, infertility, childlessness -- and the challenges they present to the majority worldview. About how so much of the world is built with families in mind -- not childless couples (or single people, for that matter). How so many people just assume that they WILL get married, get pregnant within a reasonable timeframe, bring home a live, healthy baby nine months later (and then perhaps another one or two after that)? 

Until they don't. 

And how, when the way we try to build our families falls outside the "norm" -- dead children who are nevertheless talked about openly and treated like the important family members they are -- adoption, IVF, donor eggs, surrogates -- families of two (without children), families with two dads or two moms -- then people who have never had to think about building their own family in any way except the "norm" somehow feel threatened. Their assumptions about their cozy, easy, privileged world have been challenged. They find it difficult to relate to us in the same way they did when they assumed that we were just like them. 

I wonder how many fertile people would think of themselves as privileged or an "insider" because of their fertility? 

And how many of us who have had difficulty achieving what most consider to be a "normal" family structure perpetually feel like left-handers in a right-handed world?

Thankfully, things are beginning to change (even if I'm not going to benefit). The pandemic, while exacerbating the parent/childless divide in the workplace, also seemed to bring about a new awareness in some quarters that non-parents have separate and legitimate interests that need attention too. The Brits, as usual, seem to be leading the way on this front. The University of Bristol, for example, has an entire section on its website dealing with childlessness as a diversity & inclusion issue, and how childless/free colleagues can be supported. Within the Lighthouse Women private community (formerly part of Gateway Women), there's a sub-group for Workplace Changemakers involved in creating systemic change around childlessness in the workplace.

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions (new ones being added every 15 minutes throughout the day) and three free, live webinars: 

• The first, at 4 a.m. Eastern Time (!), looks at being childless in the workplace "Down Under," with Penny Rabarts and Liz Campbell in Australia. 
• At 7 a.m. ET, explore "Navigating Networking" with Berenice Smith, Karin Enfield de Vries and Sarah Lawrence. 
• And at 2 p.m. ET, a conversation about how to advocate for our community in the workplace: "Employers and Policies: How to Bring Childlessness into the Conversation," with Christine Erickson, Julia Forminova, Vita Stige-Skuskovnika and Dr. Fiona McRonald. 

These sessions will be recorded and uploaded to the Day Four page for anyone who cannot make the live event. 

World Childless Week 2022, Day Three: A Letter to My Younger Self

Day Three of World Childless Week is about "A Letter to My Younger Self."  

Do you wish you could send your younger self the strength, confidence and love to face the future you’ve already lived? Let them know they are worthy and perfect just as they are, no matter what decisions they make and what life throws at them? Write that letter and share with them everything you can to help them realise how important they are, how much they matter and what positives they bring to the world and those around them. 

A letter to release the negatives and forgive the self imposed judgements. 

Writing letters -- to our younger selves, to our unborn children -- just writing, period (and certainly blogging!), has been proven to be highly therapeutic in all sorts of situations, and I'm a firm believer in its value. I don't believe I have written such a letter to myself in the past -- but I do sometimes look back on the girl and young woman that I was and think about how she had NO IDEA about the challenges that would face her -- the "for worse" part of the marriage vows that nobody ever thinks they'll have to deal with, or just how "worse" things can and sometimes do get. 

What would I tell her now, at age 61?  I think most of all, I would tell her not to be so hard on herself. And that while the life she'll wind up with won't be anything like the life she thought she'd be leading, all those years ago -- and while she's going to have to go through a lot of crap by the time she's my age -- it's still a pretty damn good life, on balance.  :)  

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions and a couple of free, live Zoom webinars on this subject. 

• At 12 noon (Eastern Time), Bindi Shah is hosting a workshop on "Write to heal -- a letter to your younger self."
• And at 3 p.m. (ET), Jody Day of Gateway Women is hosting one of her regular quarterly fireside chats with a group of childless elderwomen who will be reflecting on this topic. 

These sessions will be recorded and uploaded to the Day Three page for anyone who cannot make the live event.  

World Childless Week 2022, Day Two: Childless and Single

 Day Two of World Childless Week 2022 is all about being "Childless and Single." From the website description: 

You may have met someone who promised you everything and changed their mind, leaving you walking away from the relationship. Perhaps you held onto the dreams of meeting your perfect partner and they never appeared. Maybe you met your match and circumstances mean they are no longer in your life? 

How has being single as well as being childless affected you? 

I was fortunate enough (and I know I'm fortunate) to meet my dh when we were university students. We've been together almost 41 years (!) and married for 37.  But I know not all women find a good partner, period, let alone find one who wants to have children, in time to start a family. 

Since this is a topic that lies outside of my lived experience, I don't have much content on this blog that I can easily point to (although I have posted links to relevant books & articles in the past). I do know that Jody Day of Gateway Women has championed this segment of the CNBC community, and you can search the GW website for related content and resources. The Gateway Women private community founded by Jody, now known as Lighthouse Women, has a thriving sub-group for singles. 

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions and two free, live webinars related to this subject. Both will be recorded and later uploaded to the Day Two page for anyone who cannot make the live event: 

• The first, at 4 a.m. Eastern Time (!), is on "The disenfranchised grief no one is talking about" (i.e., being single and childless), with Penny Rabarts of Australia, Bibi Lynch in England, and Naomi Geidel in Thailand. 
• And at 2 p.m. Eastern Time, Kate Kaufmann, Sarah Bradley, Juli Angelis and Yael Wolfe will be chatting about "Boosting our confidence as childless singles." 

World Childless Week 2022, Day One: Our Stories

The sixth annual World Childless Week is here!  -- an entire week filled with inspiring and comforting things to read, watch, listen to and participate in, focused on a different topic/theme each day (and new material posted daily too). If you miss some of the live webinars, don't worry;  they are posted on the WCW website later in the day/week to be enjoyed and consulted indefinitely. (The past five years of amazing WCW content is also available onsite -- what a great resource!) 

As usual, I didn't manage to get my act together to write something new -- but I'm always happy to promote WCW -- and last year, it occurred to me that I've covered many of the topics in my blog over the almost (gulp) 15 years I've been writing here. So each day, I'll post about the day's topic here, with some links to some of my own writing on the subject (if I have written about it). (Some of the content I wrote last year for WCW may be repurposed for this year's posts.) 

Enjoy! :) 

*** *** *** 

Day One is focused on the theme "Our Stories" (as it was in the three previous years too).  

Whilst we all share the same grief of childlessness, we each have a different story to tell of how we arrived here: the struggles to conceive, the sadness of not meeting a partner, the tough choices that broke our hearts, the circumstances that prevented and blocked our chance to be a parent. The confusion of emotions that left us grieving, the feelings of being misunderstood that made us withdraw from the world. 

This is your opportunity to share your story. 

I'm a firm believer in the power of telling our stories (if only to each other, at least at first). Meetings of the pregnancy loss support group that dh & I used to facilitate would always begin by going around the room and having each person introduce themselves and tell us their story, what brought them to us. Sometimes (especially at first), the stories would be long, detailed and filled with tears. Over time, new details would emerge that we hadn't heard before. And we'd learn to develop a shortened "Reader's Digest" version of our story, which left more time for the longer stories (plus, over time, the "regulars" would all get to know each other and each others' stories pretty well, so it wasn't quite as necessary or important to go through all the details for the umpteenth time). 

Telling and retelling our stories to each other like this, week after week, in a supportive environment among others who had similar stories to tell, was good practice for handling those inevitable innocent questions and awkward encounters that all of us experience, sooner or later. In training sessions, we also learned that telling our stories, or some version of them -- over and over and over again -- helps us to process what happened. 

I think the same principles apply to our stories about our childlessness.  Our stories matter, because they're OURS, and because by telling them, we light the way for other childless women looking for support and comfort.  Our stories remind each other that we are not alone.  

This entire blog, of course, is my story :) (or at least parts of/a version of it) and it has evolved, along with my story, over the past 15 years.  A barebones, thumbnail version of my story can be found in the "About me" Blogger profile near the top of this page on the right-hand side (or in the link here). You can find a slightly longer version in the "About me" page (found just under the title/header of this blog). The "Timeline" page (link right beside the "About me" link) also gives you an idea of how my story unfolded and some of the significant dates & events. 

If you're really interested in all the gory details (and be forewarned, some of them ARE a bit gory, emotionally if not physically), I wrote a series of posts tagged "1998 memories" in which I relived my one doomed pregnancy, 10 years after the fact. I did the same thing with "The Treatment Diaries," all about our foray into infertility treatments, 10 years after we abandoned them and resigned ourselves to permanent childlessness. 

I also wrote a few posts shortly after I started this blog, where I told a condensed version of my story (up to that time): 

• Blogtivism: My Story (& how mandated coverage could have helped) (November 2007)
• How we made "the decision" (November 2007)

If you have some difficulty telling your story to others (and I know I have!) -- especially to parents who might not understand/appreciate the subtleties of involuntary childlessness -- take comfort in the words of Brene Brown -- who emphasizes the importance of telling our stories -- but also this:  

Our stories are not meant for everyone. Hearing them is a privilege, and we should always ask ourselves this before we share: "Who has earned the right to hear my story?" If we have one or two people in our lives who can sit with us and hold space for our shame stories, and love us for our strengths and struggles, we are incredibly lucky. If we have a friend, or small group of friends, or family who embraces our imperfections, vulnerabilities, and power, and fills us with a sense of belonging, we are incredibly lucky.

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions and a webinar that ran live earlier today: "Therapy as a Therapist," hosted by Stephanie Phillips, with Cristina Archetti, Katie Maynard, Jody Day and Meriel Whale. It was recorded and will be soon uploaded to the Day One page for anyone who missed it. 

#MicroblogMondays: Missing Grandma

Since the Queen died last Thursday afternoon, the TV in our house has been tuned to almost wall-to-wall coverage, flipping around between CBC, CNN and BBC World.  (Dh just rolls his eyes, lol. I did relinquish the remote long enough to let him watch his Pittsburgh Steelers game yesterday afternoon, lol.)  Saturday, I watched footage of Princes Edward and Andrew, Princess Anne, and some of their spouses and children, walking from a nearby church service back to the castle at Balmoral, and stopping to admire the cards and bouquets left by the public at the gates of the estate. 

Several of the Queen's granddaughters were wiping away tears -- something that would have seemed unthinkable for a member of the Royal Family to do, 70 years ago. Princess Eugenie, in particular, seemed very emotional, and her father, Prince Andrew, put his arm around her and gave her a little side-hug to comfort her, patting her on the back.  

I was instantly reminded of when my own beloved grandmother died in 1999, at age 85 (when I was 38), almost a year to the day after my grandfather died at age 86 (which, in turn, was less than two months after I lost my baby, and just three days after I'd returned to work). As I said in an earlier post about the Queen's death, it "felt kind of like when my grandparents died... It was a day that I knew was coming, sooner versus later -- but hoped never would." I felt so lucky to have had my grandparents in my life for so long -- but so, so sad to have to let them go. :(  Almost 25 years later, I still miss them every single day. 

I abandoned work and flew out the next day to be with my family. We had a viewing/visitation at the tiny funeral home in the small town in Minnesota where Grandma had lived her entire life. 

I stood by the open casket and stared at what was left of my grandmother. She had lost a tremendous amount of weight during her final illness since I'd last seen her, a few months earlier -- so much so that the undertaker couldn't fit her dentures in her mouth, which changed the shape of her face. Thankfully, he'd put her glasses on her face, or I might not have recognized her at all. I stood there frozen, sobbing and sobbing, while relatives and friends milled around, talking among themselves. 

Then my cousin -- I only have two on that side of my family -- came over and put his arm around me and gave me a squeeze. He pointed to the large photo on the easel beside the casket, a wonderful shot of both of my grandparents, laughing together. "That's how I like to remember them," he whispered to me. My cousin has always been a sweetheart of a guy, and I will never forget that gesture of kindness and solidarity and support. And my mind went back to that moment when I saw Prince Andrew doing the same thing for his youngest daughter -- who is a royal princess, but (like me), also just a young woman coming to terms with the death of her beloved grandmother.

Andrew is about a year older than me, and (while I know it's hard to believe now...!) was something of a teen idol when I was growing up -- especially among me & my peers when he came to Canada in the late 1970s to spend a year at Lakefield College, a private boys' school near Peterborough, Ontario, and also when he accompanied his parents to the Commonwealth Games in Edmonton in 1978. (As the royal car departed the stadium, I remember yelling at the TV, "Andrew!  Come back!!"  lol)  

(My best friend sent him a letter asking if he wanted to be penpals (!) -- and actually got a polite reply from a lady-in-waiting at Buckingham Palace, thanking her for her letter, but telling her that Prince Andrew was not allowed to correspond with people he did not know personally. I think she framed it.)  

Unfortunately, his reputation has gone a looooonnngg way downhill in the years since then (and deservedly so).

But I will give him credit for that loving gesture of fatherly support. ;)  

(It's World Childless Week 2022!  I will be posting more about that later.) 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

More odds & ends

• Mel at Stirrup Queens just marked her 16th (!!) blogoversary!  Go congratulate her on this amazing milestone!  
• Bloglovin' was back up on Wednesday! -- but then out again before the end of the day (grrrrr....). Back up this (Thursday) morning.  (Fingers crossed & knocking wood...!) It's been more or less down (particularly on my laptop) since June 11th -- almost two full weeks.  :p   
• The second Childless Collective Summit is back next month (July 14-17) with four jam-packed days of FREE programming with 40 amazing speakers from our community! Once again, it's being organized by Katy of Chasing Creation. Details & registration here. If you don't think you'll be able to attend all the events live (and/or if you want to help support the event and more events like it), you may want to investigate a Pace Yourself Pass, which comes with some additional perqs. (I got one last year and it came in very handy!) 
• My post about last year's summit. 
• World Childless Week 2022 is also coming up, Sept. 12 to 18! Topics are being announced this week (a new one every day), and submissions are now being accepted. The deadline is Aug. 28th.  
• I couldn't have agreed more with this piece I saw on Medium this past week:  "I Don’t Think You Understand How Creepy It Is When You Ask Little Girls If They Have Boyfriends." I HATED it when people (mostly men) did this to me when I was growing up (and I had one uncle in particular who ALWAYS asked whenever he saw me). 
• What I hated most, of course, was the reminder (especially once I got to be an age where my peers were starting to have boyfriends) that I didn't have one -- never really did, all through high school -- which reinforced my own feelings of self-loathing, insecurity and undesirability.  :(  
• I also resented the message that my good grades and other accomplishments and interests were nowhere near as interesting to people as the subject of whether I had a boyfriend -- because THAT's what REALLY matters, right?? (Hmmm, why is this starting to sound familiar??) 
• Someone in the comments pointed out that women shouldn't be asked this question at ANY age. Very true! If I have a boyfriend (and want to talk about him), you'll hear about him sooner or later, right? 
• The same goes for the "so, do you have kids?" questions (and the ever-popular follow-up, "why not??") we know and love (NOT) so well!   
• I've been watching (most of) the January 6th hearings in the U.S. on TV.  The hearing on Monday that focused on how election officials and workers were targeted and harassed was particularly personal for me: my grandmother worked at many elections in my mother's hometown in Minnesota. The thought of her enduring even a fraction of what some of these people went through makes me furious. Not for the first time, I am glad she and my grandfather are not around to see this. :(   

Weekend odds & ends

• After a four-day outage, two weekends ago (Saturday, Sunday, Monday & Tuesday,  April 9-12), Bloglovin was back in business over Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday (April 13-16)... but went AWOL (again!!) between last Sunday and Wednesday (i.e., four full days, April 17-20). :p   This time, the message read "We'll be back shortly. Our servers are over capacity and certain pages may be temporarily unavailable. We're incredibly sorry for the inconvenience." (Not the first time that's come up, either.) Service resumed on Thursday morning (and -- knocking wood! -- so far, so good...), but needless to say, I am not impressed... 
• Today marks the start of National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW), as well as Canadian Infertility Awareness Week. I have to admit, I don't give NIAW much thought these days (if I ever did). While infertility is and always will be very much part of my story, and while my heart goes out to those currently struggling with infertility and going through treatment, it's mostly part of my past now -- certainly not my present or my future. As a 61-year-old post-menopausal woman whose one naturally conceived pregnancy ended in stillbirth and whose last infertility treatment was almost 21 years ago -- one of approximately 70% of women for whom infertility treatments are not/were not successful -- I'm obviously no longer part of the target audience. 
• I'm also lukewarm on the fact that the event is heavily sponsored by the profit-driven fertility industry -- pharmaceutical companies, fertility clinics, etc. -- who, despite their marketing pitches, don't always have their patients' best interests at heart. 
• Some of my previous NIAW-related posts here. 
• In social media posts about NIAW, Stephanie Phillips of World Childless Week said, "It was very clear that it was focused on helping people achieve parenthood and there was no mention of support for anyone who remained childless not by choice, like me.  The feeling of being excluded and overlooked was the initial spark that several years later led to me creating World Childless Week."  
• World Childless Week this year will be Sept. 12th through 18th. :) (Past WCW-related posts here.) 
• I was horrified to read, in an article from FactCheck.org, that opponents of a California bill that would do away with mandatory investigations of stillbirths are claiming that it would “legalize infanticide.” (!!)  (The article says "The bill would prevent prosecution in cases of “perinatal death due to a pregnancy-related cause.” But authorities would investigate if there were evidence of foul play leading to an infant’s death.)  I Googled some stats and learned that about 2,400 babies are stillborn in California every year. Do these idiots have any idea how hurtful this must be to those already-suffering parents?? 
• Just now seeing this New York Times Well article from a few weeks ago about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Among the examples cited are women who have had stillbirths and ectopic pregnancies. 
• Back in 2014, I wrote a post that (in part) expressed my annoyance at the phrase "I can't imagine..." when someone was confronted by my grief: 

"I could never imagine" is one of those phrases that people reach for when they don't now what else to say. It's a crutch. It's one of my pet peeves as a bereaved mother. I'll admit, I've probably used those words myself in the past. But, having heard them far too often for my liking over the past 16 years, I bite my tongue more often these days & search for something more meaningful and less clichéd to say. 

Because when you say "I can't imagine" (even if you really can't), what I'm hearing is "I don't WANT to imagine. Not going there. Nope. Sorry, kid, you're on your own in this scary, scary place you've found yourself in."

So you can imagine (ha!) that I was very happy to find this article in TIME by Rebecca Soffer, founder of Modern Loss: "Don't Say You 'Can't Imagine' the Grief of Those Who Have Lost Loved Ones. Ask Them to Tell You Their Stories," is the (lengthy, but bang-on) headline. Sample passage: 

“I can’t imagine.” Families and individuals who have lost children, siblings, partners, and friends hear it all the time, this confession of an inability to imagine the worst, the unspeakable, the most feared event. I understand why people offer the phrase—as an earnest gesture of solace or a filler in lieu of anything else—but it rarely brings comfort. More often, the recipients are left feeling even more isolated at a time when grief has already banished them to a cold, dark place.

The truth is, it’s not that we can’t imagine the experience. It’s that we don’t want to. In saying that the deep loss someone is feeling is too unbearable to picture, what we’re really doing is drawing a line: not mine, not ours, only yours. Perhaps we think we might prevent this pain, this chaos, this fear and uncertainty, from reaching our own lives. But if this global pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that grief doesn’t work that way. Grief belongs or will belong to everybody, if not today then someday.

Worth reading! -- the rest of the article is here.