#MicroblogMondays: An emotional weekend

This was an emotional weekend. (Perhaps appropriately? the weather was grey & gloomy, which added to the mood.)  

Saturday afternoon, I attended a Zoom memorial for fellow childless blogger Bamberlamb, who died on Valentine's Day and whose funeral was on St. Patrick's Day. It was a private event hosted by the Childless Collective community, where Bamberlamb & I co-host(ed) the Childless After Babyloss sub-group. As my contribution to the program, I spoke a little about how I got to know her as a blogger first, and then read a poem that came to mind, when I learned that her husband had asked people to wear purple to her funeral -- her favourite colour. It was a sad event, but also comforting, with laughs as well as tears. I think she would have liked it.  :)   

Later that afternoon, I watched the taped gala from the recent World Figure Skating Championships on CBC. The competition was held in Boston, a city that lost a number of promising young skaters in the Washington, D.C. plane crash on Jan. 29th, and several of the gala skaters dedicated their performances to them.  A highlight was an emotional performance by Maxim Naumov (who was not among the competitors, but was invited to perform), who lost both his parents, Evgenia Shishkova & Vadim Naumov, in the crash.  (They were also his coaches.  They skated for the USSR/Russia, won the world pairs championships in 1994, and later moved to the U.S. and coached at the Boston club.)  He got a long and well-deserved standing ovation.

And then yesterday, dh & I drove about an hour east and south of here to attend a celebration of life for a friend who died on St. Patrick's Day after a long illness -- the same day Bamberlamb's funeral was being held in the UK. (I wrote about that confluence of events at the time, here.)  We got to know M. & her husband 22 years ago (gulp) when they came to our pregnancy loss support group after the loss of their baby son. We hadn't seen them -- or anyone from our old group -- in 10-15 years, but the bonds you form in groups like that are pretty strong, and we've stayed in touch on social media. (Already, I'm seeing comments she'd made on old posts of mine in my Facebook Memories.)  

There was no service or program -- just a social time together, with lots of food and displays of photos and M.'s beautiful craft work -- including a lovely plaque, memorializing the baby son they lost, 22 years ago.  And, on a table at the back, surrounded by a wreath of flowers, the urn containing her ashes. I patted the top of it with tears in my eyes and said, "Ya done good, M.  I hope you're finally getting some rest."  She was just 52. :(  

There were a LOT of people there, but we got there early, and her husband greeted us with big hugs. Obviously, he and his (other) kids were busy greeting people -- there was a near-continuous lineup at the door -- but another couple we'd known through the group arrived about a half-hour later, and we spent the next hour chatting and catching up. We commented (and I said to M's husband too) that it was a shame that it took a funeral to bring us all together again. And as we were leaving, we agreed that we should not wait for the NEXT funeral for another visit!  

In the car heading home, dh said, "I'm so glad we went."  Me too. 

Life is short -- way too short for some. :(  Treasure the people you love. Make the effort. You won't regret it. 

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

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.") 

Not a #Microblog ;) : Odds & ends on Monday

• No #MicroblogMondays this week, per Mel. If there was, I think this post, or one of the points in it, would be it!  
• Watching the progress of Hurricane Milton towards Florida. One of dh's cousins has a vacation home there. -- Well, actually, a couple of cousins do, but this particular cousin is the one who has generously hosted us at his cottage every fall for the past few years. 
• In fact, they have been telling us ("us" includes BIL & SIL) that we need to go to Florida with them sometime -- and when we were at the cottage with them a few weeks ago, the wife found a great deal on flights for a week in early/mid-December. BIL & SIL jumped at the invitation.  Dh & I regretfully declined, primarily because it's awfully close to when we'll be heading west to see my elderly parents for Christmas. I know sooooo many people who have gotten sick recently (with covid, or otherwise) after travelling, and I just don't want to take the risk then.
• You can guess where this story is going. Their house is in the Tampa Bay area, a few blocks from the beach. They lost their lanai (enclosed porch/sunroom) during a previous hurricane a couple of years ago.  When I checked in with the cousin's wife last week (via text), she told me they'd had an estimated 5 to 7 feet of storm surge hit the house during Hurricane Helene, a week-plus ago. (Gulp.) (They hadn't been there yet to inspect the damage, but they have a property manager who gave them the news.)  The house was still structurally sound, but requires a total renovation, and all the furniture and other stuff they kept there has to be replaced. She was still optimistic they could go in December as planned (!)... but that was before Milton came along...!  
• Thinking of everyone in the storm's path.  Stay safe!  
• As someone who loves to read books (albeit I will admit I don't read as many of them as I did in my younger/pre-tech days), this (gift linked) article from the Atlantic gave me the heebie-jeebies...!  
• "Psst. Don't tell anyone, but we might get a female president."  (Gift link.) I'm three years older than Kamala Harris, and I found myself nodding as I read this part (something I'm not sure young women today fully appreciate):  

Sometimes I think, after 248 years of the United States and 45 men as president, what’s taking so long? And then I remember, it’s been essentially 12 minutes since women could take out our own damn credit cards.

The fact that we’re this close — and with a woman of color, no less, and all the extra sucking mud that involves — is miraculous.

When Harris was born, 60 years ago this month, women could not serve on a jury in all 50 states. They had to have a male relative sign a business loan. They had no legal recourse against sexual harassment or marital rape. There was no no-fault divorce. They could get the pill, but only if they were married. They could not get a legal abortion unless their lives were in danger, and they could be fired for getting pregnant. They could not be admitted to Harvard College or the U.S. Military Academy or join their local Rotary, Kiwanis or Lions Club. Among the Fortune 500 companies, there was not a single female CEO.

To get to the point where she might become the first female U.S. president, Harris first had to become the first female district attorney of San Francisco, the first female attorney general of California and the first female vice president of the United States.

• Tangentially related to the usual fare on this blog, I loved this article in the Toronto Star about growing efforts to identify and memorialize the people buried in unmarked, sometimes mass graves, so-called "Potter's Fields." (Sorry, no gift links available, but if you hit a paywall, I find that saving the article and then opening it in Pocket sometimes helps.) 
• Tangentially related to the above point:  often, especially in years gone by, unmarked/mass graves became the resting place of stillborn infants. The Children's Garden at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto memorializes these babies, the result of one bereaved mother's efforts to find out where her infant son was buried, 30 years earlier.  The pregnancy loss support group dh & I belonged to used to hold an annual "Walk to Remember" and dove release at the Children's Garden site during October/Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month, and Mary Smith, the mother who created the garden, almost always attended.  
• Here's an article that includes the story of Mary Smith and the Children's Garden. 
• And here's a 2008 blog post I wrote about the Walk to Remember and the Children's Garden. 
• (If it's not obvious, the memorial I mention at the end, "erected by the drummer of a very well-known, Toronto-based Canadian classic rock band, in memory of his 19-year-old daughter," refers to Neil Peart of Rush. And now, of course, he's gone too. :(  There is space on the monument for him;  I haven't been back there in years so I have no idea whether it's been updated or where if he is buried/his ashes are interred there -- if, of course, he's actually buried anywhere at all.)  
• Carolyn Hax, advice columnist in the Washington Post, recently published this doozy: "Husband has been lying for entire marriage about wanting kids." (Gift link.) I know this is not an entirely uncommon scenario (albeit it usually comes up before you've been married 8 years and together a lot longer than that). 
• Not too much later from Carolyn:  "Name they chose for baby they lost was just given to newborn niece."  (I personally know a few people this has happened to...!)  
• Ryan Rose Weaver interviewed Rebecca Little and Colleen Long, authors of the new book "I'm Sorry for My Loss," in her Substack, now called "In Tending."  
• "Both loss parents themselves... [they] had set out to write the definitive book on how pregnancy loss is viewed and experienced in America – and in their words, “Why we are so bad at it.” "
• The book includes 100 stories about perinatal grief -- including their own, and including Weaver's.   
• I wrote about this book when I first heard about it, here, and hope to read it very soon! -- seems very appropriate for Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month!
• "Voters without kids are in the political spotlight – but they’re not all the same." The authors spoke at the Zoom call organized by the Alliance for Child-Free Voters in early September, which I wrote about here. 

It’s too soon to know whether child-free people can be thought of as a distinct voting bloc. But...  Given their size, growth, organization and liberal leanings, it may be time for American politicians to think more carefully about how child-free people fit in.

#MicroblogMondays: Online friends are real friends :)

Katy at Childless Collective wrote a blog post for the World Childless Week website recently titled "Online Friends are Real Friends." 

Amen!  My online friends are just as "real" to me as the people I know "in real life," and in many cases, they have been there for me over the past 26 years in a way that my "real life" family and friends have often not. I was lucky enough to find a "real life" local support group shortly after we lost Katie in 1998 (and wound  up staying 10 years as facilitators), but that group only met twice a month at most. Especially in those early days of bewildered grief, I craved something more.  And I found it, online.  (Even in those pre-blogging, pre-social media, pre-Zoom days!)  

I've written in the past about some of these friends -- the women (and a very few men) on a pregnancy loss email list I joined a few weeks after Katie's stillbirth;  the friends I made on the iVillage Childless Living message board in the early 2000s, several of whom I'm still in touch with regularly today.  And, since 2007 (17 years!!) bloggers.  I've been lucky enough to meet a few of these online friends face to face over the years too.  

Add one more to the count. :)  

A couple of Sunday nights ago, Mel -- the Stirrup Queen herself  -- messaged me:  "So totally random question - are you around this upcoming week because we just decided to come to Toronto."  

Me:  "Are you serious??!!  I would LOVE to meet up!!!!" 

If you're reading this post, you no doubt know Mel too, and all she's done for the blogging community over the past 18 years.  Blogging is, admittedly, not the force it once was (although I think it's just taken on a new form lately, i.e., Substack) -- but there was a time, pre-social media, when there was a flourishing community of adoption, loss and infertility bloggers -- and Mel was at the centre of it all, with her gargantuan blogroll and other regular community-building features and projects -- like this #MicroblogMondays, the Friday Roundup (which recently marked 1000 Friday posts!), the Lushary (which was always a favourite of mine, lol), the Barren Bitches Book Tour, the annual Creme de la Creme list of our favourite blog posts from the year, and so much more.  

Mel responded to some of my early tentative comments on her blog -- and encouraged me to start my own, back in (gulp) October 2007 -- almost 17 YEARS AGO.  To get to finally meet her -- AND her family, after hearing/reading about them all for so many years (from the twins' first day of kindergarten (!) to their departure for college!) -- was a surreal experience.  

(The hugs, however, were very real.  :)  )   

Several days and even more emails back & forth later, deluging Mel with suggestions for places they might want to visit during their stay (lol), I trekked downtown via subway to the Toronto Eaton Centre for the first time since before the pandemic, and we had dinner together on the patio of one of the restaurants there. (I had warned Mel about all the construction, roadwork and repairs going on in the city -- never dreaming that would include SANDBLASTING the walls of the old church across from the restaurant where we were eating!!  What a racket!  Thankfully, they did stop work for the evening, after we'd been sitting there about 45 minutes...!)  And after dinner, we walked through the mall to the Indigo bookstore, where Mel and I wound up standing and talking for more than an hour in the Mystery aisle ;) before I reluctantly headed home again.     

The visit was far too short, but I'm so glad the stars aligned to make it happen. 

Are online friends real friends? You bet.  ❤ 

You can read Mel's thoughts about her Toronto visit here. 

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

"Navigating the Messy Middle" by Ann Douglas

Ann Douglas is one of Canada's best known writers and speakers on parenting and pregnancy issues, with some 26 books and umpteen magazine and newspaper articles on the subject to her credit, including the best selling "Mother of All" series of books. She's also written books about family finance, body image and weight loss, genealogy, Canadian history and culture, and even one -- a "Complete Idiots Guide," written with her dad -- explaining the sport of curling (!). 

A personal note (& full disclosure): I got to know Ann 24 (!!) years ago, when we were both members of the same email list, for women who had lost babies and were trying again, or hoping to do so. (I joined in the fall of 1998 after our daughter Katie was stillborn in August;  Ann's daughter Laura was stillborn in 1996, and she was pregnant again at the time.) "Trying Again" (2000) became the title of one of Ann's next books, about pregnancy after loss; I was among several members of the list who served on the "parent panel" for that book, and I am quoted in its pages, as well as in "The Mother of All Pregnancy Books," (2002)  which includes a full chapter on pregnancy loss (versus the usual few paragraphs or perhaps a page or two, if you're lucky). (The book is still in print, in an updated edition, and the last time I checked, my quote was still in it!)  Ann was also a volunteer with the pregnancy loss support group that dh & I supported;  we did our Resolve Through Sharing training together and saw each other at quarterly volunteer meetings. And she was probably the very first blogger I followed, as well as an inspiration (along with Mel and Pamela) for my own venture into the blogging world, 15 years ago: a very early blog post I wrote, from November 2007, says "I think I first became aware of blogging and its potential through Ann Douglas." (So thank you, Ann, for that!)  

Ann and I are roughly the same age, and her latest work reflects the most recent stage of her life (and mine): midlife.  I obviously don't have the same interest in her writing on pregnancy and parenting as I did when I first got to know her, 24 years ago -- but needless to say, this new book is right up my alley. :) 

"Navigating the Messy Middle: A Fiercely Honest and Wildly Encouraging Guide for Midlife Women" is not a long book, and it's a pretty fast, easy read, written in a friendly, chatty style. As Ann notes at the outset, there's not a lot of solid research being done on midlife women right now -- and what there is "tends to be centred on a very specific kind of midlife woman: a white, cisgender, married, middle-class woman with children. In other words, someone a lot like me." She has compensated for the lack of academic research and statistics by doing some extensive reading on the subject and interviewing some 100 women (mostly between the ages of 40 & 60) about their midlife experiences.  

I really liked (and very much appreciated!) the diverse range of voices and personal stories featured here. "There's no such thing as a one-size-fits-all midlife experience," Ann writes. AND!! (bonus!!) -- not only does the book acknowledge that not all women are married and/or mothers at midlife, and not only does it include comments from more than a single token childless woman, it actually makes clear the distinction between voluntary and involuntary childlessness!!  (Thanks, Ann!)  

(Granted, there could have been a few more childless/free voices. It's great to have so many different women's comments in the book, but I will admit that, even with the presence of several childless/free voices, the constant descriptors -- "mother of three," "single parent," ""mother and grandmother" -- were a bit wearing after a while. There were a few places where I thought a childless/free viewpoint would have been a good counterbalance to the parental perspective. But still -- there's a lot more non-parent and other diverse content than most books include, and I am grateful to Ann for making that effort. And while some of the content is not relevant to those of us without kids, there's still a lot that -- while presented through a parental lens -- is very much applicable.)    

Overall, the book provides a good overview of this increasingly relevant subject, with a lot of personal stories and insights, and an extensive notes section including suggestions for further reading. It acknowledges the hard stuff about this stage of life, while providing reassurance and pointing out the good stuff, too. (I have 13 pages of bookmarks on my Kobo e-reader!) 

4 stars on Goodreads. 

This was Book #45 read to date in 2022 (and Book #4 finished in November), bringing me to 100% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books! I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 6 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."  

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. 

I hate(d) November

I recently started following Zoe Clarke-Coates on Instagram... she runs Saying Goodbye in the UK, which (among other things) organizes remembrance services for anyone who has lost a much-wanted baby (even if he/she only existed in your heart). 

(Have any of you ever been to one of their services? I am not in the UK so obviously, I have not -- but I have been to holiday candlelighting services sponsored by the pregnancy loss support group my dh & I attended and later volunteered for, and they were SO helpful... it was lovely to carve out some quiet time during a busy holiday season filled with happy families and a focus on joy joy joy to remember our little girl in the company of others who were remembering similar losses.)  

Anyway -- I bookmarked this post when I saw it because it had so much personal resonance for me.(Apologies to longtime readers, for whom this post will be a bit of a rehash of things I've written about previously here on this blog... but it still felt good to write it all out again...!) 

Nov. 14th was my original due date for my ill-fated pregnancy in 1998 -- although it got pushed further and further back, before my pregnancy ultimately ended at 26 weeks in early August. 

I was so looking forward to her November birthday, for all the usual/obvious reasons anyone looks forward to welcoming a baby into their lives -- but also for a few specific personal ones. November has never been one of my favourite months -- it's generally dark and cold and dreary in my part of the world, and the only reason it comes second to February in my estimation is because there's Christmas to look forward to, lol. When I told my mother I was pregnant and that I was due in November, her first ecstatic words were, "A baby for Christmas!"  (Ouch. That one still hurts... :(  ) 

Also, my company's year-end was October 31st -- and I was part of the team that worked on the annual report. The finance department took care of the financials, but we looked after the pretty pictures and words at the front of the book, and made sure all the facts and spelling were correct, and all the necessary executive and board signoffs were received, etc.  We were also responsible, at least in some significant ways, for our corporate social responsibility report (another important annual reporting document) and the annual meeting, usually held sometime in March/April. I always managed to take at least a few days off at Christmastime to be with my family in Manitoba (thankfully!) -- but generally, October, November & December (and the first few months of the new year) were an extremely busy and stressful time at my office. I was VERY much looking forward to a reprieve that year!!  

Instead, I found myself returning to work that year in mid-October, right around the time that the year-end stuff was heating up. I worked in that department for that company for almost 28 years and I worked on every single annual report during that time, as well as those other year-end activities. Every year for the next 16 (!) years after my loss, November 1st came like a slap in the face, reminding me of my unfulfilled due date and the maternity leave I never got to take. Plus, I never felt like I really had the chance to enjoy the leadup to Christmas the way most people did or the way I wanted to. I came to REALLY resent it whenever November 1st rolled around, and when I started blogging, I wrote an annual post every November titled/themed/tagged "I hate November," lol. It was generally the same whine, year after year (and this post continues that "tradition," lol...!), but it felt good to vent. 

Then I lost my job in 2014 and subsequently retired -- happily, in the summertime, before work on the annual report started that year, lol. I have to admit, the "I hate November" posts have trailed off since then. Leaving the stresses of work behind me has been a huge part of it, I'm sure. But the passage of time generally has also played a role, as has doing my "grief work" with the help of online and real-life friends & support groups. As the years have passed, the raw grief over my unfulfilled due date and childless Christmases has ebbed somewhat, as I've had more time to mourn and also to enjoy the other fun & beautiful things the Christmas/holiday season has to offer.  

I don't know how you all feel about November -- I am sure there are other months that have the same kind of personal resonance for you. But I wanted to take some time today to acknowledge that, whether you were ever expecting a baby that was due in November, or any other time of the year, the next few months can be difficult for those of us who have lost babies -- and especially for those of us who don't have any living children to focus on during a very child and family-centric holiday season. Be kind to yourselves!  ❤

Odds & ends

• I was thrilled when the private Gateway Women community marked Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Month (in part) by setting up a new Childless After BabyLoss group -- and incredibly honoured when I was asked to co-host!  Not only that, but my co-host is the lovely Bamberlamb, who blogs at It's Inconceivable. It's been a while since I put my support group facilitating skills to use, but I hope to do justice in the role! 
• The New Yorker published one of those articles that I think should be mandatory reading for people who go around asking childless women why they don't "just adopt": "How an adoption broker cashed in on prospective parents' dreams." 
• There was also this piece in the Atlantic: "The New Question Haunting Adoption." (Tagline: "At a glance, America’s shortage of adoptable babies may seem like a problem. But is adoption meant to provide babies for families, or families for babies?")  
• I've read and recommended two of the books mentioned in the article, earlier this year: "American Baby" by Gabrielle Glaser, and "The Child Catchers" by Kathryn Joyce. Click on the links for my reviews. 
• I also thought this Atlantic article was interesting: "The Hidden Costs of Living Alone."  (Tagline: "In ways both large and small, American society still assumes that the default adult has a partner and that the default household contains multiple people.")  Obviously, I do have a partner, but I can still relate to a lot of this -- couples without children don't quite conform to the assumed default household either...! 
• Sample passage (which I think could also apply in many ways to childless couples -- boldfaced emphasis mine): 

And many single people, whether they live alone or with others, constantly face the stigma associated with not being partnered. “It’s oppressive, always getting pitied,” [Bella] DePaulo said. “People have bought into the ideology that having someone is better—[that] the more natural, normal, superior way of being is being coupled or having a family.”

She sees this norm in the political rhetoric around virtuous, “hardworking families,” and thinks that this cultural default can to some extent be blamed for the ways in which American society has been slow to adapt to people who are single or live alone. She also attributes the slowness to “cultural lag”: In the future, lots of Americans are going to live alone—tens of millions already do—and eventually, society will, with hope, catch up.

• The latest edition of Anne Helen Petersen's "Culture Study" newsletter focuses on The Ideological Battlefield of the "Mamasphere," with a fascinating interview with Kathryn Jezer-Morton, who is studying "momfluencers" for her PhD dissertation (!!). (Sometimes when I read about mothers like these, I'm glad I never got to be one, and certainly not with today's social media... I could never keep up!)  I especially loved reading the comments about the "Performative Farm"...! 

World Childless Week, Day Four: Men Matter Too

Day Four of World Childless Week is focused on the topic "Men Matter Too."  

What is your childless story? Are there aspects you have hidden because that is supposedly “what men do”? Have you buried your emotions, to support your partner, or dismissed them as unimportant? We need to change the narrative and ensure every male voice is just as loud as every female. 

As with the Day Two topic (Childlessness and Sexual Intimacy), I have not written a lot about my dh's perspective on these things -- it's MY blog, and (although I've occasionally asked him if he'd like to do a guest post!) he doesn't want to be in the spotlight --it's not his "thing" -- which is fair, I think. I can't think of any particular posts I've written that are focused specifically on this topic, although I've you may find some relevant material under the label/tag "marriage/dh." 

I should say that dh was actually the one who first suggested we should become facilitators for the pregnancy loss group we attended -- and we wound up doing it for 10 years!  Our particular group/chapter was able to attract -- and retain -- more men than the groups in other parts of the city/province, simply because they knew that at least one other guy would be there. I can think of a couple of guys who occasionally came to meetings by themselves, without their wives (albeit once they'd already attended and gotten to know us and what the group was all about -- not for their first meeting!). 

Check out today's content on the WCW site, including community members' contributions and a live webinar at 7 p.m. UK time/2 p.m. Eastern Time in North America. Kevin Davidson of Mindful Masculinity will be discussing "Beware the Fatherhood Bonus," particularly related to the workplace. This webinar will be recorded and uploaded to the Day Four page for anyone who cannot make the live event. 

World Childless Week, Day One: Our Stories

The fifth annual World Childless Week kicks off today!  and Day One is focused on the theme "Our Stories."  

No matter what anyone has said to you (including your own inner critic) your story is important. The dreams you had to become a parent: the struggles of trying to conceive, the sadness of not meeting a partner, the life choices and circumstances that restricted or denied your opportunities. The harsh reality of knowing you’d never be a parent; the anger, anguish, confusion and grief. 

These are the stories we need to share and yours are the words that need to be heard.

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 14 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 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 two live webinars. The first, "Telling Our Stories: From Hurting to Healing" with childless therapists Sarah Roberts and Judy Graham, will likely have ended by the time most of you read this; but the second, "Releasing Our Grief Through the Power of Words," begins at 2 p.m. Eastern Time in North America.  Both webinars will be recorded and uploaded to the Day One page for anyone who cannot make the live event.

Putting my money where my heart is

At one of the morning kickoff sessions at the recent Childless Collective Summit, organizer Katy thanked those who had paid for an extended access package, giving them access to all the presentations for up to a full year (as well as other exclusive perqs) after an initial 24-hour free period. (Packages are still available, by the way!)  She confessed that she felt uncomfortable making sales pitches (me too!) -- but explained that she had used her own money, not to mention hours & hours of her spare time (while holding down a full-time job) to organize the summit, mostly unassisted. Ten per cent of the profits from the extended access packages were donated to the Black Women's Health Imperative. Katy also said she planned to use any leftover funds to provide some compensation to the 28 speakers who offered their time and services for the summit, and additional goodies perqs for the extended access passholders.

I thought Katy did a great job in providing some free access for all, balanced with extended access for a fee (and told her so in the comments).  I bought one of the extended access passes, in part because I doubted I would be able to watch all of the things I wanted to see within the 24-hour free timeframe (and I was right!) -- but also because I'd like to see more such summits in the future, and because I've become much more conscious lately of where I want to direct my money and support.  

Throughout my adult/working life, I've made donations to various organizations and causes. I've made memorial donations when loved ones have passed away to organizations such as the Canadian Cancer Society and Alzheimer's Society, as requested. I handed out money to almost every neighbourhood kid who knocked on the door of my house, selling chocolate bars for their school or asking me to sponsor them for Jump Rope for Heart at their school, or the Terry Fox Run, or to buy their Girl Guide cookies. I had monthly deductions taken from my paycheque for many years to support our local United Way, which funds a number of great local initiatives. I made regular donations to both of my alma maters (asking that the funds be used specifically to support student life at the residence where I lived during my four years of undergrad, and the journalism program I attended in graduate school).  When we went to church regularly (cough), we signed up for giving via regular envelopes (and received a tax receipt in return at the end of the year). I gave money regularly to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD Canada) for several years, because too many people in my life have had their lives negatively affected -- or ended altogether -- by drunk drivers. And dh & I were longtime regular donors to the pregnancy loss support group that we attended as clients and then volunteered with as facilitators for 10 years.  

When both of us lost our jobs (in 2013 & 2014), we immediately looked for ways to pare down our expenses until we figured out what our new financial situation would look like -- and as a result, we stopped making most of our usual donations. We're now both retired/pensioners (!), and while we are living quite comfortably in retirement, our resources are not unlimited.  We've been able to resume making some donations, and I'm still giving money to larger/more established charities from time to time. But (as we used to say in the corporate world), I'm trying to be "more strategic" these days -- to give some thought about where I want to direct my funds and why, and to make more, smaller, meaningful donations to the causes that I (and the people I love) care about the most.  

For example, one of my best friends from high school lost her daughter in a tragic car accident a little over a year ago (mentioned here).  She loved animals, and her family has set up a scholarship fund that helps send local kids to spring break/summer camp run by the local humane society.  I've donated to the fund on my own, as well as together with my high school classmates. 

Another friend -- a former blogger and childless mom like me -- established a charity in memory of her neighbour and good friend who died of cancer. Every month, she and a group of friends get together (via Zoom these days, in person during pre-COVID times) to knit & crochet for good causes. Over the past nine years, they've donated more than 1,500 "chemo caps" for cancer patients and 1,100 infant loss items, such as tiny hats and receiving blankets, for local hospitals. I don't knit or crochet, but it's a great cause I wanted to support, and I love to help out by making occasional cash donations to help purchase yarn and embellishments. 

I've been looking for ways to support the childless community as well. Besides paying for an extended access pass to the recent summit, I'm a paid member of the private online Gateway Women community, which supports the wonderful work that Jody Day, Karin Enfield-deVries and Gateway Women have been doing for the past decade to support childless women around the world and to change the cultural conversation about childlessness. (The first month of community membership is free, and there are several different membership levels available.)  Gateway Women has also launched a 10th anniversary appeal and you can now make direct donations through its website!  

I'm a big fan of The Full Stop podcast for childless-not-by-choicers, and they have a feature on their website where you can buy them a "Ko-fi," which I have done in the past (and intend to do again).  I'd love to buy a coffee for any & all of the three wonderful hosts, but I'm sure they will appreciate a virtual Ko-fi even more! 

It's not exactly a donation (more of an investment), but because (as a former journalist and communicator) I strongly believe in the value of quality journalism (and because I'm a news junkie who often hits the paywall on the first day of the month, lol), I have digital subscriptions to 5 (!) daily newspapers -- The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Toronto Star, The Wall Street Journal (I get access to the  WSJ with my Star subscription) and The Globe & Mail (plus several paper magazines). I currently have free subscriptions to several Substack newsletters by some excellent women/feminist writers -- all of which offer at least some free content -- and am considering upgrading to paid subscriptions for at least a few of those. 

I like free stuff as much as the next person ;) -- and the Internet has been great (almost too great, I think) in giving us free access to so, so much information and entertainment and ways to connect with others. If we had to start paying for all the stuff we've become accustomed to getting for free, we'd have some very hard decisions to make.  (There are only so many digital news and Substack subscriptions and online streaming services that I can afford -- or make good use of...!)  

But "free" is never completely free -- someone somewhere is paying for it, if not with money then certainly in terms of time and effort. And I think that if we enjoy and appreciate what they do, we need to support them however we can -- with "likes" and "shares" and comments, with volunteer hours, and sometimes with our dollars, too. 

What are some of your favourite causes to support? 

A favour

Yesterday afternoon, a message popped up from an old friend from our pregnancy loss group (D). She & her family used to live in the same area where we had our house & ran the group, but a couple of years ago they moved out to the west coast (several thousand miles away).  

D said "I have a favour to ask you, and I completely understand if you would rather not."  She explained that her 90-year-old aunt lives in a small community just north of where we now live.  D had arranged for her covid vaccine appointment.  You MUST make your appointment online (at the moment, anyway) -- no phone calls, no walk-ins or in-person appointment requests taken at vaccination centres. 

(The uptake for the 80+ group has been much lower than expected -- well, DUH....!!  Many seniors are not computer or cellphone-literate, and not everyone has computer-savvy family or friends nearby to help out, right?  I guess there are some community service groups that are making appointments for people who need assistance, but seriously? I mentioned this to D and she said, "My aunt was SO confused... broke my heart." :(  ) 

Anyway, D asked if... we would consider printing off the confirmation form and other paperwork her aunt needs to bring to her appointment next week and drive it up to where she lives (about 20-30 minutes away, tops) and drop it off at her apartment. 

I did ask dh before saying yes, just to be sure he was okay with it (since he'd be doing the driving!)  and he said, "How can we NOT do it??"  So I responded that of course we could do that, and it would be great to have an excuse to get out of the house for a while, lol.  She was SO happy & grateful.  

And then about half an hour later the phone rang -- it was a delivery person downstairs. Dh looked at me quizzically (like, "What did you order NOW?"  lol)  but I knew immediately that D must have sent us something as a thank you (because that's the kind of person she is) -- and sure enough, it was a florist with a beautiful bouquet, and a card from D attached.  (D also brought dh & me flowers to our last meeting as support group facilitators, 11+ years ago, which I wrote about here!)  

A lovely bouquet from our friend.

After lunch this afternoon, I put the paperwork in my purse and we drove to D's aunt's house. It took us less than half an hour, on a cloudy but mild spring day. It was so nice to get out of the house and out in the countryside for a bit. I called and left a message before we left and she was waiting on her porch when we arrived.  We left a few minutes later, feeling like we'd done something good. :) 

I don't know if D's aunt is childless -- but she is clearly alone and in need of some assistance, at least when it comes to technological matters -- and this was such a small, simple thing we could do. (She does have someone to take her to the appointment -- I'm guessing it's someone who is also older and similarly not tech-savvy...!)  

All I could think was that someday I might be 90 and alone and in need of some help -- hopefully our nephews would be able to do something like that for me, but who knows??  

"The Brink of Being" by Julia Bueno

I have read a lot of books & memoirs about pregnancy loss since my daughter was stillborn 21 years ago. "The Brink of Being: Talking about Miscarriage" by Julia Bueno ranks among the very best. It deserves to be widely read, not only by those who have experienced loss, but those around them, including family members & friends as well as medical professionals, human resources experts and others. 

Bueno uses the experience of her own miscarriages (including twin girls), as well as those of composite patients from her psychotherapy practice (specializing in infertility & loss issues), to explore various aspects of this often misunderstood loss.  (I tend to be slightly leery of the use of "composite" figures in books, but these were so well drawn with such compelling and believable stories that after a while I forgot they were composites.) 

"I then stepped back out into the world as a woman who had just had a miscarriage," Bueno writes in the introduction. "This was a world that would struggle to understand both the physical process that I had been through and the agonizing nature of my everlasting grief. A world that didn't want to know the details of what had happened, let alone remember them;  a world that didn't know if I was a mother or David a father or whether my two babies had been born or whether they had actually died. This world was poorly equipped to support me -- and the countless other women and couples I soon discovered who were also reeling in their own versions of such pain."

The book explores "the potentially profound relationship that can come into being with a barely conceived or even unconceived baby, which lays the foundations for profound grief when a pregnancy ends."  It examines the differences -- and similarities -- between early and later losses, and "the gruelling nature of repeated miscarriage." Bueno also addresses the impact miscarriage has on partners and other family members, and how we choose to dispose of (cremate/bury/etc.), and remember, these tiny beings (in a chapter titled "Efforts to Remember, Pressure to Forget").

In addition to personal stories, there is a blend of research and statistics, as well as examples of how different cultures deal with the subject of miscarriage and other pregnancy losses, and advances in developing medical protocols and support structures to help those affected. (Bueno is British, and most of her information is U.K.-centric, but she also includes information from the U.S., Australia and other countries.)  "Although I acknowledge how far we have come, I also want to show you how much further we can, and must, go," she writes in the introduction. 

This was a lovely, warm, compassionate book about a rather un-lovely subject.  Five stars on Goodreads.

This was book #40 that I have read in 2019 to date, bringing me to 167% (!) of my 2019 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 24 books.  I have completed my challenge for the year -- currently 16 books beyond my  goal -- and I have surpassed my reading total for 2018 by 13 books.  :)

"It's Okay to Laugh" by Nora McInerny

I think it was Brooke who first introduced me to Nora McInerny (who also goes by Nora McInerny Purmort on Goodreads) and her podcast, "Terrible, Thanks for Asking." (ETA:  It was! -- in this post here, from early 2017.) 

I don't think it's giving anything away to tell you that, in the space of just a few months in 2014, when she was just 31 years old, McInerny lost her second baby (to miscarriage), her husband, Aaron (to brain cancer), and then her father, Steve (also to cancer). I vaguely remember reading Aaron's hilarious "Spiderman" obituary, which they wrote together as he went into hospice care, and which went viral on the Internet.

Earlier this year, I saw that she had a memoir coming out -- "No Happy Endings" -- and it put it on my bookstore wish list for when it became available in late March -- but then I learned she had also published a previous memoir in 2017:  "It's Okay to Laugh (Crying Is Cool Too)."

So I bought them both (of course!)  :)  and decided to read them in order. (And if it wasn't for the fact that I have a book club selection to get through before May 27th, I would have dived straight into "No Happy Endings" right after finishing this one.)  (McInerny actually has a THIRD book out now too,  although I haven't yet found it at the bookstore -- "The Hot Young Widows Club" -- which is also the name of a support community she created after her husband's death.)  I have yet to listen to TTFA (although it's in my podcast queue) but I am now following both her & TTFA on social media.

You don't have to have lost your husband (or your father -- or your baby, although that's probably where most of us here will find our stories intersect with Nora's) to appreciate this book.  Less publicized, and a surprise to me when I read it here, is that Nora's son Ralph, as well as the baby she miscarried, were the result of fertility treatments -- IUIs, with sperm banked by her husband before he began cancer treatments.  And if the grief & loss themes weren't enough for me to relate to, there's also the fact that she's from Minnesota  ;) the American state that's nearest & dearest to my heart. ;) 

Nora kept a blog during Aaron's illness (called "My Husband's Tumor" -- not available, at least not right now), and I wonder whether some of the chapters in this book were originally blog posts, or at least had their genesis there. The book covers Nora's youth, family, marriage, motherhood and bereavement, although not necessarily in any particular order. The chapters jump back & forth & around in time. This did not detract from my enjoyment of the book, even though I sometimes tend to be a bit OCD about these things. ;) 

And yes, I enjoyed this book -- even though "enjoy" might seem a weird thing to say about a book that's mostly about cancer, grief and bereavement. I did laugh, and I did cry.  My copy is full of yellow sticky notes. The first thing I read that had me fumbling for kleenex was this passage on page 21: 

I can never say it, I can barely even think it, but I know that I am crying because I am afraid that when Aaron is gone, there will still be parts of him I do not know, little things like this that he forgot to share with me. I'd felt that from the moment I met him, before we knew he was sick, but I feel it more urgently now;  like I want to just stick a little USB drive into his arm and download everything about him.

The book's title reminded me of the little speech we used to give to open each meeting of the perinatal bereavement group dh & I ran for 10 years. "It's okay to cry -- that's why there's kleenex o the table," we'd say. "It's okay to laugh too." (And we did laugh, although much of our humour was pretty black & would probably have shocked some of our family members & friends.)  And yes, I laughed as often as I cried while reading this book too.

I loved it. I gave this book four stars on Goodreads, and am considering whether it should actually be changed to 5. :) 

If you've never heard of Nora, I highly recommend her recent TEDTalk about grief as a starting point. :) 

This was book #13 that I have read in 2019 to date, bringing me to 54% of my 2019 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 24 books.  I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 5 (!!) books ahead of schedule to meet my goal. :)  

Social capital, adult friendships & childlessness

Gateway Women's Jody Day made a comment during a live webinar as part of last week's "We Are Worthy" summit that stuck with me and got me thinking.  I don't remember her exact words, but it was a comment about how being childless -- and having all your friends become mothers -- wreaked havoc on her friendships, which was something that she did not expect would happen.

Then Mel posted about a recent column by David Brooks in the New York Times, which I had also read & mulled over, on the subject of social capital/wealth, and the increasing lack thereof in our world, where loneliness and isolation are being acknowledged, even by some governments, as serious issues.

I feel incredibly lucky to have some pretty great friends and relatives. But yes, sometimes I do feel socially isolated -- in part (although not entirely) because of my childlessness, & the lack of social networks that moms/parents seem automatically plugged into through their kids' schools, neighbourhood & activities.

The childless factor aside, making and keeping friends is something I've wrestled with my entire life.  Because of my dad's work, our family was transferred every three to six years when I was growing up. We moved when I was 2, 5, 8 and 13 -- we lived in eight different houses in five different towns in two different provinces before I finished high school -- and we were supposed to move again just before I entered Grade 12/senior year, but my dad thankfully found himself a new job in the same town so my sister & I could finish high school with our friends. The older we got, the longer it seemed to take for us to break into the established social circles and make friends in a new place.  And then, of course, right around the time we were finally feeling comfortably settled and at home, it was time to pack our bags & move on to the next place, leaving our friends behind us.

This was almost 40 years ago now -- long before the Internet, or even cheap long distance -- and many of my friendships did not survive the moves (although a few did & do, to this day). My friends & I kept in touch through handwritten letters, sent by snail mail (I found an entire box stuffed full of them when I helped my mother clean out a closet last summer), and the occasional long-distance telephone call -- with our mothers nearby, tapping their wristwatches to tell us to wrap things up -- "long distance is expensive, you know!" -- and occasional visits.

As a married adult, it's still been difficult to make & keep friends -- and certainly since most of my friends boarded the mommy train, leaving me standing forlornly on the station platform. But there are other factors that have made if difficult to make & keep adult friendships, too.

First, when I first moved here, I knew almost nobody, aside from dh's family -- with a couple of exceptions, I was starting almost from scratch.  And second, while many people in this city, like me, come from elsewhere, there's still a sizeable chunk who grew up here and have family members & long-established social networks.

Third, this is a large urban area, and many of the friends I did/do have live/lived at least 45-60 minutes away by car -- meaning meetups almost always need to take place on the weekends. (Even at work, we had difficulty planning after-hours social activities, because our staff lived all over a very wide area, commuted and had to consider transit schedules, as well as daycare pickup times, for those with children. Thursdays tended to be the big party-after-work night -- Friday after-work gatherings were pretty much verboten, because everyone would be anxious to head home to get the weekend started there after a long week at work.)

Fourth, I don't drive (I have my license but don't drive -- long story...), which has added to the difficulty of getting to places where I can meet new people and getting together with old friends. Either my friends have to come see me, dh has to drive me, or my friends have to meet meet me downtown or somewhere else that I can get to by public transit.

Finally, nevermind the mommy train -- many of the friends that I have managed to make here over the past 30-35 years almost literally boarded a train -- they moved and left me behind, which was a  new (and unpleasant) experience for me. Among the good friends I've said goodbye to over the years:

• My college roomie (whom I've written about before) is from Ontario & was living & working here when I got married. We used to socialize with her & her husband (whom we also knew in college -- I introduced them!). We both worked downtown, and so even after they got divorced (& dh & I moved out of the city), we still had lunch together regularly, once a month or so. Then she had a baby -- and I didn't -- her work life got busy, her personal life got complicated, and I started seeing less and less of her -- until, about 10 years ago, until she disappeared from my life entirely, much to my bewilderment and sadness. Happily, we are back in touch again -- but she has moved to the west coast to be with her new partner, and I have not seen her in some years.
• One of my friends from high school -- not a close-close friend, but someone I knew fairly well -- also moved to this area after her marriage, and we used to get together with them occasionally. They moved to the States 15+ years ago, although we still see them once a year or so when they come back to visit friends & relatives in the area.
• I was good friends with a coworker who joined my department a few months after I did. We had a lot in common -- her mother even grew up in the same small town as my best friend's mother did. But she left, first the department, and then the company altogether, a few years later, when she & her husband moved to the States to pursue career opportunities there. I've only seen her once in the 25+ years since then, but we are still in touch via social media & Christmas cards -- and she actually called me in response to the mass email I sent out to let people know about Katie's stillbirth, with words of comfort and sharing about her own miscarriage, which I (in my pre-loss innocence) had completely forgotten about. 
• After we lost Katie, we became close to a number of our clients and co-facilitators from our "real life" pregnancy loss support group -- and one couple in particular with whom we had a lot in common.  She & I loved to scrapbook together, and she would call me up out of the blue and say, "I'm making a Michaels run after dinner tonight, want to come?" and off we'd go, stopping off at a coffee shop for tea & sweets afterwards. Dh & her husband got along well too -- he even took dh to a basketball game once when he lucked into some good tickets. She would often ask me how we were managing a life without children -- steeling herself for the possibility that they, too, might eventually call it quits on ttc.  But they eventually did have a baby -- and then moved away, 10 years ago now, about an hour & a half away. We went to visit them a couple of times in their lovely new home, and we still email occasionally and exchange Christmas cards -- but she does not "do" social media, and has been busier with her son's activities (of course), so I am feeling a bit out of the loop with them these days. But I still miss her. :( 
• I had another good friend, also childless, whom I met when I was living with my parents for a year, post-school but pre-marriage.  She wound up getting married & moving to this area herself a few years after I did, and while she lived some distance away from me, north of the city, we still managed to get together a couple of times a year -- she's meet me at my office for lunch if she happened to be downtown, or I'd take an afternoon off work and we'd get tickets to a theatre matinee or take in a local craft show. Last year, we bought season's tickets for Unique Lives & Experiences lecture series downtown, and would have dinner together and catch up, before attending the event.  She was a welcome taste of "home," one of the few people hereabouts who knew me from before my marriage. But her much-older husband passed away a couple of years ago, and she decided to move back to our home province to be closer to her sister and cousins. I miss her too. :(
• Cousin/Neighbour's Wife, whom I've written about before, doesn't quite fall into this category -- she did not move away -- but her disappearance from our lives nevertheless left a notable void.  She's the one who was so wildly enthusiastic about my pregnancy -- and who began to withdraw after our daughter was stillborn -- or so it seemed to me. I have not seen her in well over five years, even though she lived just a few blocks away from us, when we had our house, and she'd been distancing herself from us for quite a few years before that. I've since come to realize that while Katie & subsequent childlessness may (or may not) have had something to do with the breakdown in our relationship, it wasn't the whole story and we definitely weren't the only ones she had withdrawn from. I still feel sad about the loss of that relationship, though. :( 

Dh, of course, grew up in Toronto -- but he has not maintained much contact with any of his buddies from the old neighbourhood, and while he keeps up with some of his former coworkers on social media, he hasn't made any effort to see them since leaving work either.  He is close to a couple of his cousins, but of course, they've been busy over the past 20-30 years raising their families -- although happily, the guys have started trying to book semi-regular nights out together over this past year. For the most part, dh has been happy to rely on me for pretty much all of his companionship needs. There is no doubt he is my best friend, but I have to be honest:  I miss having girlfriends. I miss having a more active social life.

Most of our social life these days tends to revolve around BIL, SIL & their family.  We also get together several times a year with dh's cousins, individually, in small groups and/or at family functions. There's the distance factor, of course (while BIL & several cousins live within a 15-minute drive of us, others are spread out across the area), and of course, most of them are still working and involved with their kids -- not to mention tending to aging parents.  I actually have one cousin who moved to this area 5-10 years ago -- but he's quite a bit younger than me, they have two kids, they live a good 45-60 minute drive from here, and his wife grew up in this area & has tons of friends here, and so...

I still get together with my coworker/office bestie of some 16 years (before her retirement), and while she doesn't "do" social media, we email & talk occasionally on the phone. She lived about a half hour further out from the city than we did, and used to come pick me up at the house for an outing... or we'd arrange an outing in the city, and meet on a certain car of the commuter train we both used to ride from work. Since we moved away, though, further in the opposite direction, we haven't seen quite as much of each other.

We lived in our previous location for 26 years (& in a midtown apartment for five years before that).  We had cordial relationships with our most immediate neighbours, but not the kind where we'd drop by each others' houses for coffee or wine or do things together, if you know what I mean. We did join a church, where we met some nice people and attended some classes and small group activities, which we enjoyed -- but we weren't entirely comfortable with  all aspects of the ministry there -- and of course things got really painful after we lost our daughter. We'd joined in part because we wanted to bring our kids up to know something about God & religion and the Bible -- and then that reason disappeared. I watched the women who'd been pregnant around the same time as me show up one day, baby carrier in tow, then baptize their babies (something I tried to avoid attending, when at all possible) -- and then their second, and sometimes their third. Watching the children -- my daughter's peers -- file out behind the cross to attend Sunday school every week, singing the same children's hymn we'd sung when I was a kid -- was torture.  I would sit in the pew, quietly sobbing. Our attendance became more & more sporadic, until finally, we just stopped going.

We've been living here two years now -- and we really haven't met a lot of new people here either.  There are neighbours & other people who live in the building that we know by name & exchange pleasant chit-chat with, but nothing deeper. None of dh's cousins, local or otherwise, have come to visit & inspect our condo (which surprises me -- we're the first in the family to get a condo & I though the novelty/curiosity factor would bring them over, if nothing else...!). His aunt has been here, but only because we took her out for dinner and then back here later for coffee.

Not surprisingly, I do a lot of my "socializing" online these days. :p  Which is great, of course -- the Internet has been a lifeline for me these past 20 years, in coping with stillbirth, infertility and involuntary childlessness. Y'all are amazing -- but sometimes, online just doesn't quite cut it, you know?  ;)

(As an aside: I have about 240 friends on Facebook.  I have them organized into "friend lists" so it's kind of easy to figure out how many I know from which parts of my life. About 70 are my relatives and 55 are dh's relatives ( = a little over half are family members).  I'm in touch with 10 people from my high school days, 8 from university (both undergrad & graduate school), and 10 people I knew from work.  About 20 are people we met through our "real life" pg loss support group.  About 45 are online friends from the infertility/loss/CNBC world (through blogging & other online forums) and 20-25 are friends from my scrapbooking days (also mostly online) -- so, a little under 1/3 are friends I've made online over the past 20 years.  That's a pretty substantial chunk. There's another 10 or so in a group I've labelled "Miscellaneous," which includes, for example, some childhood friends I've stayed in touch with over the years (or rediscovered through Facebook) and some friends of my mother's. Anyone else ever done an analysis like this?)

I keep saying I'm going to join a yoga class -- mostly because I need & want the exercise & the relaxation/mindfulness benefits it promotes -- but also because it would get me out of the house. I've researched a few places but haven't tried any out yet. Likewise, I would love to find a book club. Even if I didn't make any real friends there, I would love to discover new books and talk about them with other people. I went on Meetups.com in search of one hereabouts, but most of the ones listed there meet in the city proper and would be difficult to get to. I've even considered going back to church in an attempt to meet people (if not with an eye to my eternal salvation, as I sometimes joke).

I have investigated the local Gateway Women chapter (I know I would definitely have something in common with them!!) -- but getting to their monthly coffee & chat meetup would involve dh driving me 15 minutes to the local subway station, a 45-minute subway ride downtown, and then about a 30 minute walk or streetcar ride -- on a Sunday morning, which is usually a "sleep in & then go to the movies" day for us. There is a local GW Reignite Weekend planned for this fall -- it's expensive, but I'm considering a splurge. ;)  I am probably further down the road of acceptance of my childlessness than many of the attendees would be, I think -- and I don't want to take a spot away from someone who could really, really use it -- but I still sometimes feel a bit adrift in this post-loss& infertility, post-employment, post-move life. I could use a bit of a kick in the rear. ;)

What do you think? Have you found it more difficult to make & keep friends as an adult? Has having children -- or not having children -- improved or wreaked havoc on your social life?