I have long wanted to share a story from a friend who had adopted. I know many who have decided to try adoption as a way to parenthood or have embarked on this after IVF treatment. The author of this piece wrote to me with her story which I hope you'll find as moving as I did.
Read MoreWhy the audience was braver than me at Fertility Fest
I learned so much last week when I thought I had more to give. This short video (yes I am being Very Brave!) explains why.
Read MoreFertility Fest video, here's what we did!
I have recorded the audio for my presentation at Fertility Fest as part of the More To Life event on Wednesday 9th May, 2018. I've edited it so it makes sense post-event, so you can find out what Steph from World Childless Week and I did!
Read MoreWalk in Our Shoes is at Fertility Fest 2018, There’s More To Life Than Having Children
Fertility Fest is for anyone and everyone. It’s for people with and without children. It’s for people in treatment and beyond it. It’s for fertility professionals and also for the general public who are interested in how the human race is (and isn’t) being made today. We promise that whoever you are it will be engaging, entertaining and exceptionally enlightening and whilst you’re there, you’ll feel part of a very special Fertility Fest Family.
Read MoreThe social art of conversation
I was volunteering to speak to my peers at the university. At the end, there was studious silence which is terrifying when you’ve given your soul to something so important. Did anyone listen? Is that person asleep? To be fair to the audience, the fine art student before me had presented an entertaining piece on researching beer label illustrations which seemed to involve a lot of time in pubs.
Read MoreProgesterone and me - Kate tells her story
Many of us have experienced the side effects of the medication. Sometimes they can be truly devastating for lots of complex reasons. Kate emailed me with her story about her relationship with progesterone.
Read MoreThe bit about IVF that nobody reminded me about. Our last embryo.
If you’ve been through IVF or ICSI then you too may have embryos in storage. This weekend I got the letter I’d dreaded. Nobody tells you that you might end this process with excess embryos and here’s what you could do with them. And it hurts.
Read MoreWe Are Worthy summit
The Oxford English Dictionary defines Worth as a mass noun that is ‘The level at which someone or something deserves to be valued or rated.’Many times in my life I have felt less valued or rated because I lacked the experience of being a parent. I am, according to one forum of professionals, unable to appreciate ‘how lucky I am to have the freedom to do what I want’ because I don’t have children.
Read MoreMental health issues caused by infertility after IVF or ICSI treatment failure
To do this subject justice, I would need to write a book or two as there are so many variations of mental health problems with different causes and whether or not people have them before or after infertility treatment. People may be infertile due to many different factors and may not have found a partner to have children with and so are childless by circumstance. Then there is the treatment itself and the methods, hormones and medications used and their effects on mental health. There are also those people who choose not to have treatment or cannot afford it or cannot access it. With all this, are society’s expectations that we should have children and the stigma associated with this when we find that we cannot.
I am focusing on my mental health problems as a result of having discovered that both my husband and I are infertile. The subsequent treatment we received and the fact that this failed to result in us having a baby.
Read MoreBooted or bare? Mental health and childlessness
I was very moved to receive a post from a mental health practitioner who writes about her experiences of childlessness and how it impacts on our mental wellbeing. It's an inspiring piece that I felt was very powerful in her observation of herself against her demanding work. It also moved me because it gives so much useful advice that we can apply to how we manage too.
Read MoreStepping out of the comfort zone can be good for mental health
It's very easy to stay in the places and routines in which we are safe. Certainly in those difficult weeks and months as we may have to come to terms with a life we were never expecting, it's a good thing to do, it can help us gain emotional strength.
Read MoreWhen labels hurt
I feel I always start posts by saying this is painful or difficult! Much of our journeys are littered with difficult situations, painful treatment, hard decisions and loss. The loss is what binds anyone who falls under the banner of childless. To the outside world that term might seem relatively simple. Within our community, it can be fraught with misunderstandings and argument and I find myself witness to disagreements.
Read MoreA superhero mission this Mother's Day.
At the time of writing, it has been seven hours since the first post to Morrisons and no reply. The social team, who are available 8am to 11pm, are more interested in comments on their cauliflowers. So me, Mr Walk In Our Shoes, has been on a super hero mission....
Read MoreBeing ill and a new gallery entry all about endometriosis
It's been very quiet on here, February 18th was the last time I wrote anything which is very tardy. I've been really ill. Big Style poorly with twelve days so far in bed. I'm a long, long way from being better.
Read MoreWalk In Our Shoes, World Childless Week and a new look blog page!
The Walk In Our Shoes website has been so helpful this past week but for an entirely different reason to the ones you'd expect!
I've been working with Steph Phillips on World Childless Week. As you may remember, I wrote lots of posts and interviewed a number of Walk In Our Shoes supporters for the first World Childless Week last year and I was proud to support Steph on this venture....
Read MoreMeet Erica
We all have a story to tell. Meet Erica and read about her story that takes us from Texas to the UK.
Read MoreWhat's walking your way?
Lots of small but important events in the life of Walk In Our Shoes this week...
Read MoreComing up on Walk In Our Shoes, get creative and not one, but two webinars.
Two great events to tell you about this week!
Read MoreWhat's coming up on Walk In Our Shoes...
I am so excited about tomorrow evening, Tuesday 23rd. Our lovely friends at More To Life are holding a series of fantastic webinars and I'm honoured to be holding a very special Childless Hour chat after each event, starting at 8pm GMT ....
Read MoreClem's Garden
I met Vicky through the Walking Forward Inspiration Network and I was moved to find out more about the project she has created called Clem's Garden. Here she explains the story behind the garden.
"It's an obvious question and one we get asked a lot. Clem is the Christmas baby me and Dunc never got to meet. (S)he took a wrong turning and grew outside the womb... the flower that just rooted in the wrong place.
1 in 5 people over the age of 50 are childless - what a huge pool of care, creativity and experience that represents. More often than not, people find themselves without families of their own because of the lotteries of life and biology rather than because of any active decision they made not to have kids.
Everybody's story is different - people lose their children, families become estranged, or the opportunity to become a mum or dad just doesn't come along.
Childlessness is one of those subjects that just doesn't get talked about - it's personal, it's hard to know what to say, it's easier to gloss over. And life moves on.....but we know through our own experiences that when the world is full of families, there are times when not having a family of your own isn’t easy; and it can be lonely, however strong and resourceful you are.
So we decided to create something.
We’re creating an alternative place for all that care, knowledge and talent to go to really good use.
An alternative place to find a role and be part of a team.
A place to share skills and experience.
A place to help shape our community with kindness.
Clem's Garden stretches to about an acre and sits in the grounds of a beautiful Arts and Crafts building called Briarcourt in Lindley.
Kirklees Council used to own the site and landscaped the garden so that it could be used by people with different levels of physical ability who attended their day centre. There's a car park, outdoor loos, and two great polytunnels, as well as step-free access throughout.
When we 'adopted' Briarcourt after losing Clem, the garden had been left to go completely wild for a number of years, but the potential for it to be put to a shared use again was obvious.
With the help of many wonderful individuals and businesses who support our vision for Clem's Garden, we've been working to tame and transform the site into a proper commercial flower-growing plot.
As well as clearing loads of brambles and sedge, we've re-skinned the tattered polytunnels, built composting boxes, and are currently constructing raised beds, which are being filled with 200 tonnes of topsoil and compost! One day, we hope to build a really fabulous potting shed too."
To get involved please follow Clem's Garden online or, if you're in the area, pop in and lend a hand.