In this episode, we were joined by the founder of World Childless Week, Stephanie Joy Phillips to get the inside information on the plans for the 5th year of this week-long event. World Childless Week brings together Ambassadors selected from the thought leaders, campaigners, and awareness raisers who volunteer alongside Steph, to give hope, support, and strength to our childless not by choice community.

Our guest this month is Chrissy Pantlin. She’s based in Australia. After illness, Chrissy qualified in counseling and set up her practice in the pandemic. Chrissy talks about what she’s learning from the men who come to her practice and shares a wealth of advice that we know will be useful to all genders.

Please be aware that we discuss failed pregnancy and suicide in this episode. If you would like further support you can find resources here on our toolkit. Episode 28: The joy in the everyday is a celebration of self-care and looking after ourselves. We hope you’ll be inspired by our guests, Bindi Shah and Clare Elleray

Join us - Sarah, Michael and Berenice - as our guests turn the tables on us. We were not able to have an in-person party because of COVID and travel restrictions across the world, so we set up an open house with Jody Day, Robin Hadley, Sarah Roberts, Victoria Firth, Yvonne John and Lesley Pyne, with a special message from our podcast inspiration, Civilla Morgan.

Jody Day joins us to celebrate 10 years of Gateway Women and to reflect on how childlessness has changed for her and in wider society, and we share our collective predictions for the future.

This episode actually began as an ‘admin’ chat! We hit record and we realised there might be a few nuggets of wisdom. Join us as we riff about screen sharing, Covid in our countries (we do get a bit emotive here, and this was recorded in early February so the statistics have changed), handling Zoom meetings and boundaries.

We are delighted to share with you, our next episode with Kate Kaufmann in another cross-continent broadcast - we get very excited about making connections across the world! We’ve called this episode Navigation because Kate, for us, is a fantastic voice for our community, not just through her book Do you Have Kids, Life When the Answer is No, but in the many articles she has published, as a World Childless Week Champion and a good friend to many of us.

In this episode, we’re talking about adapting to online communication and making connections. Who better than Helen Louise Jones who has been raising our spirits with singing through her Childless Voices project and Chanting Circles. The choir began before lockdown in the UK in March 2020 and she had to quickly adapt the delivery to keep providing support. We were also delighted to welcome Lisa Ann Kissane who talked about her love of books and how she’s encouraging our community to read through her website and Gateway Women’s NoMo Book Club which hosts online meetings to chat about the books she's recommended. If you’ve ever been triggered by a book then you need Lisa in your life!

In this episode, we were joined by our , Sarah Roberts from The Empty Cradle, Stephanie Phillips from World Childless Week, Andy Harrod from Invisible Childlessness with Jody Day from Gateway Women to share our reflections on the year passed and our hopes for 2021.

In this episode, we were joined by our good friend Andy Harrod who is the voice behind Invisible Childlessness. He’s one of many new, powerful contributors to our community as he explores coming to terms with involuntary childlessness through writing and academic study. He’s also part of the Clan of Brothers.

From the start, this episode poses questions about events that lead us to this space called involuntarily childlessness and we do mention infertility treatment.

In this episode, we were joined by artist Helen Segal who is the founder of Empowered Childlessness. Helen shares her inspiring life journey, discussing openly her grief and impact of IVF, and change in her life. It’s an incredible episode and we loved chatting to her, and there’s so much to take away from this.

In this episode we were joined by Victoria Firth and Meriel Whale as we continue to explore the the unheard voices in our community. We wanted to explore what it means to be LGBTQI+ and involuntarily childless. Trigger: This episode discusses alternative parenting including adoption and IVF.

In this episode, we were joined by Kirsty Woodard, a leading figure in raising awareness in ageing without children and founder of Ageing Well Without Children, Ming Ho, a screenwriter who writes, speaks, and campaigns on dementia and carer issues at Dementia Just Ain’t Sexy and Denise Jackson, a experienced carer and only child.

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." James Baldwin
In this episode we are joined by author and speaker, Yvonne John, with her guests Haneefah Muhammad, Dr Krista Cooper, Bindi Shah and Civilla Morgan to talk about the impact of the murder of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter and how childlessness and racism have impacted their lives.

In this episode we’re joined by Rosalind Bubb, a therapist and EFT International 'Accredited Certified Master EFT Trainer’. Rosalind has been volunteering her skills to NHS workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this episode she shares her story with us, and guides us through an EFT Tapping Session and we hope you’ll join us.

In this special episode recorded during lockdown in Spain, UK and Ireland, we reflect on the impact of the Covid-19 coronavirus and our community, with a focus on what it’s like to be single and childless in the pandemic. We are joined by Rod Silvers, Jody Day with Julie and Joss from Gateway Women.

In this episode Michael, Sarah and Berenice were joined by Dr Robin Hadley, Andy Harrod, Ken Fenton and Kevin Roberts. We discuss men and involuntary childlessness, being a step parent and how to handle Father’s Day.

In this special episode recorded on the eve of UK lockdown, we reflect on the impact of the Covid-19 coronavirus and our community, and Michael tells some stories! We also ask how we can help you.

Trigger: We talk briefly about the impact of ending IVF treatment during the crisis.

This episode is audio and video. We decided to include video as we felt you’d like a bit more of a connection with us and some friendly faces.

Mother’s Day is a day of mixed emotions. We can feel a sense of loss and perhaps conflict too. In this episode, join Michael, Sarah and Berenice in conversation with fellow podcaster, Civilla Morgan (listen to her podcast Childless Not By Choice here) who shares her views on faith, the loss of her mother and how she’s inspiring churches to take a new approach. We welcomed Allie Anderson, a freelance journalist, editor & writer specialising in health to the podcast. She shares her advice on tackling the day and we discuss new activities and… Colin Firth!

“Could your concept of who you are be expanded to include the plants and animals around you? Could it include mountains, rain and wind? What would our lives feel like if we started to include non animate elements as part of our family?” Suzan Muir