Happily Ever After (without Children!)

Hi! This is Shannon Vandermark and this is the Happily Ever After Without Children podcast. This is not a new full length episode, but instead an invitation to join me for a live webinar THIS TUESDAY 9 July, 2019 at 7:00pm London time / 2:00pm New York Time / 11:00am LA time. My topic follows the same theme of this podcast and the title is Happily Ever After: Challenging the Fairy Tale Narrative. The webinar will be live and you can anonymously ask questions at the end. This session is not directed solely towards those who are struggling to find happiness without children but for anyone seeking peace with a life that has not turned quite as expected or as planned. So…everyone!    Please join in as the session is already well-subscribed. Go to: fertilitynetworkuk.org/life-without-children/more-to-life-webinars/  Once on the website, you will see my name Shannon Vandermark, my picture, a brief description of the webinar and a link to click for registration. As ever, please pass along details of this podcast an

Today is Mother’s Day in the UK. The chat you’re about to hear with my friend Sheila was actually recorded exactly one year ago on the sofa, in the lounge of my flat. It was the first interview I recorded for this podcast series, which was intentionally done on Mother’s Day. Sheila and I discuss where we are, in our journeys and how we have reclaimed Mother’s Day as a day we no longer feel we have to hide from.   Please e-mail with any comments, or if you have a story to tell yourself at reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com. You can also find me on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter if you search happilyeverafterpodcast.  

Zarina is so articulate in her pain, so delicate with her words and so achingly honest, I was thinking to myself as I was listening to it just now, ‘why haven’t I put this episode out earlier’?  I owe Zarina a lot for saying things I couldn’t say and grabbing me and holding me close to her story, even though we had only just met.  I want to give you a head’s up that there are parts of this interview that might be difficult to hear.   Please e-mail with any comments, or if you have a story to tell yourself at reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com. You can also find me on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter if you search happilyeverafterpodcast.    

Most of my guests have tried to have their own children but have now made peace and found happiness in a life that does not involve their own children. My guest this week is Greg Betzweizer, half of the Greg and Kamra couple who are dear friends of my husband and mine. The four of us are usually laughing the entire time we are together and we definitely share quirky sensibilities, which I think comes through in our chat. Greg and Kamra’s decision to not have children was not always a straightforward one but Greg speaks candidly about how he can be a better son and husband if he is not also a father. Please e-mail with any comments, or if you have a story to tell yourself at reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com. You can also find me at www.happilyeveraftercoach.com or on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter if you search happilyeverafterpodcast.

Here we are, at episode 13. Can you believe it? I am speaking with my friend Jo and if you haven’t listened to episode 12, in which I speak with Jo’s husband Al, I highly recommend you check that one out too. Jo and Al have an incredibly romantic story of how they got together, both living their lives and basically perfecting themselves for the moment when they would get together. Just by chance and circumstance and the fact that neither of them was willing to settle down with a partner who was less than perfect, they didn’t find one another until the chances of having their own children had become very slim. Jo met up with me for a glass of wine and a chat and we chewed the cud about life in general; the unavoidable path of destiny and the uncomfortable reality of our own mortalities.    Please e-mail with any comments, or if you have a story to tell yourself at reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com or at www.happilyeveraftercoach.com. You can also find me on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter if you search h

I recorded this interview with Al, a very close friend of both my husband and myself. I met Al when I moved over to London from Los Angeles, about 12 years ago and he immediately felt like family. Because Al was single at the time, he, Robin and I used to get together on a Sunday, watch a movie or an episode of Planet Earth, eat a massive roast dinner and drink our body weights in wine. Since then, Robin and I have gotten married and had our struggles with miscarriages, Al has lived in Hong Kong, then moved back, then got himself sober, got together with the love of his life and got married. I am really grateful that Al was up for chatting to me because I asked him some pretty obtrusive questions about all of it.  Tune in for episode 13 in which I speak with Al's wife Jo.  They are a spectacular couple.  Please e-mail with any comments, or if you have a story to tell yourself at reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com. You can also find me at www.happilyeveraftercoach.com, on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter i

After my last episode, I didn’t have any immediate plans for which interview to broadcast next. I always had these interviews in my back pocket with my brother, mom and dad that I recorded two years ago when my family was last together for Thanksgiving. At that time, it was before the birth of the Happily Ever After podcast and I was desperately searching for the meaning of life without children. I started questioning the importance of legacy with anyone who would engage with me, because once I started realising that I might not have children of my own, I began suffering an existential crisis as I battled thoughts that revolved around WHAT IS THE MEANING OF IT ALL, THEN!? So you will hear some archived interviews with my dad John, mom Joanne and brother Adam, which are a little bit amateur on my part, with some background noise and so on…I mean, there was a family Thanksgiving going on, after all. After the break you’ll hear a couple of current interviews with my sister Bethany and my brother in law Gordon wh

This week I speak over the power of broadband, laptops and conferencing software to my dear friend Erika Bertling in Los Angeles, whom I have known for an astounding 20 years. We met when we were both travelling the world working on TV shows. Erika was an audio engineer and I was a story editor. Erika introduced me to the Oct 15th International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Day and never fails to let me know on this day every year in one way or another that she is thinking of me. So having her as a guest today is my way of telling her that I am thinking of her on this day and for expressing how big a part she has played in my healing, just that little message she will send. Every year.   Please e-mail with any comments, or if you have a story to tell yourself at reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com. You can also find me on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter if you search happilyeverafterpodcast.   Erika’s blog is here and it is very good: http://www.tummymuffin.net/p/blog-page.html

I met Jessica through the Fertility Fest; a festival for anyone exploring their fertility journeys. It is a place for both mothers in arms and mothers in their hearts and it is a space Jessica is hoping can be a nurturing environment for all women. We as women are stronger united than divided, and the “haves” and “have-nots” in the fertility community seem unavoidably separated, but they shouldn’t be. We discuss the philosophy behind the Fertility Fest but also Jessica’s endurance challenges, which have ended up being more symbolic of Jessica’s quest for motherhood than she had imagined.       Please e-mail with any comments, or if you have a story to tell yourself at reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com. You can also find me on Patreon, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter if you search happilyeverafterpodcast. Here is a link to the Brene Brown TED talk about human connection that Jessica referenced in part one: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability And some more helpful links: www.jessicahepburn.com w

Finally, I got a man to speak to me. Well, I convinced my husband Robin to get involved. There was a bit of bribery. I won’t lie. We had an honest conversation, which covered our years of trying for a baby and all of the things that make us happy now. Robin is a sound engineer and is the regularly unnamed support staff of one who helps me make all of the thingies work on the recording device and teaches me how to make it all sound even better by using audio editing software that he taught me to use. I really enjoyed being able to speak to my husband about all of this. I don’t know what I’d do if he wasn’t such a good sport. Probably just bully him into being a better sport, I guess…     E-mail me reachhappilyeverafter@gmail.com I'm also on Instagram, Facebook and Patreon under happilyeverafterpodcast  

Episode seven. This week we are wrapping up the interview that I conducted with Brandi, blogger and generally inspiring lady with ten years of infertility struggles now behind her and the surprisingly rewarding childless not by choice life ahead of her. If you haven’t listened to episode six, in which we heard Brandi’s story, I suggest you listen to that first, so that you can get a sense of where Brandi is coming from.  Brandi lives in South Carolina and I in London, so I conducted the interview over the internet. Brandi was just telling me one of the ways that she began training herself to appreciate the little things in life, so that she could get over the big thing, which was not being able to have her own child.  Find Brandi here: Email:  notsomommy.com@gmail.com FaceBook:  fb.me/notsomommy Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/notsomommy/  Pinterest:  pinterest.com/notsomommy Twitter:  https://twitter.com/iamnotsomommy And her blog here: http://notsomommy.com Please e-mail me at reachhappilyeverafter@

Episode six, y’all. This week I am speaking to Brandi, who is an inspirational young lady, making lemonade out of lemons after ten years of battling with infertility. We recorded this interview through the marvellous internet, as Brandi is in South Carolina and I am in London. Brandi had so many great things to say about facing life without your own children and how to speak to someone you love who has struggled with infertility, that I decided to make this a two-parter.  This is part one.   

So, here we are at episode five. Today is an exciting day because my sister is being induced, pretty much as I speak and in only a few hours (hopefully!) I will have a new niece or nephew! She is all the way over in Kansas City and I am here in England and I wish I could be there to share this experience with her but it’s just not possible, due to work and the expense of travel. I will go out to visit in a month or so, so I will be counting the days until then. So perhaps my podcast should be called Happily Ever After, Without my OWN Children. Because I am certainly not happy without children and I miss my nephew terribly. This week’s episode is my story. I just talk for a while about why I am doing this podcast and I give a bit more detail about my experience with infertility and miscarriages. It might sound a little bit different because I was also recording video for my patreon subscribers. It is pretty free-flowing because I didn’t want to edit myself. There will be another full-length interview with a gu

This podcast is for anyone who doesn’t have children and for anyone who loves someone who doesn’t have children!   It is for those who have struggled to conceive but also for those who have woken up one day and realised it is a little bit too late. It is also for anyone triumphant in their decisions to never have children in the first place. Everyone holds a rightful place in this conversation. Everyone. And that means you too, guys!    My guest this week is Pam, who I met through a mutual friend. I visited Pam in her gorgeous home, which sits above her eclectic and skilfully curated furniture shop. The open area where we were sitting was bright and light and airy. The shade of green in the sofa and rug was the same shade as the lawn out the window, so it was as though the outdoors was a coordinated accessory to the indoors. When I mentioned it, she was glad I had noticed. It was a subtle but completely intentional feature. It has been thirty years since Pam was trying for a baby and at this point, she is rel

This podcast is for anyone who doesn’t have children and for anyone who loves someone who doesn’t have children!   It is for those who have struggled to conceive but also for those who have woken up one day and realised it is a little bit too late. It is also for anyone triumphant in their decisions to never have children in the first place. Everyone holds a rightful place in this conversation. Everyone. And that means you too, guys!    This episode featuring sisters Sheila and Iovana is particularly close to my heart.  They are not only sisters, but describe each other as best friends and soul mates. Exactly how I describe my sister.  Sheila, a teacher, doesn’t have children but what she does have is an infectious and almost mischievous giggle while Iovana, who is also a teacher and has a son, is slightly quieter but they both smile almost constantly. I think you can her it in their voices. We spoke about miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and secondary infertility but we also spoke of hope and the future and

I was fortunate to visit Lief in her seaside home.  Lief and I connected over the local support group I started and over the novel she has published called Flow, which addresses themes such as resilience, survival, pain and loss.    In Lief's words, "for years I battled with excruciating pain (endometriosis) and held on to the desire to fall pregnant.  Whilst on my journey, I kept looking for realistic, engaging, intelligent, unsentimental, non-happy-ending fiction on the subject. I never found it.  Being a writer already, I decided to fictionalise my own story. I now live a contented pain free childless life in an idyllic place by the sea with my husband and my dog." In our chat, Lief and I covered a lot of ground.  From realising we are in a secret club that no one wants to really join (!) to speaking frankly about what we are really thinking when women announce they are pregnant.  We discussed the importance of letting anger go in order to luxuriate in the abundant life we are living and how life without o

This series will appeal to anyone who has found themselves either voluntarily or involuntarily without children. If you are sick and tired of hearing the tune, 'the only happy ever after ending includes a child at the end', you are not alone. Join me as we listen to inspiring stories from men and women who have travelled the path less taken. The honesty, openness and warmth that emerges will assure you that there is an awesome club of happy childless people out there just waiting to welcome you in.