Welcome and today’s guest is Lisa Manterfield!

Lisa is the creator of Life Without Baby.com and the author of the award-winning memoir, I’m Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood. She offers workshops and popular e-books.

Her new book, Life Without Baby: Surviving and Thriving When Motherhood Doesn’t Happen, is also now available. She lives a contented life in southern CA with her husband and cat. Lisa has successfully created an online community that gives a voice to those without children. Let’s chat with Lisa!

In this episode, you’ll hear the following:

Lisa’s child-free life is not really by choice, but by circumstance. She always wanted and expected to have children, but experienced fertility issues and an unpleasant fertility clinic encounter.

She and her husband came to the realisation, “We ARE already a family—just a family of two.”

Lisa explains the anger, grief, and confusion that plagued her for a long time.

The loss of any hope of biological children was a HUGE loss that no one around her knew about.

You have to give yourself space and permission to grieve the loss of plans and dreams.

Lisa never set out to write her book; she was primarily a fiction writer. The book was an outgrowth of her personal healing process. “I just needed to tell my story.”

Her 2^nd book is the How-To resource that she couldn’t find when she needed it most.

Regarding prying questions that others sometimes ask, Lisa felt defensive, hurt, and embarrassed about her inability to have a baby.

Her advice is to prepare some stock answers to those questions and pick whichever one you’re in the mood for!

Some of the myths that Lisa has dealt with are: “you didn’t want it badly enough if you stopped trying,” and “you just have to keep on trying.”

Lisa’s meaning and purpose comes from her writing and the freedom she has to do things she wants and needs to do, like being available for her ageing mother.

She enjoys the life she now leads with infinite possibilities for travel and living ANYWHERE!

Lisa hopes her writing will be her legacy. 

An added benefit of her lifestyle is the deep friendships with others that might not be as possible if she had children.

Grab a copy of Lisa’s fabulous new book here:

Find more more about Lisa and here work here.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode! I do hope you enjoyed. 
Please share with another woman who would benefit and subscribe!