Dear Subscriber First Name

Seven years ago, we pressed publish on a 20-minute podcast episode and had absolutely no idea what we were doing.

There was no advertising budget. No grand plan. We knew that childless people deserved a podcast with voices from women and men, allowing guests to be honest about what their lives actually felt like, what they were creating or doing, and challenges we may not have heard of. Seven years later, we are still learning, and that’s the topic of this episode.

For Episode 86, our seventh birthday episode, we listened back to clips from that very first recording. We heard our younger, rawer, slightly more terrified selves trying to get to know each other. We cried a bit. We laughed quite a lot. And now we’re talking about what has changed for each of us (and what hasn’t) and our hopes for the childless community around this podcast. What we’ve learned about each other, about the bigger picture around gender, sexuality, chronic illness and race and how that folds into childlessness; about ageing, anger, end of life and being single … and so much more.

Since recording, we’re now well over 50,000 downloads. Listeners in most countries in the world. That's you. That's all of you. And we are more grateful than we know how to say.

As always, you are not alone.

With love, Berenice, Sarah and Michael
email us: hello@thefullstoppod.com

Finding the Full Stop

Everything you need to listen, connect, read and join us is all in one place at our bio site and on our website

The Full Stop Community is where the conversation carries on long after the episode ends. It is open to anyone who is childless not by choice, regardless of gender, race, age, religion, sexuality or circumstance. Built entirely for and by people who are living with childlessness. Membership is £10 a month for round-the-clock access. If the cost doesn't work for you right now, just reach out and ask. We'll always do what we can.

Support the Full Stop

The Full Stop is made with a lot of love. If something you heard today stayed with you, if an episode made you feel less alone, gave you the words you needed, or simply reminded you that you matter, we'd be so grateful if you'd consider supporting us in one of these small but meaningful ways:

• Buy us a virtual coffee on Ko-fi — every single one helps keep the conversations going

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Podbean — it takes two minutes and helps more people find us

You don't have to. But if you'd like to, then thank you. It means the world.

Say Yes!

Following on from a post I wrote this morning for social media:

“When an unexpected invitation or a new idea comes your way, it’s incredibly easy to look for the reasons not to do it. We tell ourselves we’re too busy, it’s out of our comfort zone, or the timing isn’t perfect.

But seven years ago today, when the opportunity arose to be part of The Full Stop, I chose a different response. I decided to just say yes, step into the unknown, and see where the road would take me.

​If I had allowed the doubts or the "why-nots" to win back then, I would have missed out on:

• An Incredible Community: Connecting with hundreds of people globally, sharing stories that truly matter.

• ​A New Creative Path: Turning a simple idea into a platform with a blog, advocacy work, and deep, meaningful conversations.

• ​Personal Growth: Realising that some of the most rewarding chapters of our lives start when we stop overthinking and just start doing.

​As we celebrate our 7th birthday, I am incredibly glad I took that leap. To my brilliant co-hosts and friends, Berenice Howard-Smith  and Sarah Lawrence —thank you for being on this remarkable journey. And to everyone who has listened, shared, and supported us along the way: thank you for being part of our story.

​The next time you're faced with an invitation to try something new, try bypassing the reasons to say no. Say yes instead. You might just find yourself looking back seven years from now, completely changed for the better.”

I’ve been reflecting deeply on our milestone anniversary.

Seven years ago, when Sarah, Berenice, and I first pressed record, I was a complete bundle of nerves. If you listen to this birthday episode, you'll hear that I actually dug out some interesting snippets from our very first recording to reflect on. It's amazing to see how far we've come. We didn't start with a massive corporate plan; we just had an organic desire to create a safe space and give a voice to a community that so often felt invisible.

Now, eighty-six episodes and over 50,000+ downloads later, that single decision to step into the unknown has evolved into a global platform. In this special episode, the three of us look back at our journey, sharing insights on our growth, community building, and the lessons we've learned along the way. We laugh about our early uncertainty, look at how our own perspectives on childlessness have changed, and celebrate the incredible, diverse community we've built together.

What these seven years have taught me is that making a difference doesn’t require perfection; it requires authenticity. It’s about being willing to hold space for the heavy emotional weight of grief and identity, while still leaving room for humour, lightheartedness, and genuine connection. The extraordinary guest stories we've been privileged to host have completely broadened our understanding, changing us right alongside our listeners.

If you are currently sitting on the fence about an invitation or a new idea in your own life, I hope our story serves as a reminder to bypass the doubts. Say yes, step into the unknown, and see where the road takes you. You never know what's around the next corner. Then tell us about it, be a guest!

A massive thank you to my brilliant co-hosts and friends, Berenice and Sarah, for sharing this remarkable ride, and an even bigger thank you to every single one of you in our global community. Thank you for listening, for sharing your vulnerabilities, and for continuously reminding us that none of us are alone.

Grab a cuppa, sit back, and join us.

Michael

Reconnecting

For the eagle-eyed amongst you, or the eagle-eared, you’ll have noticed that I’ve not been around for recordings since the end of 2025 and I’ve not been in our community either. In fact, I’ve not been many places at all to be honest, because my personal life has been tricky to say the least.

If I was to summarise how I feel about 2026, it would be the fact that I’ve had a gutful of this year already and we’re less than four months in. Everything this year has been focused on ageing and ailing parents, something not enough people speak about when it comes to our own ageing. No-one mentions the panic, feeling out of control, and the bucketfuls of grief, as you watch a parent struggle with their health, and the fallout on family.  

There really is no polite way of putting this because it has been a shitshow. And it has meant essentially parking my life to provide care for parents, emotional support for family and using my remaining capacity to try to get to grips with an NHS that has been less than stellar in its treatment of my Dad. Don’t get me wrong, I love the NHS, I love that we have the NHS, but being caught up in its systems, trying to get a loved one much-needed help can be truly frustrating and heartbreaking all at the same time.

And so, returning to the podcast for our latest episode where it was just us reflecting on seven years of the podcast was a much-needed tonic and felt like returning to familiar, solid ground, like coming home. Listening to Michael’s stories or Berenice’s beautiful soothing voice is just so comforting. And then having space to ask questions and share my own experiences felt good.   

There’s a special kind of magic in podcasting that I can’t replicate elsewhere. It’s getting to know someone – be that a guest or my co-presenting friends and listening to them speak about something they are passionate about. It’s giving someone space to really offer solutions or comfort to help people out in the ether. But it’s also reconnecting with the community. Just imagining you out there listening to us over a laptop, or phone…perhaps you’re at home, or you’re travelling somewhere, but you’re out there regardless of time zones or geography.

It’s just a joy to reconnect and see something bigger than what I have going on at the moment, because it has felt very lonely these past few months. To know that the podcast continues despite me stepping back, means a lot. Michael and Berenice have done an amazing job of keeping it all going. And so, thank you to them and to you for listening and for your support.

Sarah

You Pressed Play

I've thought about you more than you know.

I don't know your name. I don't know exactly where you were sitting when you found us. Maybe it was on a train, or in bed with the lights off, or on a walk when you chose to be alone. I don't know what made you search for something that sounded like us, or whether you found us by accident, or whether a friend sent you a link.

But I have a feeling about who you are. And I wanted to write to you on our seventh birthday, because I don't think we'd still be here without you.

I think you were having a hard day when you found us. Did you wake up when the first thought was about childlessness? A day where you're feeling something enormous that nobody around you quite has the language for, but goodness knows you've tried, you really have tried, to explain it. You've said the words and got silence or fixes. You've seen the well-meaning face of a friend who loves you but doesn't get it, who said something they thought would help, and instead left you feeling more alone than before you spoke.

I think you'd already done a bit of the mourning. You understood, in your bones, that children weren't going to be part of your story and somewhere found a way to keep going. But grief isn't a straight line, is it? It ebbs, and it flows. And sometimes, on an ordinary Tuesday, it comes back and sits right down next to you uninvited. Maybe it’s a feeling inside you that grows or shrinks but never leaves.

And I think what you needed then wasn't someone to fix it. You didn't want advice or silver linings. You just wanted company. Friendly voices. People who already knew. That's what you were hoping we might be.

I want to tell you something I wish I'd said on that very first episode, back when Michael, Sarah and I pressed publish and had absolutely no idea what we were doing.

You are not too much. Your grief is not too much. The fact that it still catches you sometimes, even now, even after all this time, does not mean you haven't healed. It means you are human. It means it mattered. And it will always have mattered.

I want to tell you that the friend who didn't know what to say, they love you. Some of them listen to a podcast and come back to you later. I've heard from people who said they became a better friend, a better aunt, a better colleague, because of conversations that started here. That's because of you. You were brave enough to keep showing up even when the world didn't quite know how to show up for you.

I heard that you came to see us at Storyhouse Childless once.

I love that you came. I love that you sat in that space and saw that we were just people (a bit chaotic, very fond of each other, occasionally talking over one another) and that it was both exactly what you expected and somehow still a surprise. That we were real and we talked with you. That this thing you'd been listening to was made by actual human beings who are pottering along with you.

I hope you weren't too overwhelmed. I hope you knew, even then, that the warmth you felt through your headphones was the same warmth that was in that room. That it wasn't a performance and we meant it

You're in our Full Stop Community now. I know you found your hug there (actual and in words) that's what we call it, because some weeks that's exactly what it is, a hug.

I know you have more good days now than heavy ones. I know childlessness is part of you, but not the whole of you and that it lives alongside everything else rather than swallowing it. I know you've made friends there, real ones, people who came to the same place for different reasons and the same reasons, and that you understand each other in the way that only people who've walked similar ground can.

I love that you passed us on. That there is someone in your life perhaps wondering if there was a space that was also for them and that you thought of us. That is community working exactly as it should.

And then you told someone else. And somewhere in that small chain of brave, quiet gestures, The Full Stop became the thing it is now, not because of anything clever we did, but because people like you decided it was worth showing up for.

So on our seventh birthday, I want to say thank you. For pressing play. For coming back. For the Ko-fi donation, the Full Stop community and the friend you passed us on to and the days you showed up even when it felt hard.

You were never just a listener. You were always part of this.

Berenice

In Other News

News from Robert Nurden who is one of our podcast guests: “My two-hander play Empty, about being childless not by choice, is getting a five-night run at the Drayton Arms Theatre, London, from
7-11 July. Tickets are now on sale and you can buy them via this link. On 8 July, (which is also Press Night) after the performance, there will be a discussion panel all about unwanted childlessness.

Patrick Rydman has composed a piece of music with his co-writer Elsa Fahlén about involuntary childlessness – a grief we both carry. He tells us that “Dandelion grew out of a walk on a Gotland shoreline, where thousands of tiny baby mussels had washed up on the beach. That image cracked something open between me and my collaborator Elsa Fahlén – a shared grief we’d both been carrying quietly. What came out was a song about involuntary childlessness that has since found its way to people who needed it more than we knew.” Listen on major platforms.

Early Bird booking closed for Storyhouse Childless, you can get a weekend pass for £40 on their website.

Interested in being our guest? Here’s a blog post on what to expect.

Michael has a new blog on Married and Childless which was his first website (and now integrated into the Full Stop website). He writes about finding unity in a childless marriage.

Meg LeDuc got in touch to share her HuffPost article on finding peace in her childless marriage and neurodivergent identity after psychosis.

Helpline details

UK: Contact the Samaritans on freephone 116 123, they're open 24 hours and are there to listen and Mind.

USA: Suicide Prevention

Canada: Canada Crisis

Australia: Beyond Blue

Meriel Whale Counselling

Sarah Lawrence After The Storm

Pink Therapy (UK): Directory of LGBTQIA+ friendly therapists.

Many of our guests have channels online and blogs so you can follow what they do and read their words. Head to our podcast page, and click on the episode image to access the show notes and further reading.

Disclaimer

The Full Stop podcast and content posted by The Full Stop Community CIC is presented solely for general information, and educational purposes. The guests’ views may not represent those of the Full Stop Community CIC, online community members or the co-directors. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.