After a tough childhood, I didn’t want children, but changed my mind in my late twenties after being part of my then-husband’s loving family. Unfortunately, I struggled with unexplained infertility, the stress of which contributed to divorce, and I began my forties single, childless, friendless, broke and broken, yet nobody could hear or empathize with my pain.

In 2011, I started Gateway Women and through it have healed my childless heart and helped many others to do the same. Now cusping sixty, I’m journeying into childless elderhood with hopeful curiosity as I prepare to become a good ancestor.

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Often referred to as the ‘founder of the childless movement’ because of her work with Gateway Women since 2011, Jody is also the author of the 'go-to' book on healing from the heartbreak of childlessness, ‘Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children’ (Bluebird/PanMac).

Chosen as one of the BBC’s 100 Women in 2013 & awarded as UK Digital Woman of the Year in 2021, Jody’s a global thought leader on female involuntary childlessness, a psychotherapist, a 2017 and 2022 TEDx speaker, a founding and former board member at what is now the UK Charity Ageing Without Children, and a former Fellow in Social Innovation at Cambridge Judge Business School.

After a lifetime in London, five years ago she moved to rural Ireland, and recently moved into her forever home by the Atlantic, where she’s working on finishing her first novel (featuring a childless heroine of course!) and midwifing the emergingGateway Elderwomen project.www.gateway-women.com