Today, I’m sharing a short excerpt from the Childless by Marriage book, one I hope will make us all smile a little. 

As editor of the Saratoga News, I often received press releases from The Pet Network, a local dog and cat rescue agency. Remembering the close bond I had had with Heidi, the German Shepherd I had shared with my first husband–and lost in the divorce–I decided I wanted another dog. Now that Fred and I had a house of our own, there was no reason we couldn’t have a dog. We started going to animal adoption fairs, visiting rescue dogs displayed at various area shopping centers.

When we first met Sadie at a PetSmart store, her name was Snapple. A German Shepherd-yellow Lab mix, she had the same dark eyes as Heidi had, the same lush multi-layered fur, and the same plumed tail, with the sturdy body of a Lab. She was mostly the color of the Snapple iced-tea drink.

As I reached out to pet her, she wagged her tail. “Fred, look. What do you think about this one?”

“She seems nice.”

The dog’s tail wagged faster.

Snapple had a problem. The volunteers said she was so aggressive with other animals that she couldn’t be boarded with any other dogs. Hm.. Our house had come with an old cat, and we certainly didn’t want a dog that might hurt her. We decided to keep looking

Two weeks later, Snapple was still there. Now they called her Sadie, having decided her name was discouraging potential owners. She was beautiful. As we leaned over to pet her, she licked our hands and wagged her tail. She didn’t seem to have any problem with the other dogs nearby that day. We asked to take her out for a walk.

We strolled around the store, then sat on the warm pavement just outside the back door. This dog acted as if she was already part of the family.

“I like her,” I said.

“Me too,” Fred replied.

“Do you want to live with us?” I asked the dog.

Her dark eyes sparkled as if she understood.

We came back in, paid $100 for the dog, bought a leash, collar, bowl and food and loaded her into the Honda.

Our cat wasn’t too happy with the new addition. When Sadie came bounding into the back yard, Lady, sleeping on the lounge in the patio, flew at her with  teeth and claws extended. I grabbed her off the startled dog, and we started a life of dog in the back yard, cat in the front and never the twain should meet.

It wouldn’t be for long. Lady had already been diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer and would die a few months later, but things were tense for a while.

Michael, Fred’s son, who had moved in with us a few months earlier, was happy with the new dog. When we weren’t around, he let her sleep in his bed. We started signing Christmas and birthday cards from “Fred, Sue, Michael and Sadie, letting people wonder if we’d had a baby girl.

Our family was complete.

Drum roll, please . . . . Here is the new cover for the Childless by Marriage paperback. It will also replace the Kindle e-book cover in the near future. Yes, that is from my wedding. Don’t those hands look young, innocent, and loving, with no idea what will happen in the future?

I can’t believe I went through so much craziness to get the original brown cover that is elegant in a sparse kind of way but not at all what I had dreamed of. It was only through looking through hundreds of stock photos that I realized I might have something just as good in my own photo albums.

I will have ordering information online for the paperback within the next week. My recent trip to California delayed things a bit, as did a last-minute kerfuffle [disturbance, fuss] with the stepkids over the book, but the problems have been dealt with, and the print book is on its way. Sometime this month, the e-book will temporarily go offline, so I can make some minor changes and add the new cover. Be patient; it will be back, probably within a few hours.

I hope you all survived Father’s Day all right. Any experiences you care to share with our readers?

Dear readers,
I’m on the road this week and have a very limited Internet connection, so I’ll keep this short. Sorry I missed yesterday. Tomorrow I’ll be selling books at a festival in San Jose, so I’ll be offline then, too. Next week, I’ll be back on schedule.

I interviewed a very interesting woman yesterday. She’s exactly my age, but her life is very different because she has children and grandchildren. Toward the end, she asked about my children, and I had to tell her “I don’t have any children.” “Oh, I thought you did,” she said. Sigh.

I received a comment yesterday from a new reader who became so unhappy with her childless state that she slashed her wrists. I was shocked by that, but unhappiness can lead one to all kinds of desperate measures. She assured me she is in treatment now and is okay, but she wants to know how people cope and how they keep going without losing hope. Maybe one way is stepping out of your own grief to help other people. So, my friends, do you have any words of comfort for the woman who calls herself Lizardgoat and for anyone else who might be feeling just as desperate but hasn’t found the courage to write?

Talk to you soon.

It’s time to share what other people are writing about childlessness.

In a play on the new movie “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” Irish writer Anna Coogan wrote a great article for The Herald called “What to Expect When You’re Childless. She looks at all sides of the childless question, childless by choice, by circumstance or by infertility, dealing with people who don’t get it, and more.

For another view on the situation, visit the Childfree News blog. Keep in mind the author is coming from the “childfree” viewpoint, meaning she is childless by choice, but she makes some good points.

I’m always ragging on the need to talk with our partners about whether or not to have kids. Beth in the “Have Children or Not” blog often writes about this. In trying to help couples struggling with the decision to have children or not, she often finds that they waited until the marriage was in jeopardy to talk about it.

Beth links to a UK newspaper article titled “I Left the Husband I Loved Because He Refused to have Children (and had IVF Twins Alone).” It’s quite a story, especially for those of us in marriages where babies are seeming less likely every day.

See you Thursday.

I often write here about the need to have THE TALK with one’s partner about whether or not you’re going to have children. But after that talk, we’ll probably find ourselves having another talk–with our parents–about how they’re not going to be getting any grandchildren from us.

If they’re like most parents of adult children, they’re going to start hinting for grandchildren shortly after the wedding. As time passes and you’re not pregnant, they’re likely to start dropping hints, asking questions, noting that you’re not getting any younger, and laying guilt trips about how their friends are all getting grandchildren

How do you respond? Do you put them off with “not yet,” tell them it’s not going to happen, or change the subject?

In my own case, although I remember many conversations about marriage while we did dishes together, I don’t remember telling my mother I wasn’t going to have kids with Fred. I know we talked about it, a lot, when I was with my first husband. Children were still a possibility then. After the divorce, I remember talking about whether or not I was too old–I wasn’t.

But when I hooked up with Fred, did we have the talk about his vasectomy and reluctance to have more children? I don’t think we did. I do remember that my mother took my side when other family members bugged me about kids. When I moped about not being a mother, she insisted I was a mother because I had stepchildren, even though she didn’t have much of a relationship with them.

As for my father, we didn’t talk about that kind of thing. I’d talk to Mom, and she’d talk to him. I know he would have enjoyed the children I might have had. But we’ve never spoken about it directly.

How about you? How did you break the news to your parents? How did they react? Or have you put off that conversation indefinitely?