ABOUT THE EMPTY CRADLE
Your precious childlessness story is welcome here
Is this you?
You’re a thoughtful, capable, deeply feeling woman
And yet, there is one part of your life that has not unfolded as you had hoped. The dream of having a child, of becoming a mother. For different reasons, it hasn’t happened.
You may have tried for years or your path may have taken a different shape. However you arrived here, something deeply important has been lost and much of it is carried quietly.
At times, you may feel: alone in this, outside of the life you expected, or unsure how to make sense of what comes next. You may be functioning on the outside but internally, something feels unsettled.
A space where childlessness is understood
Childlessness is often spoken about lightly, or not at all, but for many women, it is a profound life experience.
One that can affect your sense of self, your relationships, your sense of belonging, and how you imagine your future. What is often needed is not reassurance or solutions, but a space where this can be understood properly.
featured in
Channel 7
ABC Australia
MamaMia
That's Life
Flight Centre
Fertility Society
Daily Mail
Sarah Roberts, childlessness grief counsellor, group facilitator and lived experience advocate
Hello, I’m Sarah
You are so welcome here.
My work supports women who are childless not by choice — women who desired motherhood and are now shaping a life beyond it.
I am an involuntarily childless woman myself. After a decade of trying to conceive, including IVF, I came to understand that the end of the motherhood path, whilst a significant loss, was the beginning of a profound process of meaning making, healing and re-authoring who I am.
Through The Empty Cradle, I offer online counselling, group programs and resources that support women to grieve what has been lost and to create lives that feel connected and meaningful.
I first began sharing my own story publicly in 2014, offering one of very few voices for the involuntary childless lived experience. Ongoing dialogue with involuntary childless women continues to inform and ground all of my work.
This work is relational, trauma-aware, and grounded in the understanding that we are responding to a real and significant loss, and that it is possible, over time, to grow forward in ways that feels steady and authentic.
You may feel alone, but here’s why you’re not
This work is not separate from the wider conversations around family formation and childlessness, it sits within them.
Over time, I have seen how often this experience is shaped not only by personal circumstance, but by the cultural absence of language, recognition, and meaningful support.
Many women are left carrying something significant, without a clear place for it to be understood. This has led me to contribute, where I can, to bringing more visibility to this experience. To support a more accurate understanding of what involuntary childlessness is, and what it is not.
I care deeply about how this experience is spoken about and how this shapes the cultural context and social policy. Language shapes what is recognised, validated, and supported. At its core, this work is about ensuring that what is often carried quietly is met with greater clarity, dignity, and care.
The Empty Cradle
a specialist space for women navigating involuntary childlessness
The Empty Cradle is a specialist space for women navigating involuntary childlessness. It was created to offer something that is often missing.
A place that brings together: specialist understanding of involuntary childlessness, therapeutic depth, and a way of working that respects both the difficulty of this experience and your capacity to meet it, with support
Since 2017, this work has supported women through counselling, groups, and ongoing resources.
My work is relational, trauma-aware, and grounded in the understanding that childlessness is an ongoing life transition — not a single event.
In our work together, we may:
- make space for grief that has not had room before
- explore how this experience has shaped your sense of self
- understand shifts in relationships, identity and direction
- and gently begin to consider what life might look like now.
This is steady, thoughtful work.
We go at a pace that feels manageable for you.
Alongside grief, many women experience a shift in how they see themselves
A questioning of worth.
A sense of being outside of life.
A loss of where they stand, or how they belong
Over time, this can shape how you relate to yourself
You may find yourself:
- comparing
- withdrawing
- or holding a sense that your life is somehow “less than”
In this work, we begin to understand that more clearly.
to see how these beliefs were formed,
and to gently loosen their hold.
So that something else has space to emerge:
A more steady, reliable sense of self
that feels less shaped by absence
and more anchored within you.
This work is about reconnecting with that,
in a way that feels steady, and your own.
Childlessness is a profound and often unrecognised life experience.
Your grief reflects something deeply meaningful.
And I believe in your capacity, over time, to build a life that feels connected and worthwhile, even if it looks different to what you once imagined.
Open the door
to a new beginning
If something here feels familiar, you are very welcome to begin.
You don’t need to have clarity. You don’t need to have the right words. You can start with a single conversation. A quiet place to begin.