Legacy Without Lineage

A field guide to the life unplanned.

If you follow the standard societal script, life has a specific rhythm. You grow up. You get a job. You partner up. You reproduce. You pass the baton. You join "The Club."

But sometimes, the baton gets dropped.

Matterhood is an archive of the life unplanned. It is a space for the Childless Not By Choice (CNBC)—a demographic whispered about in medical waiting rooms but rarely given a microphone at the dinner party.

We are your editors, Craig and Courtney.

We live in Brisbane. We like good coffee, architectural brutality, and silence. We also have a combined medical history that reads like a car crash: Azoospermia, testicular cancer, Endometriosis, Low Ovarian Reserve, and the kind of IVF trauma that changes your DNA even if it doesn't pass it on.

We spent years trying to fix the glitch. We did the surgeries. We did the "Sperm Dash" through city traffic with a sample cup tucked against a thigh. We survived the "Private Number" phone calls that divide a life into Before and After.

And at the end of it all? The spare room stayed a spare room.

Why are we here?

Because we realized something. There are plenty of resources on how to get pregnant. There are very few on how to find meaning when you don't.

We found ourselves bombarded by a world obsessed with parenting. We felt the specific isolation of the "Other." But we refused to accept that a life without children is a life without purpose.

Matterhood is a workshop.

It is where we document the messy, heart-breaking, hilarious, and complex reality of building a life when the biological blueprint burns down.

• We share the Grief without drowning in it.
• We share the Absurdity of the medical system.
• We share the Transfer—how we are trying to redirect that nurturing energy into community, creativity, and connection.

We don't have the answers. We definitely aren't gurus. We are just two people standing in the wreckage, figuring out what the future looks like now that the default setting is gone.

We are still navigating the awkward conversations. We are still navigating the silent anniversaries.

But we are doing it here. Out in the open.

Whether you are deep in the trenches, coming out the other side, or just trying to understand a friend who is carrying this weight. Welcome.

This is how we matter.