First — I got some feedback from readers that they’re curious about my writing/editing process and while today’s newsletter isn’t about that, I do want to share my recent interview with Erica Schneider, which covers this topic and links out to her Editing Library, which is a super helpful self-editing resource.
Now, as you may have guessed from the subject line, today I’ll be sharing how I decided whether to have kids or not. So, you know, light stuff!
For context: my husband has a school-age child, and he got a vasectomy shortly after she was born. I just turned 40 in December. For us to conceive naturally, our two basic options were to:
1) have him undergo a vasectomy reversal, heal, and then attempt to get pregnant,
-or-
2) do IVF cycles and hope that works out.
Neither of these options is guaranteed to work, and both are physically taxing. The recovery from the vasectomy reversal takes months, and we live in a house with multiple flights of stairs (plus, Davey was not excited about taking a three-month hiatus from Crossfit and other activities he loves). IVF, on the other hand, would be more painful and difficult for me.
The success rates for the reversal can technically be up to 90% (although numbers are mixed across the internet) — but then coupled with my declining fertility, who knows? For women my age, the IVF success rate hovers between 30-35%. The general consensus online from women in my situation was that IVF is the best route because if the reversal didn’t work, you’d have to do IVF anyway, and it’s the more expensive option of the two, so might as well just skip to that.
I should also mention here that because he’d had the vasectomy, we are no longer eligible for any insurance coverage for fertility treatments, meaning we’d pay entirely out of pocket. IVF cycles start at $12K and often take more than one to work. The reversal is only slightly less. (We did find a doctor in Texas who charges around $4K for reversals, but they were pretty chaotic to schedule with and never called us back to finalize things, which felt like a sign.)
All this to say, there was a lot of uncertainty, financial pressure, and general stress on me to figure whether I wanted to try for a pregnancy. I say “me” because yes, this is a joint decision, but Davey said he was okay either way. He didn’t feel a pressing need to have another kid, necessarily, but he would also enjoy being a parent with me. If we were going to take either of those two routes, it needed to be because I was sure I wanted to have a biological child. That was the only thing that would make all of this labor (and money) worth it for both of us.
So I’ve been stewing on this question for at least the last year, if not two. I’d swing back and forth between two extremes: sometimes, I’d see a baby and feel this deep, visceral ache inside of me that I wasn’t having the experience of being a mom. Other times, we’d have Lydia for two weeks and I’d relish in the downtime and quiet after she left and know in my bones that I absolutely did not want to have another kid in the house.
My therapist and I talked at length about these feelings. We also discussed how I’ve never felt that innate need so many people describe to have children. That’s not a prerequisite for having a child, by any means, but I also think it’s important that any push I’ve felt toward motherhood has been pretty fleeting.
After many conversations and many hours spent on Reddit, where all important life decisions are made, I bought the book, The Baby Decision: How to Make the Most Important Choice of Your Life by Merle Bombardieri, MSW, LICSW.
And some other resources I found helpful:
Reddit, particularly the Fencesitter and Regretful Parents subs
Regretting Motherhood: A Study by Orna Donath — a very illuminating study, and the only one of its kind
How To Decide Whether To Have a Baby (podcast)
At some point during this process, I had an intense dream while Davey was out of town for work. In the dream, my dad died, and I woke up crying and terrified the dream was an omen. But when I looked up the meaning of it, the internet returned the following:
However, she says your parent may also represent some part of yourself. “In this case, your parent could be standing in for your own role or identity as a parent.”
Loewenberg suggests asking yourself:
Has your perspective of yourself as a parent shifted?
Are you struggling to become a parent and feel that the possibility of that happening is dying?
Are you having a difficult time with a child and feel that your ability to parent correctly has been affected?
Have you decided you don’t want kids, in which case the idea of being a parent has ended for you?
Reflecting on these questions can help you pinpoint the cause of your dream.
UM, OKAY.
After thinking more about the dream, it seemed pretty clear to me that it was a sign to let go of being a parent and be okay with it. In the dream, my dad expressed to me complete acceptance and peace about his death, which was confusing to me in the context of the dream — but it made sense in this light because I was so not at peace with my decision to have kids or not.
In the end, even after reading countless stories and perspectives in favor of having kids or not having them — and even after that DREAM — I still felt unsure. What I did learn along the way was that either choice would lead to some regrets. I might have a kid and then feel envious of my childfree friends and their free time. Or I might enjoy the benefits of being kidless (half the time, anyway) but still feel a sense of longing when I saw someone holding their baby. No one gets through life without any regrets, and that is normal. Feeling regretful didn’t mean I’d made the wrong choice.
(An important note here: There is so much shame around admitting you feel regret if you DO choose to have kids, which is the reason that book, Regretting Motherhood, is the only one like it. Here’s a podcast episode by someone who admits they feel this way, too. I wish we allowed regretful parents the space to honestly express themselves without fear of judgment or, in the case of the women interviewed for the book, death threats. Why is it so incomprehensible that, like any other choice in life, people might have regret about this one? When I was searching for advice from other parents in my life on how to decide, someone actually told me, “No one ever regrets it” despite there being obvious contradictory evidence — and I think that’s because no one TALKS about it because they’re too scared to!)
Through this process, I was also able to address some of the misconceptions I had around not having my own kid: namely, that I’d be lonely when I got older if I didn’t “just do it” and that I was somehow shortchanging my parents by choosing not to.
On the first issue: Reminding myself that I’ve always worked to cultivate community and build relationships was helpful — there’s no reason to believe I won’t still be the same decades from now. There are also tons of people I know who don’t enjoy being around their families, so there’s that. Why do we think that having kids equates to close relationships when so many people only visit or talk to their own parents the bare minimum amount?
As for the worries about not giving my parents a bio grandchild, I just addressed it head on. I asked my dad, who LOVES kids, if he would be upset or feel like he missed out if I didn’t at least try, and I think he was confused that I would even ask (lol). He said this was a huge decision and that no one should make it on account of someone else, which I knew was the right answer, but it still helped me shrug off the guilt I was feeling.
When I got past the idealized thinking of how “cute and fun” a small baby would be or how nice it would be to have the “perfect family” when I am older, I struggled to wrap my brain around the logistics of actively parenting a child until my retirement years. At one point, I wrote in my journal, “Do I want to wait until I’m almost 60 to have complete control over my time again?” There are definitely times now when I feel like I’m counting down the hours till bedtime because we have a few kids over, and I’m ready to retreat upstairs and read my book — was that something I wanted to willingly sign up for 24/7?
The actual work of parenting is a whole other discussion, but getting a taste for it has been eye-opening. I had no idea before becoming a stepparent the sheer hours of labor — physical, mental, and emotional — that go into this whole operation. When we have Lydia, most of my brainpower goes toward her scheduling and her needs; I am an afterthought to my own self until after bedtime. As an introvert, this can be brutal!
I have learned that this is just not the same world that millennials like me were raised in. I remember running around my neighborhood with a group of friends and staying out until the streetlights came on. I remember times when my parents would go visit family, and the kids would wander off and entertain ourselves. My parents were not my friends when I was a child. Not the case for today’s kids! They are in your house, attached to your side, and you’re their bestie, their parent figure, and their social, athletic, and educational director for the foreseeable future.
The world is not set up to make it easy to rear children, either, as any working parent can attest — summer camps in my neighborhood cost, on average, $400ish a week per kid, and they don’t even feed them lunch or last all day. (Who works M-F, 9 AM - 3 PM?!) The schools have breaks here and there and everywhere, and you randomly have to figure out childcare for a week in February just because. When school is in session, there are holidays and school spirit weeks and dress-up days and fundraisers and something pretty much all the time. Oh, and all of the kids are also doing all of the sports and extracurriculars, and they’re only like 5 years old.
Of course you can opt out of a lot of these things and do it differently, but it’s HARD to do that. I don’t want my kid to fall behind the pack or be left out. I have OCD and am a perfectionist, and I know that I would spend a lot of time making sure that all of the boxes are checked, largely to my own detriment.
It might be obvious by now, but in the end we decided to keep the status quo and not pursue either of our options. We’ll continue raising Lydia, of course, which I’m grateful to be part of, and maybe in the future we’ll look at adoption or fostering, if that’s something we feel called to do, but pushing ahead with surgery or fertility interventions felt forced to me right now. Ticking clock be damned.
It would require a big emotional shift for me to change my mind, which seems unlikely at this point, but hey, you never know. I’ve learned to rarely say “never.”
What do you think? If you’ve made this decision or are struggling to, I’d love to hear about your process and what resources helped you along the way!
Self-Help Book Club?
I’m thinking about running a virtual book club to discuss some self-help books like:
MoneyZen by Manisha Thakor
Simple and Free: 7 Experiments Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker
No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz
I have not read any of these, but I plan to this year, and I thought it would be interesting to hear other people’s POVs on them.
These meetings would likely not be free as I’m trying not to take on any more unpaid labor right now, but they would be very affordable, as I also don’t want to prohibit anyone from coming. Like, sliding scale, starting at $1.
Tell me you’re interested here, and I’ll organize something if time allows!
ROUNDUP:
I had a busy week hosting Lydia’s birthday party + sleepover + shuttling her to tons of church activities so not much to report here!
Watching: Couples Therapy S4
Friend of the newsletter Vanessa is launching The Greatness, a virtual group program for professional women ready to break free from self-doubt, reclaim their energy, and step into their full potential — perfect for those done with burnout, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism.
We the Change is a community for purpose-driven women leaders
WHY ARE THERE NO F*CKING JOBS? is one of the rawest things I’ve read and I’m sad for new grads in this economy
See you next week,
Nikki
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This was so good. Thank you for your insights on regrets. It's so true, these are normal and it's ok. As someone who has 3 and the latter taking me into near-retirement age in her teen years it's feels pretty bleak at times. However, I have the hindsight now to know that every stage is different and they adapt to your rhythms. They'll also seek more independence and you get some of yours back. Congrats to you for giving yourself the space to feel confident in your decision.