M is divorced, single, and in her late 30s. For the past few years, she’s been wrestling with the question of whether or not she actually wants to have a child. This is her anonymous story.
It’s hard to decide if this is a primal pull, just human hormones, or if it’s a thing that I actually want to do. When you get to a certain age, all of a sudden you go, oh my god, this door is closing. I actually have to make a decision. You start thinking about the future differently. [During my marriage] I said I didn’t want to have a kid, but I think I didn’t want to have a kid with that person. I was busy, focused on my career, and no one I knew had kids yet. [Worrying about this] probably started when I turned 35, which is so basic.
What is my life going to look like? Is it just going to be me, going out, seeing friends and having dinners … for ever and ever until I die? Is there ever going to be a change? Am I missing out on something that is this huge experience? I’d be a good parent, and I like my friends’ kids, but I’m totally terrified because it’s such a permanent decision.
Sometimes I get set up with guys whose kids are a little older, and I wonder: What if I really fall in love with this person and they don’t want to have any more kids? Or, do I really fall in love with that person’s kids and they feel like my own kids? Your brain just starts spinning when you hit your late 30s.
I had been thinking about it before the pandemic, but the past year or so brought to light the hard part about being single. We talk about how the pandemic was really hard on people with kids, because just quite frankly, it was. Everything is hard on people with kids in the way we’ve structured our country. But we don’t talk enough about just how isolating, lonely, and really bad it was for people who are completely by themselves.
I lost a year of dating and I’ve lost a year, possibly, of fertility. I’ve lost a year of my age. I am panicking about everything, from the way I look to my health to kids… sometimes it just feels totally overwhelming. It’s not great, it’s really not great.
I have a pang of jealousy about [seeing people get married and have kids] now that I didn’t have before. Why can’t I find this, why can’t I do this? It’s definitely a different feeling than I had when I was younger.
Some of my friends are really into [having kids]. They love it, they say it’s the greatest thing they’ve ever done. And I go and hold their kids and I’m like, this is human Xanax. I just love holding a baby. Then I have other friends who say, “I love my kids, but don’t do it!” Their lives are so much harder. Parenting seems great, but it’s also all the time.
I don’t really have a whole lot of single friends left. I have a few who don’t want to have kids, and it’s helpful to talk to them. I end up talking to my friends who have kids a lot more because they are the majority of the people in my life. I have friends in their 40s who are doing what I am doing now. And my heart kind of panics for them because they are feeling the stress in the same way, and they waited a little longer to start the process of deciding, or freezing their eggs. That was also motivation for me to just do it now, so it’s done. But I am certainly not the only one in my life who is having this moment.
[Having a kid] is not something I would do by myself. Maybe when I’m older. Adoption’s always been something I’ve been interested in. I could probably do foster care. You just start thinking about all the different options that are on the table.
But I’m single — and maybe that’s actually making me feel more panicked than the idea that I won’t have kids.
I did the AMH hormone test, and I’m going to do a full follicle check and all that stuff at a fertility clinic. I spoke with a good friend of mine who said, “start the process of getting all the information about where you stand now.” Because sometimes people get into a relationship and things happen really fast, then you decide you want to start a family, but you have all these months of having to do this work to figure out where you are. She’s like, “Do that now. You’ll have a good idea of where you are, maybe it’ll help you make a decision in a relationship, and if you meet someone and things move quickly, you’ll already have groundwork set.” Or it just works out and there’s no issues and you’re fine.
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“I’ll regret it if I do and I’ll regret it if I don’t. It’s just what regret is the best fit for your lifestyle”
[Doing the testing] is an active choice. It’s like, get the information. I’m going into it now prepared for the worst. I always work back from the worst-case scenario. I don’t know if I will be devastated either way, but I worry about it devastating a potential partner.
In your head, you don’t feel old. You don’t feel your age, but you get these test results back and you’re like what, I’m average? Or slightly below average in whatever this hormone is, this fertility hormone. It’s a real slap in the face. You can’t outrun it. It’s just like, what? It wasn’t a glowing review! I haven’t done the rest of the testing yet, so I don’t know the full picture. It’s just one piece of the puzzle but oh man, that’s not what I wanted to hear.
I never saw myself freezing my eggs, to be honest, because I never thought I cared all that much. But at this point, I would be open to it. I’m just trying to find answers rather than make the decision. Maybe I’m just trying to find information.
[I regret] the time I’ve wasted on people. The time I haven’t put into myself. Smoking. Things like that. You can’t help but go through the past a little bit. But I just remind myself that you can’t change the past. You just have tomorrow coming, you just get to reset and start over.
This is all an exercise that will maybe lead me back to where I started, which is: I don’t want to do this. But if you don’t go on this journey, it can sneak up on you later. Then you’re 45 and you wonder, should I have done this, should I have processed this more? No one can answer the question for you.
I’ll regret it if I do and I’ll regret it if I don’t. It’s just what regret is the best fit for your lifestyle.
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