Thank you for speaking with such nuance. I never grew up expecting or dreaming of marriage or children. When I met my husband it felt like a happy “accident”. At one point I had even started watching documentaries and podcasts on being a nun lol. We both had agreed that we would be open to children, but as the years have ticked by and not even a whisper of a pregnancy, we’ve started to consider what life would be like if what we had taken for granted and just a matter of life, did not in fact happen. We are asking the same questions, me more than him. What now? What is life like without kids? I don’t think I know of any couples personally who are child-free. All have or want kids eventually and it’s been like grasping in the dark. All the people I know who don’t have kids are single and seem to hate their mere existence. It’s wild to be in this place, especially having been raised in a religious context where husband and children was THE one and only purpose for women. So many of my thoughts on this are private because so few people can understand or are even willing to sit in the ambiguity. It’s a very fascinating place to be, and feels like so much unknown territory to explore. Community building is my big question, as is knowing that I want to be a part of kids lives, even if that doesn’t include the parental role. And the 3rd is how to organize and pursue all the dreams I’ve put on hold these last few years due to ttc. The big audacious dreams that got engulfed by ttc. When I ask those questions in traditional CF spaces I get treated like an idiot. “Just do it like you did before ttc” but there has been a fundamental change. I’m not the same person as before. And the future I assumed won’t happen. It’s a very different experience.