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("On hold" music)
Thank you for calling Donor [inaudible].
Hi. My name is Jennifer. How may I help you?
Hi, my name is Julia,
and I have 14 frozen eggs in a cryobank that I would like
to donate to somebody who might try to use them.
Do you guys do that sort of thing?
Hey Julia, that is super generous of you.
But, you know,
we actually do not take donated eggs in that way.
The eggs that are donated to us,
the donors have to go take all the testing and have the
retrieval done at our partner clinic.
Okay, thanks for your help.
(Gentle music)
All right, Julia, have a good day.
You too.
I had frozen my eggs 10 years earlier.
Egg freezing was definitely a strange experience.
After all the doctor's visits and tests and injections,
I went under and when I woke up,
they said they harvested 14 eggs.
But I've never seen them.
I don't even know where the cryobank is.
And of course, if you want to use them,
you don't know if they will work.
Except I know I won't use them.
(Car door closes)
I have no children and I will not be having any.
(Rumble of car driving away)
I have tons of reasons for why not,
the biggest being financial.
(Bell ring sound)
I also didn't meet my partner till I was 40.
(Sliding surface sound)
And my experience with my family, made me reluctant
to start my own.
Women are meant to have kids, right?
I mean, it's how we keep the human race going.
So as I tried to figure out what the hell's wrong with me,
I started talking to other women.
(Phone ringing)
Turns out their reasons for not
(Popping sounds)
having kids are as varied as mine.
(Click sound)
Some of us never wanted them.
Others would have had kids if
things had worked out differently.
Probably myself included.
(Doors open and close)
And we're much more normal,
or at least more numerous than I thought.
(Gentle music continues)
I've always wanted children.
I don't remember ever wanting children.
I always assumed I would have them.
I wanted children growing up.
I wanted to have them young.
I can't remember at any age ever thinking, gosh,
I'd really like to have a kid.
I didn't actually even want to get married.
Growing up didn't... really want kids.
I was 16 when I started thinking about not having children.
The birth rates all over the world have been dropping.
And this comes generally with development.
When people no longer require for
their livelihood to have lots of
children, such as, if you become an urban society,
(Traffic sounds)
you're much less likely to have lots and lots of kids.
And then the other thing is that since antibiotics and...
(High pitched sound)
vaccines have made the child death rate go down,
you didn't have to have so
many children to have a few
survive into adulthood.
And with good access to birth
control, in the 20th century,
we've seen all over the
world birth rates dropping.
It's good news, right?
In the US,
we had a fairly high birth rate
for a developed country,
up until the 70s.
And then it started to drop.
More recently,
it is at a historic low.
So it all started when I
received the annual bill from the
(Key turning)
cryobank for storage of the eggs, and decided not to renew.
Studies suggest that 85 to 90 percent of women who freeze eggs
(Sliding paper out of envelope)
for later do not return to use them.
Seems wasteful to me,
especially with so many infertile
people out there seeking egg donors.
So I began exploring, whether I can give my eggs to someone.
My other options would be to trash them,
(Clicking of mouse)
or donate them to science.
So when we look at fertility in the US,
right now it's around 1.65 kids per woman
if birth rates remain stable at their current levels.
We have to ask, is that what people want?
Are birth rates what they are because people really,
really want 1.6 kids?
And the answer is no,
this is not what people want on average.
When you survey women in the US, concretely,
You know, concretely
how many children realistically do you really intend to have?
And the answer that women tend to give in the US
and also in most other industrialized countries
is between 2 and 2.2.
(High five slap)
So women intends to have, about two or a little more than
two kids and yet end up with 1.6.
(Soft squeak)
So when that is so widespread,
when that gap is half a child per woman,
which is a way of saying every other woman is missing a child
(Pop sound)
that demands explanation.
(Gentle music)
How old were you when you decided not to have children?
How did that decision come about?
I did a lot of babysitting growing up.
I worked at a camp. I worked at a daycare.
And I know very intimately what is involved in rearing a child.
I knew that it took a lot of work,
and originally I was up for it, and I wanted kids,
I wanted three girls,
and for me it was more of an evolution where, the scales
were tipping in the other direction.
Things like climate change made me more scared about
whether I wanted to bring the child into the world,
but there was never one
particular point where I was like,
nope, that's it, I'm not having kids.
I grew up in Haiti up until I was 16
and then moved to the States.
I've seen what the future would be like for any child that
were to live in Haiti and... what that would look like.
And I decided that that's not
something I would want for my offspring.
And then I moved here, and I saw that black bodies weren't
treated any better here.
So I wouldn't want to have kids here either.
Every time I see, situations like Tamir Rice's,
Breonna Taylor's, Atatiana Jefferson, and what their moms',
what their moms' feel like, more than anything,
and the inability to move forward.
Trayvon Martin, until today,
that is probably one of the cases that affect me the most
because when I see Sybrina,
I can always feel that she feels like a part of her is
missing and that part will be missing forever.
And that kind of pain, I never want to experience that.
And I'm not saying that if I were to have kids tomorrow,
something like this would have happened to them.
I just do not ever want to know what that feels like.
And I rather, go about my life without ever experiencing that.
I don't want it.
I am an AFAB person: assigned female at birth, non-binary.
That's how I identify gender-wise, and sexuality,
I would say I'm queer.
Yeah, I'm also an AFAB non-binary individual,
and I also identify as queer.
I think when I was younger,
a lot of my friends would talk about it,
and I definitely felt like,
yeah, like, that's what we do, right?
Women have babies, and there was play around that,
but I think that I never felt super tied to it,
and then when I came out as queer in high school,
and then subsequently since that,
it's changed a lot in terms of, like,
Oh, I recognize that that is, something in the world,
and maybe not necessarily something for me.
I don't remember ever wanting children.
I always assumed I would have them.
It just felt like this...
It just felt inevitable to me,
the idea of having children.
Like the same way I feel about death.
It was just something, I couldn't stop,
I'd have to make peace with.
I remember a pregnancy scare.
A couple of years maybe,
maybe not, maybe a year after we got married,
and being shocked by the feeling that I had:
dread...
(Sad piano)
horror...
the deepest sadness that I can really remember feeling at
the prospect that I could be pregnant.
And that was shocking to me.
And that's probably when it became clear to me that this
wasn't a done deal.
This wasn't something that, I was going to be happy to do or
happy to do or do at all.
And maybe there was another option.
One donor program that said they don't use previously
frozen eggs, suggested I try an app created specifically
for connecting people who want to make a baby.
It can help you find a co-parent,
a sperm donor, surrogate,
or egg donor.
Bingo.
(Phone notification)
Within 10 minutes, I had my first like.
(Quirky music)
It was from a man who was offering sperm.
Ash, 24, just wants to help someone start a family.
That's nice, but I'm not looking to start a family.
So, clearly Ash hadn't read my profile.
(Phone notification)
Simon, 34, would like to donate sperm to a lesbian couple.
(Quirky music continues)
However, I'm not a lesbian couple, nor am I seeking sperm.
(Phone notification)
Roger, 40, claims to have had 10 successful donations.
He's scheduled a vasectomy in two months,
so anyone who still wants his sperm needs to act fast.
(Phone notification)
Lucian, 40, a science tech founder from Copenhagen,
claims to have scored a 144 IQ on the SATs,
a test that does not measure IQ.
(Phone notification)
Joseph, 27, has had three successful donations.
He's offering AI / PI / NI.
I had to Google that.
AI is artificial insemination.
PI is partial insemination,
wherein a man masturbates until near completion and then
ejaculates into the woman.
NI is natural insemination, or good old fashioned sex.
Within a day,
there were dozens of men who wanted to offer me sperm.
So when I was a kid,
I remember telling the other most high achieving student
in my class, that I didn't want to have children.
And she said to me, well, then what is the point of living?
And I was just so confused.
I said, well, I don't know,
I might discover a cure for cancer and affect millions of
people in the world.
Why is having children the only way that, living matters?
To me, it's not a very effective way
of making an impact... to have children.
And maybe that's because when you have a child,
you get what you get.
You might have a child who's talented and intelligent,
or you might have a child who's difficult and uninterested
in anything.
You never know.
So in a way,
the students I teach are selected for being the people
maybe who most need my kind of influence,
because they're super interested in equations and also in
changing the world.
So, those are the people that I want to work with.
(Whooshing)
I ended up meeting somebody who I cared very deeply for,
who was not Mormon,
and that was not okay within my Mormon community.
Mormons believe that...
So in a life after death,
which is not unique to Mormonism, but,
that you have an eternal family.
So if you are not married to somebody who is Mormon and
have children in that Mormon union, in a Mormon temple,
then when you die, you are separated from your family.
So that became a big issue with people around me.
But wait a minute, so if you got married and then you had kids,
you would not be able to be with your children for forever.
And how devastating that would be.
And that was really when things started to crack for me.
And I remember him saying,
if this was just about you and me, it'd be great,
but we both want children,
and I don't want my kids raised Mormon, and you do.
And I remember saying to him, I don't know any other way.
And I have a list of reasons, that I would want to have a kid.
And they are all bad reasons for having a kid.
I wanted someone to name after my great-aunt, Esther
with whom I was very close.
I wanted to make birth
announcements, because I love paper.
(Swishing sound)
I wanted someone to take care of me when I get old.
(Wheels rotating)
All of these things, were things that were about me.
I also, I realized, I'm like, well,
if I wanted to raise a kid and I wanted to be selfless
about it, I would adopt a kid that already exists,
because there are plenty of kids in this world who need families.
I'm like, but you know,
if it doesn't look like me and it's not related to me,
do I want to put that much effort into it?
I'm like...okay,
there's another strike against having a kid,
because that is bad.
That is all about me wanting to procreate for my own good,
which I think is a lot of the reason that people do that.
And I realized, you know, I don't really like them.
And I worked with someone who said to me,
oh, I don't like other people's children.
I like my children.
(Babies crying)
Well, okay.
I'm hoping that if I do have a kid, I would like them.
(Hard rock music)
But maybe I wouldn't
You know, my husband's family, didn't like him.
And...
I'm very involved in gay and lesbian civil rights
issues, because I have a gay brother,
and I have seen
how horrible people can be to their own children.
And it made me realize that not all parents love their children.
I actually wanted to ask whether you remembered...at what
point I made that decision because I remember that, my
relationship with Bill, who was
A very... horrible, horrible abusive relationship.
I remember that we talked about having a son
and naming him Batman.
Oh, yes, I recall.
So, at some point in there, it happened, and...
I don't remember when.
I didn't think that you and Bill were actually talking
about a real human child that you had ever named Batman.
And so I thought that you never wanted kids.
That, like, you knew what it was like.
You had a toddler at home.
(Gentle piano)
I did have a toddler at home.
I was an only child until age 14
when my mom married this man.
And when I was 16, they had a son.
And I was so excited about it.
She would read "What to Expect When You're Expecting,"
when she was expecting, and then pass it on to me.
And then I would read it.
(Playing games with baby)
And I was super hands-on with the colics and the feeding
and the diapers and the baby books and everything.
He definitely did not feel like a sibling.
(Gentle piano continues)
He felt very much like a child.
(Indistinct)
How old are you?
Four.
Who is your favorite sister?
Julia.
What my experience with my brother was is that I feel like
I had the heartbreak, of half raising a child and then
having him turn out, in a way that,
I don't know how to put this.
There's nothing there.
There's no,
I have no relationship with him because he doesn't respond
to a single text or a single email.
I feel like, he's somebody who will not hold my hand
when I'm dying.
But I will say that Maurice is...26.
Do you know what I was doing when I was 26?
Holding lots of dying people's hands is what I was doing.
But you grew up in very different environments and so
there's still a lot of living left and a lot of
relationship building left,
but what I'll say though is that you left the house when
Maurice was a toddler and so you raised him for these very
formative years for you, but he has no memory of that.
I reached out to about a dozen freeze-and-share programs
and multiple Facebook IVF and egg donor groups.
Most said no,
they're not interested in previously frozen eggs,
but a couple said okay, and had me fill out onboarding forms.
These are long, long forms,
longer than any dating profile or grant application.
What is your height, current weight?
How would you describe your complexion?
Natural eye color, texture of your hair?
What's your natural hair color?
Not this.
Highest level of education, degree earned?
Tell us about your career.
List any professional, academic,
athletic or creative achievements.
Have you completed or are you currently involved in any
volunteer work?
Do you play any musical instruments?
What languages do you speak?
(Brush strokes)
What subject did you enjoy in school?
Name some of your hobbies.
(Ball bounce thuds)
What are your short-term and long-term goals in life?
What would you consider your greatest strengths?
What would you do on a perfect day?
(Dog barks)
How would you consider your vision?
Dental braces or orthodontic work?
Do you have any allergies?
Surgeries?
Have you ever had any problems with the law?
Within 12 months of freezing your eggs,
did you have any ear or body piercings,
acupuncture or tattoos?
If you're planning a dinner and could invite any three
people, living or dead, who would they be and why?
Five childhood photos and photos at the time that you froze
the egg, so here we go.
Nice little dating profile here.
Do you have any Jewish ancestry?
Oh yes, I do.
Father's ethnic background.
Now I have to say how tall everybody was.
Age and cause of death of everybody.
(She gasps)
Okay, metabolic, endocrine, birth defects, cancer.
This is anybody in my family.
Neurological, mental health issues, acne.
Everybody has acne!
But acne aside,
my mom's parents both had dementia and colon cancer.
My paternal grandmother had diabetes.
My father was an alcoholic.
Oh, and me?
I'm on antidepressants.
And most freeze-and-share programs want three generations
of squeaky clean medical history.
(Gentle percussive music)
I hear people say a lot, you know, that as you get,
when you get older,
you're gonna reach a certain age and the hormones will kick
in and suddenly you'll realize you want children.
Or, you know, when you're early 30s and you have a partner,
you'll realize you want children.
It'll feel natural, it'll feel like the next step.
I thought, okay, I'm gonna cap that at around age 35.
So I wanna get married at like age, you know,
32 maximum, so that we have these three years
to enjoy other before I have children.
Which means, you know,
I probably wanna date for a couple of years before that,
so I have to start dating him last year.
So I was so stressed about, you know,
inching forward this timeline and that's just,
that's a lot of, pressure on a first date.
A biological clock is a real goddamn thing, like,
and especially in my 30s,
the thing was ticking loudly and making me feel things that
I hadn't felt.
So even though when I was 12 and I was like,
I don't think I'm doing that, and then in my 20s, I'm like,
probably not doing that, I'm not interested in that.
Suddenly I'm in my 30s,
and literally there's this going out of business sale
happening in my body that's still
in the process of happening.
And I'm starting to have seeing babies and being like,
should I do that?
Do I want to do that?
And then, you know,
the interpersonal problem of feeling like someone is
wasting your time is compounded by,
you're really wasting my fucking time, mate.
So when I was 24 and I was living in Boston,
I lived with two women who were older than me.
And one of my roommates said,
you need to find a husband today.
You're only 24, all these guys wanna go out with you.
You wanna get married, this is your chance.
Because as you get older,
there aren't as many men even because then they've paired
off and gotten married.
And I remember so clearly having the distinct thought that
that was not going to happen to me.
And then she was totally right because as I got older,
there were a lot fewer men to choose from.
I feel like then being single and childfree starts to
naturally happen because the dating pool and who's
available for you just continues to shrink year after year.
And then you get into men who,
who the first time a man said to me,
I don't believe in monogamy, was the most shocking statement
I had ever heard.
But it's true, they start to become very, well,
there's just so many women,
I don't need to even be monogamous anymore, so.
For the past 30 years or so in the US,
and in most Western countries,
we've seen approximately one-third more women than men
attend college and then graduate from college.
And what's happened is this college gender gap,
so to speak,
has been spilling over into the post-college dating world.
And this wouldn't matter, obviously,
if we were all more open-minded about whom we date and
eventually marry,
but college grads wanna date and marry other college grads.
So what we've ended up with is kind of a blue-collar dating
pool with too many men,
and a white-collar dating pool with too many women.
And...dating apps have kind of exacerbated or worsened the
dating problem.
Your dating app is making its money off two things,
subscription revenues and advertising.
And it's in their financial interest, to maintain their
existing subscriber base and attract new people.
(Phone notifications)
Bumble says in their annual report, that their revenue and
growth, may be harmed, quote,
“if there is a decrease in user retention as a result of
users finding meaningful
relationships on our platforms and
no longer needing to engage with our products."
So what they're telling you very directly, is their goal is
to retain you as a customer, and keep you as a customer for
as long as possible,
not to find you the right
relationship and never see you again.
Lack of a partner is actually the main reason women
self-report for being childless.
(Gentle piano)
Obviously, there are single moms out there, but for me,
probably having found my partner at 40 had a lot to do with it.
I mean, had we met at 25,
maybe we'd be so bored with one another by 35,
we would have had some kids.
Or maybe I would have had time to learn how to feel safe,
enough.
(Gentle piano continues)
Through two different sources,
I matched with a couple in Michigan, and another one
in New York City, who were kind of interested in my eggs.
So I got this email.
It says, "Thanks for reaching out...
I have done 18 of my own egg retrievals,
the first of which resulted in my son, and 17 more,
which got me nowhere.
Then I moved on to donor eggs and have had four transfers
of healthy embryos.
One didn't stick, two were chemical,
and the last one was promising until
eleven-and-a-half weeks
when the heartbeat stopped."
(Tender music)
Geez.
(Phone ringing)
I also called up an old college friend named Haile.
Haile and his partner Leticia had just blown through their
remaining embryos, and were starting to seek an egg donor.
(Gentle piano)
Hearing about all these women's trials with IVF,
made me wonder...
If they are willing to undergo physical and mental
torture, for something I'm just
willing to cast by the wayside...
Maybe I don't have that maternal gene.
Maybe I was never meant to be or capable of being a mother.
(Gentle piano continues)
Meanwhile,
my mother learned about the interviews I was conducting.
So she volunteered herself, to represent the point of view
of women who have had children.
I just wanted to present an opposite point of view.
So because I believe everybody you were going to interview,
they have,
they don't have children and their point of view, that it's
like obstacle in their lives and it's not necessary.
And I just want to say that it's the best feeling, I ever
had in my life.
(Deep inhale)
And not just the bond that you have with your children,
when you deliver your children,
and then not just the physical bond,
but that is something....
It's just such a pleasure, such a sense of happiness.
Okay.
I've never seen you to
experience this happiness, but...
How, how could you see?
I know, you do it secretly.
And you cannot, experience it, unless you have it.
(Gentle percussive music)
Another thing, as well, is, like, my own
mental health and my own
viability of, like, how I feel about myself in my own
consciousness, and how, sad that is sometimes.
And how just
hard that is and how much, therapy, you know,
I'm working through on a very small individual level.
And conceptualizing that I would give birth to like another
young person who might suffer the same, self-hate would
break my heart, I think.
And I see my mom, like, watching me struggle
and it breaks her heart.
And I don't know, there's something really sad about that.
(She laughs)
But in a way that like, I am not in the place now to I think
knowingly what it's like to live inside a brain and the
other people that I talk to living inside their brains,
creating another one, feels laden, with a lot more
than just, “I want a baby" type of thing.
Yeah.
I didn't even want to get married because my
my dad wasn't great.
There was abuse, like my dad physically abused my mom,
emotional abuse.
Me and my mom got the brunt of it.
(Sad piano)
So, once I met my husband,
I kind of thought about having kids,
but I was still on the fence.
Went to the doctor. They gave me an ultrasound.
Literally, like, pearls in my ovaries.
(Piano continues)
So, PCOS is polycystic ovarian syndrome.
Doctor did say that most people can have children with
PCOS, but it can be difficult.
But then at that point,
I just didn't think it was a good idea
because I have bipolar.
And...
It would have been fine, except...
I had three suicide attempts.
(Piano continues)
So the medications that I'm on,
I would have to completely get off to get pregnant.
And that's one of the reasons why the reproductive
endocrinologist said,
I may never, be able to have a child for that reason.
She said, you may be able to have it physically,
but at some point,
if we determine that you're not only a harm to yourself,
but harm to the fetus...
then can't go forward.
And I am also very afraid of, passing that along, to a child.
(Piano continues)
It wasn't until around the age of 35,
and it really didn't have to deal
with any boyfriend or anything,
but I started to become really sick.
And that led, to me discovering that I had fibroids for the
first time.
Then it was also coupled with the realization,
because unfortunately, my...
one of my younger sisters has a drug problem.
(Deep rumble)
And realizing that I couldn't take her kids in
based on my finances.
So I have fibroids, ovarian cysts, and endometriosis.
Fibroids is the most common type of situation
among African-American women.
And it's what's called a
multifactorial, kind of situation.
Unfortunately, when it comes to women's reproductive health,
we don't know because there's not enough research.
And especially among women of color,
there's no research there,
and there's a fear left over from past medical atrocities
that there's not a lot of trust, inside the medical community.
I have to go to a clinic rather than a regular doctor,
and then because it's a clinic,
I could just be switched to a different doctor,
and I have to start my story all over again.
And then when we finally decide what the hell, type of
treatment we need to do, or what the next step is,
my insurance may not cover it.
(Gentle piano)
Healthcare was the main obstacle for me at the time that I was
thinking about having a kid.
Neither me nor my spouse
had health insurance through our jobs.
So we were paying for a catastrophic
plan that didn't cover much.
And it didn't cover childbirth.
So I would have had to have bought a rider on my insurance
to get to even be covered just for the birth.
Never mind any care that the child would need.
And so that was just really scary.
I also had insurance that excluded anything any
pre-existing condition and that included anything in my
reproductive tract.
So, essentially I had no insurance.
(Gentle percussive music)
I have been pregnant once.
It's a complicated thing to say because
it was an ectopic pregnancy due to a failure of my IUD.
(Intriguing piano)
I wound up in the emergency room,
(Ambulance siren)
and then there was this
weird window when they were like, well,
(Piano continues)
you could be pregnant in the wrong place.
You could be pregnant in the right place.
You could be pregnant in the wrong place and it might move
to the right place.
So there was this weird little amount of time in which I
was sitting there going,
if this winds up being a
pregnancy that goes into my uterus
and settles there...
Fuck.
And then fortunately it wasn't happening and my body
dealt with it, but...
You know, when I was sitting there in that emergency room,
I was just like,
I didn't work this hard to get to
this place in my life to, like,
pull over to the side of the road and have a family.
And there was still some heartbreak about kind of like,
Oh, you know, and this is with my current partner,
like I really love this person and there's a whole other
timeline in which we have a kid and
I can see it and it's beautiful.
And that's not the timeline I live in. You know?
(Piano continues)
When I was 29...
I was very much in love and got pregnant,
but I didn't have my green card.
I was stuck in a legal proceeding.
So here I am, I get pregnant,
and my American boyfriend at the time, I'm like, you know,
it would be so much easier if we get married,
because like I at least will feel like I'm not, you know...
And what happens when you're on a work visa...
If they fire you,
you literally have 10 days to leave the country.
And he just had like a block.
He would not do it.
It was, you know,
weeks and weeks of trying to negotiate with him.
And he was like, oh, I'm ready to be a father.
I'm not ready to be, but I'm not ready to be a husband.
And I was of course in hysterics,
because that was my worst dream ever.
You know, I am alone in the streets and I'm an immigrant.
You know, I had all these visions
of my worst case scenario.
It’s like it triggered something so like primal in me.
And then I had a miscarriage.
Which was like, I was like,
okay, you know, no wonder, you know,
because deep down on me, I was like, please God,
let me not have this child.
Because I'm not like, I'm not, I cannot do this.
Like emotionally, I cannot do it.
So of course, you know,
I go to film school years pass and I meet someone wonderful
and we date and we get married.
And, suddenly I am in this game of like, oh,
(Clapperboard snap)
but I want to make my first feature.
You know, and I hear all these stories like, yes,
you have children,
you will never be able to make it as a filmmaker.
So I spend a few years on putting
together my first feature.
And here I am, I turn 40, and I go for my annual checkup.
And I'm like, you know,
and I've been trying maybe for two months, three months.
And a doctor tells me, you know,
statistically you don't have good eggs.
So it's just like, you know,
the career cycle is a bit misaligned.
But a month ago, I did go for it and I did do an IVF cycle.
So I really hope that I am pregnant right now.
I want to have like a life outside of just being
a stay-at-home mom.
And I'm terrified that if I had children now,
that I could just kiss that goodbye.
Like, my husband has a very demanding job
where he works really long hours.
If I had children, all the caretaking would fall to me.
He wouldn't really be able to help that much just because
of how demanding his job is.
Nannies are very expensive.
Like I used to be one.
So like if we have a kid,
how do we do this, without it then derailing any career
aspirations that I have,
especially one of the point where I'm just barely...
getting started?
When we think about women undershooting their fertility
desires, that begs the question, why?
Why does this happen?
Besides financial, barriers themselves,
children are also changing in terms of,
the function they serve for parents.
In the past, you got married.
(Whimsical music)
That made you an adult independent from your parents.
You had kids.
That sort of shows you're respectable and stable.
That isn't so much the case anymore.
Now they are a capstone.
Children are the sign that you have succeeded.
You've stabilized yourself financially.
You've found the partner.
You've got your forever home.
You've done all these things.
And now you can crown these accomplishments with the
ultimate symbol, status symbol, if you will,
this extremely expensive, long-term project of
the ideal child.
People hit their peak income later,
which means they reach the point where they think they can
foot the bill for that expensive child, much later in life.
All these things feed together, to create a kind of perfect
storm for parents where, they feel like, there's kind of
no way out other than not having the family that they want.
Julia, can I ask you a very personal question?
Where are you in your journey?
Are you seeking to, have children at all?
No.
For various reasons.
I ultimately feel I can't afford it.
And then both partner and I raised babies and toddlers
when we were teenagers.
And then my own childhood wasn't really like the best.
So I never, you know, like, felt a strong pull to motherhood.
Well, you know, Julia, ultimately, thank you for even,
like, considering us.
When Haile told me, I cried.
You know, it's, it's such a deep
generous gift.
So...
Thank you.
And you know, Haile's, I'm sure Hailey's told you
we've done seven rounds of IVF, and two miscarriages,
and two failed rounds of IVF. Like, it’s just...
You know, we've, we've had our...
We've tried. We've tried really hard.
Yeah.
Okay, so where would we go from here?
Cause it's one thing that they're available now and that
you know me, which are both good things,
but then there are
negative factors, like they were frozen a while back
and I was already not
very young when I froze them, so...
Do you need to weigh these things or are you decided?
Every step of the process is a gamble, you know.
There's no guarantees, so I say let's try.
Yeah, let's do it. Okay?
Zoom handshake?
(He grunts)
(Gentle percussive music)
In my 30s, my physician and I,
we did have a conversation around the option
of freezing my eggs.
And I had considered it.
And uhm...
I opted not to do it.
And the reason was because
(Gentle piano)
at the time I wasn't partnered with anybody.
And I just remember thinking,
I don't know that I ever will be.
And the thought of
not being able to conceive because I wasn’t partnered...
There was just something about I thought it would add an
extra layer of pain that I just didn't want to go through.
Now, sitting on the other side of it,
(Piano continues)
I wish that I would have done it.
I never considered freezing my eggs because
I didn’t have the money.
(Laughing)
Like I didn't have the money to during the time in which it
would have made sense to freeze the eggs.
You know what I mean?
So yeah,
I just didn't really...freezing one's eggs in my head was
like, oh yes, you have to have disposable income for that.
And that's something that like only just happened.
(Chuckles)
So, yeah.
I will tell you the story about, when I froze my eggs.
This was a few years ago, maybe, I wanna say three,
four years ago, when my insurance started
covering this sort of thing.
And so I was like, all right, let's freeze them.
I haven't been taking care of my body for like years.
I'm finally taking care of my body now.
What does that mean?
I mean, I'm just curious.
Unless you have like a coke habit that you don't want to
disclose because of legal reasons.
Like, what does that mean?
I just...
I had multiple eating disorders growing up...and
I only started...
taking care of that recently.
I didn't even know if I could produce, viable eggs.
A year later, they contacted me about, well,
you owe this much for the freezing.
So just to clarify,
your insurance was not covering storage, additional storage?
It covered storage for maybe a year.
Got it.
And I was like, well,
I haven't found what to do with these in a year.
When am I going to do this?
And so what did you do?
Do you donate them to science or?
-I donated them to science. -Yeah.
COVID happened.
And, I started getting help, for many of the things that are
messed up, in my life, including, eating disorders,
the fact that I went through trauma when my father died.
It was my, my last year of law school.
And I lost my dad tragically.
And it really just fucked me up. I started...
What happened?
He was... He was...
My dad was murdered, in 2004.
And that was the year I started working.
(Intriguing music)
And I threw myself into this job as a lawyer.
(Doors snap shut)
And, I didn't want to have time to think.
And that year, I billed 3,800 hours,
which if you do the math, it's insane.
And it means no vacation.
It means working every weekend.
And it means so many horrible things.
(Sad piano)
That was my therapy.
Fast forward to 2020,
I started getting help for all these things.
And I started, again, thinking about, well, what if,
I mean, should I just see if I could still have kids?
And I went to a doctor.
He was just honest with me.
He said, you're not a good candidate.
And I said, you know what?
It's fine.
I just don't need this.
(Gentle percussive music)
I'm a millennial.
I have loans, just like everybody else.
I'd like to believe that many millennials don't buy homes
or are planning not to have children because of how we're
affected financially by our student loans,
which is a huge part of it.
I took out about 60,000 dollars in loans.
I paid back about 50,000, and I still have about 20,
25,000 dollars left.
And, it's just exhausting, to say the least.
I was so curious...
The turning point at which you realized
that you just don't even want to go down this path?
Is the question why?
Why did you decide to go childfree?
The short answer is financial.
I have six-figure student debt.
I have no city health insurance, no maternity leave,
no 401K.
Median cost of raising a child up to the age of 18
in New York, it's 500,000 dollars.
That's without college.
In 18 years, state college will be 200,000 dollars.
Private college will be 450,000 dollars.
So 500 plus 450, that's already...wages lost, IVF...
That's a million.
I can't make...
I, it's just too much.
I can't, like, I work so fucking hard, editing.
But if somebody would give you a million, would you do it?
You know if I were in like the Netherlands or Sweden or
something or France... If I...if I had, if there was,
like, society support for childcare and things like that?
I really don't know.
I also have like a lot of personal shit.
Like, a lot.
Some countries have actually made it, very comfortable to
have kids, and others haven't.
I mean, in Sweden and France,
you have good childcare systems.
(Quirky music)
You get maternity leave or paternity leave.
They already have guaranteed national health care.
They already have, shorter work hours.
They already have much bigger amounts of vacation
and sick leave.
And it really starts to look feasible when you think about
all those things... in the United States,
(Card sliding in reader)
We have lack of health care,
(Paper crinkles)
lack of childcare,
lack of paid leave, long work hours.
It's actually a system that is designed to get maximum
labor out of us without paying for any of it.
People are saying, oh,
you want the government to give away stuff to you for free.
No, actually,
what we want is the government to support
the reproduction of our society.
It's not, fulfilling these basic functions, right?
About financial thing.
Yeah.
It's not a reason not to have, a child.
I don't consider it, a real reason.
And, statistics show, that, people who are poor,
they have more children, than the other way around.
So I don't think it's financially you feel, unsecured.
I don't know, maybe you feel...
insecure with your partner
though you say that he's decent and nice guy.
I don't know, it's just,
you cannot, you cannot calculate the absolutely...
It’s, life is not a spreadsheet.
So you cannot calculate...
So, do you deny that I have to pay 300,000
back in student loans?
But, you know...
There is an inflation.
But, you know, I have to make that money!
Right.
There is an inflation.
You will be making more money because you keep working.
If you are...so, 300,000 dollars
it was much more money in the 70s, or 50s or
you know, 60s, than it is now.
So if you, over-rationalize everything in life,
put it in a spreadsheet, it just doesn't work.
I think it also doesn't work if you don't have the
requisite money.
It works, Yulia.
Somehow it works.
Somehow it works?
You know, your child will not go hungry.
(Lighthearted music)
She's right.
I could quit my career,
move somewhere with a low cost of living,
get a desk job with health insurance, and have children.
(Baby squeals)
But I choose not to.
Maybe America with its lack of family-friendly policies
is onto something.
Maybe it's separating the wheat from the chaff.
Like, if you're not willing to sacrifice,
maybe you shouldn't have kids.
(Lighthearted music continues)
(Door bell rings)
(Pretty piano)
I'm glad you're here.
Hey!
God willing, when we have our healthy embryos,
and we transfer,
we'll put in multiples,
but so many complications can happen.
Yeah.
No guarantees.
You know, I'm already, because of my age, high risk,
because of the other pregnancies.
The first trimesters were really scary, so...
How would you feel, you're donating, your, eggs,
your youthful eggs to us, and say we get three embryos,
and I miscarry all three?
Like...
It’s a good question.
You know, you have,
or you had an opportunity to donate to another couple...
You know, that's a real chance.
Yeah, you're right.
I feel like with miscarriages,
my very limited understanding of biology that the fault is
with the embryo, most of the time.
That's the declared statement.
The doctors feel very confident that you can carry,
and that's good enough for me.
So if you miscarry all three of them,
I will feel terrible for the
ordeal that you had to go through
that both of you would have to go through,
but it's not...
Then I know, okay...
I’m, I'm going to
err on the assumption that would have
happened with anybody.
OK.
(Gentle percussive music)
The pressure I get is from my, family.
When I mention not wanting children,
I hear my mother, say things like, it's okay,
you'll change your mind.
(Soothing piano)
Or, it's okay, there's still time.
Like, she wants to just keep these doors open.
She doesn't quite,
it feels like she has not quite accepted that
how vehemently, I'm opposed to the idea of having children.
My father, I think is just
(Piano continues)
sadly accepting it.
Sorry.
He’s...
He has cancer, and...
I think part of him really wants to be a
grandfather before he dies.
So I feel a lot of weight that I can't...
I can't do that.
But I think if I asked him, he'd say, I'm enough.
So it's in their reactions and comments to things.
It's not so much like, oh, you better do this.
It's more like...
You know, we loved having you.
Why wouldn't you want that?
My mom is from a different time.
I can see that there is some pain there...
that comes with acceptance.
You know, they never really put any kind of pressure on me.
I have noticed my mom as she's, aged,
there, have been times where I've heard her say things like,
not I wish I had a grandchild, but you know,
(Intriguing piano music)
she'll refer to the family dog as, her grandson.
And she kind of gets it,
that it's just probably not happening.
My mom is actually quite pleased that I won't be having kids.
She is also scared about how the world is going to end and
the challenges that my nephews are gonna be facing
as adults. And so...
She told me maybe, 10 years ago that she thought that
perhaps it would be best if
people our age stopped having kids,
and, like, left it for...like, adopted children or, you know...
Basically, like, Americans are super wasteful and they
(Cat meows)
consume a lot of resources.
And so, like maybe Americans shouldn't have as many kids and
you know, adopt other children that already exist.
(Tender piano music)
I think even before I really, started thinking about my
queerness and sexuality and what my relationships
would look like,
a big halting factor for me about, bringing a child into
this world in my own body, was, kind of the fear of
where we are and where we're at.
You know, one of my first memories is September 11th
and, then after that,
just all these different things and I know that each generation
(Urgent music)
feels apocalyptic about the world that they're in,
but I think that the place that we are in, with our planet
and the sustainability of our planet...
Even if I had a child,
my child might want a baby and that baby will be living in
a world that I cannot even imagine.
I think when it comes to climate change,
I think there are stark changes that would have to be made
right now for us to see,
for us to slow down,
what's happening and I don't see it happening, so...
In terms of
(Tragic piano)
bringing kids into this world,
if we don't change the, situation right now,
I don't see how they won't be affected, by climate change.
I am from a small island, that I would love to return to
at some point in my life.
And islands are one of the main ones to be affected
by climate change and if it doesn't change,
kids on Haiti will be affected as well.
In the 60s and 70s,
there was a total freak-out about the high
rate of population growth.
There were books like The Population Bomb.
(Whimsical piano)
There were ideas that, you know,
hungry babies are the grounds for communism.
This is why people are revolting.
Now we're hearing, you know,
climate crisis overpopulation worries.
(Gulp)
But the thing about that is that it's not the...
it's not the absolute number of people that is
causing the climate crisis.
It's the...
it's the fossil fuel industry, essentially.
And, rather than blaming people for having too many kids,
we need to euthanize the fossil fuel industry.
And then the other, problem with the climate crisis is
there's no way to, oh, oh,
we're gonna reduce the birth rate even more steeply than
it's reducing now,
and that's somehow gonna fix, the climate crisis by what?
You know, 2100?
So I think it's, in general,
the overpopulation thing is a diversionary tactic to try to
keep people from seeing what is actually going on.
Sometimes when we think about low fertility, people think,
well, you know, is it really such a problem?
The earth might have too many people.
Maybe this is a good thing that we have low fertility.
But there are some real consequences to very low
birth rates.
Particularly if low birth rates go on for a long time.
The obvious one a lot of people think about is something
like Social Security, right?
Because how does Social Security work?
(Purposeful music)
Current workers pay taxes,
and those taxes basically go directly from their pocket
to current retirees.
Fewer workers, more retirees
means a more burden on the worker or the
retirees' standard of living is gonna fall.
Everybody's more miserable.
(Thud)
That's pretty clear.
What a lot of people don't realize is that actually falling
population growth has the effect of reducing the returns on
all assets and investment.
So you end up getting these vicious cycles of asset
(Air deflating)
deflation and ultimately of decrepitude and infrastructure.
There are real costs, to society on the whole when
population falls, persistently for a long time.
Are they manageable?
Maybe. With a well-functioning political system governed by
competent people who can elicit, good cooperation from
diverse parties,
you might be able to manage falling population in a
reasonably, you know, non-catastrophic way.
But I don't think anyone believes that list I just
gave describes American politics in the 21st century.
This is gonna be a problem real soon.
It's gonna be a problem for us, where like,
we have no children.
It's like, we also have, nothing
and we're old and we're working at
Walmart and we're 90.
(Cash register beeps)
Like, this is awful.
And there's an aging society with no one to actually take
care of them.
But like, this is part of, like, the tumor that's capitalism.
(Glass smashes)
So it's kind of, like, not incumbent upon like, young women
to crank out babies so that we have like enough money
to take care of grandpa.
You know, like, that's the way we've set up society.
And now we're just gonna have to find a way to reset it up
because, you know, it's become
for many people it's just become financially unviable
to have the kids.
I think that I will be cared for in old age because I think
(Bicycle wheels turning)
I will live a life surrounded by friends and connections
that may or may not be related to me.
And someone being related to you doesn't guarantee that
they will provide care in your old age,
you know, or be the right person to do that.
If you live your life in a way that makes people feel
connected to you,
that's the best way to have a cared for old age.
And that's the same if you have kids and you make them feel
cared for and then they know that they're loved,
I think that's a very good chance that they will want to
take care of you in old age, but...
(Gentle piano)
Again, doesn't that say that having children could be seen
as a fundamentally selfish act
if someone's concern is
I need to have children so that they can take care of me?
(Gentle piano continues)
The men that I date, they might not want to have kids now,
but they probably want to have kids in the future.
So when I say I don't have kids, it's a shocking experience.
And I always say, you know, you don't have to do this.
We don't have to, continue into a relationship together if
that's something that you want,
because I am sure, that's something that I do not want.
Dating is hard, I'm okay being single, do I want kids?
No, but would I, raise a child?
Somebody else's child?
I don't know, you know, I'm open to it.
It's not something that I can say right now,
I would never do that.
Yeah, I actually, it's funny because I would sort out,
filter out people who had
children or who at least admitted
to having children on those apps.
So I would filter them out absolutely and people,
my friends would be like, Julia, beggars can't be choosers.
That's not...
But I would be like, listen,
it's just, it’s just math, right?
(Offbeat music)
I have not been able to find, one person who can tolerate me.
I would need to find three people who like me:
the man, the child and the ex-wife.
It's just not gonna work.
Like, the probability of getting
all three of them aligned, on this issue of me.
It's just not gonna happen.
That's, that’s really great.
I like the way you think.
I didn't filter out guys with kids because, I saw it from
the other point of view of, like,
well, if he's already got a kid,
then it's far less likely he's gonna want anymore.
So that lets me off the hook, you know what I mean?
I'm happy enough to be a stepmom
to be like, you know, like...
hey, you know, cool advice,
but I'm not in charge of you.
You know what I mean, like?
(Door shuts)
Or, to whatever degree
(Windows open)
that is required of me,
I can step up to that challenge,
(Curtains whoosh)
but it's not incumbent upon me to like, I mean,
just get a kid out of my body.
And with the current partner, I think we...
I mean, talked about that right away.
I mean, he already has a daughter
from a previous relationship.
So we kind of went, yeah, we're not gonna do that.
And it's nice to not, have that pressure.
It would be much different if I was dating a younger guy
who was like, I really want a family.
Be like, okay, good luck finding that.
(She chuckles)
I was married to a very nice, guy named Aaron,
(Birds tweet)
and we were married for, five, years,
five and a half years maybe.
And...
I had told him when we were dating that I did not want
kids, but, after we got married,
I told him that I was willing for a year, to sort of let it
ride, and if I got pregnant,
then we would then subsequently have more children because,
you know, you raised almost as an only child,
are the best, you know, evidence of
why you don't want to have just one child.
Don't want to put all your eggs in one basket.
No, exactly.
But I didn't get pregnant, and Aaron had to think about,
alright, did he want to spend, I don't know,
40 grand on reproductive technology?
And his answer was a pretty strong no.
So it was never...you never had a conversation of like,
it's either me or...
You know, if you want kids, you gotta leave?
When I was 35, I ended up freezing my eggs,
(Gentle bluesy music)
mainly to get my mom off my back,
but also because I always thought that
no man would want to be with me unless I,
(Children playing on swings)
made him a child.
This was my experience with my mother and her partner.
Yeah, I just, I didn't think
there was any reason that somebody would
want me for me.
I remember when you decided to freeze your eggs and
just remember thinking that it was, really taxing on your
body and also very expensive
and that you were doing it for sad reasons.
And I feel like the people that you have dated...
How can I put this diplomatically?
...were not the nicest.
We met when I was 22, and my husband, Dory,
he was 28 at the time.
We got, quite serious quickly,
and I told Dory early on,
that I was, absolutely certain I didn’t want children.
And, I still left open the possibility, well,
maybe I will change my mind, because I was 22,
and everyone told me, that's fine, you'll change your mind.
So I said, I don't really think so, but...
I really don't want children.
Do you ever feel bad that you didn't make him a little Dory
or a little Summer, that...
Because you knew this was something that he wanted?
(Gentle piano)
The fact that you weren't...
Yes, I do feel, sad that I,
through being the right person for Dory,
changed the course of his life.
And maybe that meant that he didn't have children.
But...
The way we both talked about it is...that there were
(Rewinding tape)
multiple, amazing, happy, great life paths.
And one of them was the with children,
and one of them was without children.
And you can't have both, so this is the one that we have.
And he said, I want children, but I want you more.
My husband's childhood wasn't great either.
And...his dad was an alcoholic.
It's interesting.
My husband also got the brunt
of the emotional and like the beatings and stuff.
And then on top of that, my husband went to Iraq in 2004,
2005, when that was going on.
He has PTSD from it.
I think, if, my husband didn't have PTSD,
didn't have like the alcoholism,
didn’t... like...
Just a little bit more stable.
I'd be 100 percent, be more willing to have a child.
Unfortunately, I love him, and he is who he is.
And I'm sure that, he would say the same about me.
And I know his mom said,
it's not too late for you to get a divorce and marry
someone else that can actually have kids.
That's painful.
You know, when you asked me,
when was it like pinpointing when, you,
realized that you didn't want to have kids?
And I think back to college,
where, your, parents
essentially asked you to have a child
to save their marriage.
No, no, no, no, I wasn't gonna give birth.
Well, you were going to be
contributing the egg, for your siblings.
No, what happened was when...
My mom married my stepfather when I was 14.
They had my brother when I was 16.
My mom was 39.
And then my stepfather wanted a second child.
They had a really bad relationship,
but he was pretty adamant about a second child.
And then she was already too old.
They went through, I think, a year of IVF.
And then they were just like, your eggs don't work.
And they asked me for my eggs.
(Gentle piano)
So she was in such a desperate situation that
I said I would go ahead and do it.
And I went and started going to the doctors.
And, they needed a shrink's approval, actually,
for this to happen.
The shrink took one look at the three of us and said,
I will not approve this situation.
And I was so happy that he did
because I really didn't want to do this.
(Gentle piano)
Then my, stepfather told her to leave the apartment,
leave her son...
Because his dream had always been
to have two children.
If she couldn't give him a second child,
he would find another woman who would.
And the ironic...part of this, for me personally,
was that...
They had dated for four years before getting married,
during which time he made her have two abortions,
because he wasn't ready...to,
to settle down at that point.
(Gentle piano continues)
And...nobody in my family thinks that this is...
Like, if you have a great family,
then the tendency's you're probably gonna go make a great
family, unless you're a sociopath, right?
Maybe, yeah.
Maybe, but like, you have a higher likelihood sometimes.
-Yeah. -But, you know, yes,
a lot of people from broken homes go on to either
make them or just try to avoid them.
Avoid them.
Yeah, I feel like it's just like safest for all around,
for all people involved, is for me to, not engage in that.
I've talked to two people recently who have difficult
relationships with their mother, and they were like,
I don't think she wanted to be a mother.
And especially, you know,
if you're talking to someone who is like the next
generation above us,
they would have been raised by mothers who had to be
mothers, you know?
So a lot of those women didn't want to be mothers.
There was just nothing else for them to do in order to like
have a life, you know?
So I get that.
None of my siblings has children.
Everybody, I think,
has a story they tell themselves of why.
But I’m kind of, like,
we all experienced surviving that family and thought,
let's not replicate this.
I think the first thing to iron out is what
we would want this, to look like.
This person, if we're lucky to, create them and raise them,
will also exist, and they won't be an abstraction.
And not only will they not be an abstraction,
but there's somebody that you... very likely will see,
and so, what does that mean for you?
What does that mean for us?
And I ask these questions not because I have a firm opinion
on it, but it is something that, we should iron out.
Since it's not blind, and even if it were blind...
like, in the age of genetic testing, your child,
even if you didn't tell it that it was, made up with
(Quirky music)
somebody else's eggs, would, when they get to be of age,
would definitely take a genetic test,
because most people do nowadays.
And they would be like, hey,
how come I'm like a quarter Jewish?
(Surprise sound effect)
So sort of working backwards from an adult child,
they would know, even if you didn't tell them.
So I'm assuming you're gonna tell them, right?
So working backwards from the fact that they will know,
(Quirky music continues)
I may as well, be open to them being in my life,
if they wanna be in my life.
But, it would be up to them, and it would be up to you guys,
whether, you know, like...
The way I'm imagining is that like,
oh, I send them like a book for their birthday, and like,
oh look, Auntie Julia sent you a book.
I think you're right that, say,
if we're lucky enough to create this child,
that there's nothing that prevents them from finding out
that they have, ancestry that runs through
where your family is from.
That is not the same thing as them knowing that, they are in
any way related to you specifically.
That's true.
One, are you comfortable with that?
And if you knew this child, and we chose not to disclose
your genetic relationship to them,
would you, would you honor that?
(Quirky music continues)
I would. Absolutely. Absolutely.
(Melancholy music)
I...talked to people, to women, and to men,
and...none of them... said that they're happy
that they do not have children,
the ones who could do not have children.
And they kind of regretted it, all the time.
And the older you get,
the more you understand, what's missing.
And, you know, the...
sorry, can I can I just get this sample size?
Who are all of these men and women that you spoke with who
regretted not having children?
Just curious.
You wanted the names?
Yeah, actually I do.
People who I...
Yeah?
...met.
Like, random people on the street?
Jane? My friend's...
You questioned her?
Said, excuse me, do you regret not having children?
It was just...
(She chuckles)
It was...just how the conversation went around.
Because sometimes you tend to say thing...
If I were to ask Jane...
But it's not just Jane.
If I were to ask Jane, which I’m not going to,
but if I were, I'm just curious whether she would confirm that.
Usually, people volunteer.
Really?
People volunteer saying I regret I didn’t have children?
Yeah, kind of.
Thinking about,
(Gentle piano)
do I have regrets about not having...had kids?
I don't think I really do, because regret would mean that I
would have done something different
under the same circumstances, right?
So, I don't, really regret it.
I think, I mourn that we have a system that doesn't make
child rearing, really something that, is appealing, right?
And that, you know,
that we have a system where, making that decision really
puts you in all kinds of, other binds that are just
that are just really difficult.
People go through those, periods and
if the, if the conditions aren't right,
then they just, continue their lives and don't have kids.
Which is fine.
You can have a fulfilling life without having kids,
obviously.
But, if you really want to have kids,
you shouldn't have to, suffer in the way that we make
American parents suffer.
I think that no matter what you choose,
you are going to have regrets, and that's
natural and supposed to happen, you know,
because, like, I don't know,
that's what it means to have a life and make choices in it.
So, yeah, there are gonna be some regrets,
but not, overwhelming enough
that I’m gonna be on my deathbed
like, you know what, I did it all wrong,
and I shoulda had those four kids, and really, you know,
like, I don't think that's gonna happen.
(Long flatline)
I, to this day, I feel, sad that my parents are not grandparents.
(Sad piano)
And, it's one of the few places where I will
own that it is a selfish decision,
because I do not think, that, deciding to be childfree
is a selfish decision in any way, shape, or form,
except when it comes to my parents.
Because I put what I wanted ahead of what they wanted.
And I don't do that a lot when it comes to my parents.
The other place...
There are two places: my parents and my religion.
As...a Jewish person,
I feel a responsibility to make sure we stay around.
(Sad piano continues)
We lost six million of us.
At this point in the world,
I'm not convinced that couldn't happen again.
And...I feel a responsibility to
make sure that, Judaism continues.
And I am...not fulfilling that responsibility.
And that is a very difficult thing.
Again, wouldn't be a good reason to have a child.
I adopted a real stoic philosophy a few years ago when
I read a quote by Epictetus who lived almost 2,000 years ago,
and he said, a ship should not sail on a single anchor,
nor life on a single hope.
And it's certainly an expectation that I had,
that I would have children.
But I...don't know,
I just knew in that minute that when I read that, that, I...
life was fine the way...
with the variety of experiences that I had.
So I'm okay.
You know, I mean, one thing about blind donation,
it structurally, prevents one
from having, you know, feelings of,
loss or regret or what could have been.
Probability of you, hopefully seeing you know what your
eggs can become, I mean, like...
Scenario: five years from now.
You know...well,
I hope we see each other before then,
but you know what I mean?
Yeah.
I have no idea how to answer that question, obviously.
There are studies, though,
that say that women who never wanted children
don’t tend to experience regret, for not having them.
The ones that did want them and were unable
to have them...do.
So I'm in the former camp where statistically I'm not
supposed to experience regret.
Granted, none of those women who were surveyed,
probably, have had
their eggs created into children with other people,
that then they meet five years or 10 years or
20 years down the line.
So in practice, what it will be like, of course,
I have, I have no idea.
Yeah.
Cool, so, all right.
Is it?
(Laughing)
Is it?
(Lighthearted music)
So, this is the thing.
Do you mind my asking what it's for?
Yeah, it's...
so I had previously frozen eggs
and I'm donating them to somebody.
So I'm basically like signing away my
last opportunity to have had a child.
Wow, okay, well.
Yeah, so, um, my ID, right?
Yeah.
What's today's date? The four -
Thirteenth.
Thirteenth. Okay.
(Hopeful music)
(Whimsical music)