As someone who doesn't have any, or know that many, I seem to talk about babies a lot. It used to be (OK, it still is) that I'd spend evenings nestled around a pub table like a camp fire with friends, heads huddled together as we'd take it in turns to tell scare stories of birth and stitches and pain. Talk of babies used to be about how best to keep them out of our wombs – now we're placing bets on who's next to get one in the oven. Pregnancy is no longer a word to be feared, but congratulated. Expected.

Given that I'm several months past my thirtieth birthday, this isn't exactly shocking topic of conversation. Take in to account that the average age for a woman to have her first baby is now 30.3 and, really, it's verging on the embarrassingly basic. But whatever – it's that or house prices.

But while a growing number of my pals are busy pushing tiny humans out of their vaginas, and another lot are happily talking about when they might have the pleasure themselves, I'm still stood at the bar in open-mouthed incredulity that we're old enough to even be considering motherhood. And at the risk of sounding naive, I thought I was in good company. I thought my friends were all as completely freaked out by the idea of being a mother as me. Turns out, that's not quite the case. Even if they're still years away from having children, the majority of my friends at least know they want them. And while I'm not jealous of the maternal urge, I am of their conviction and self knowledge. Equally, I'm envious of those – and they are fewer – who know they don't want children.

Because here's the thing: I am ambivalent about babies. Sat on the fence about the whole thing. Totally undecided. And although I've got more than enough time to have one should I so wish (despite what some newspaper articles would like to tell us), I feel there's a certain urgency – part self-imposed, part the joys of societal pressure – to make up my mind either way.

It's not that I don't like children, I do. I've hung out with kids and can confirm that the rumours are true: they say all those funny things we've been told they do. And they're also annoying – imaginatively, excruciatingly annoying – as well. So on the one hand, sure, let's get me a baby. On the other, please God, can we not.

Of course, there's a whole lot more to this dilemma than that. My anxieties about having a baby are manifold, and can range anywhere from the standard "how ouch-y will labour be?", to the slightly more hysterical "what if it becomes a mass murderer?" And this is before we get on to the really fun stuff, the real dinner party gold, like: how fair is it to bring new life into a world fast disappearing down the U-bend? Discuss! It's on these less-rational days that I think, you know, if I'm going to be torn asunder only to give birth to a weird killing machine during the apocalypse then maybe I just won't bother.

But. But what if I choose to remain childless – what then? Is this it? Is this all there is? Days filled with work and Netflix and eating brunch in mid-priced restaurants until I die, with nothing to stand – or crawl – in my way? As much as I am aware of the tired, cutting guffaws of parents echoing from the playground right now, that future doesn't look that appealing either. Someone once told me that they thought they'd probably have children not because of a desperate desire to pro-create, rather because they weren't imaginative enough not to. And I think it might be the most honest thing I have ever heard. Because despite my concerns – legitimate or otherwise – about stepping into the unknown world of being a parent, there is a gnawing part of me that feels that the road already trodden is, actually, the one filled with greater risk. Risk, I suppose, of regret.