Let’s back up. I met my husband young — I was only 22, but he was 27-going-on-Dad. I used to joke about his “ticking biological clock” and how he told me he wanted to have kids by 30. While I wanted children eventually, I knew there was no way in hell my uterus would be occupied in three short years, so I (correctly) assumed he’d slow his roll. I didn’t worry about it too much. I got married at 26, and felt smug and self-congratulatory for getting it out of the way early enough to have “a few years to just enjoy being married.” And, all sarcasm aside, we really did: We Instagrammed our two cats, we traveled, we went out to eat a lot, we had a well-stocked and frequently-used home bar, we changed jobs because we wanted to, I went freelance for a while. When I thought about kids, they seemed like a far-off to-do list item: something to keep in mind, but nothing to put too much energy toward just now.