You're listening to Life Kit from NPR.

Hey, it's Mariel.

You know, I feel lucky to live in a time in which becoming a parent is increasingly a choice, right?

Not just the default setting for your life path or the next natural step.

It's a big deal to bring another life into the world.

And deciding if you want to do that is a question that's bound to raise a bunch more.

The baby decision is never just about baby or no baby. It is who am I, who is my partner,

who are we as a couple, and what hasn't happened yet that we want to have happen

before we die? Merle Bombarderry is a clinical social worker, psychotherapist, an author of a book

called The Baby Decision. She's been coaching people through this choice about whether to have a

child since she was 29. So it's almost 50 years I've been doing this and I love doing it.

Merle started down this path after facing her own baby decision when her then-boyfriend

proposed to her.

She told him no at first because she knew he absolutely wanted kids and she was pretty sure

she didn't.

And he just said, well, you know, you'll change your mind.

You know, our love will continue at some point.

You'll just want to have a child.

And I said, we can't be sure of that.

So they talked about it over several months, what the future could look like, with a child and without one,

what they each wanted for themselves, and where they might be able to compromise.

And here's a pro tip.

...