83. Our Decision to Not Have Children

This week we’re being raw and real with my husband Danny about why even though we would be bomb ass parents for sure, it’s just not in the cards for us.
We have so much respect for parents, to put someone else’s need before your own can take a lot of courage. But neither of us really felt the desire, want or even need to have our own children. We love kids, but we also love being able to give them back to their own parents.

In a lot of cases, people’s upbringing and childhood can play a huge part in their decision to want or not want to have kids.
Both Danny and I come from divorced parents, step parents, and much younger step siblings. Danny was raised with and was and still is very close to his younger sister. While I was raised an only child, and had a very hard time not being able to see my younger half sister Morgan consistently when Morgan was growing up. Thankfully, I’m so much closer with my sister now thanks to her moving in last year when she needed a new start and a place to stay.

How did we feel about kids through our lives before making the decision not to have kids?
I always envisioned having children, mostly sports related things like; “Man it would be so cool to watch my kid playing sports”. Yeah, I could want to have children for all those kinds of reasons, but at the end of the day it’s the child's life, I wouldn’t want to be the parent that’s living vicariously through them. Danny has always been a heavy proponent to not having kids, so when we got together, the conversation around kids was always “Well, maybe. Maybe one day”.

What options did we explore once we decided not to have kids?
There’s a few different ways to go, a vasectomy, getting my tubes tied, staying on birth control, or using condoms for the rest of our life. I asked if Danny changed his mind would I give into having kids, or if I changed her mind would Danny give into having kids? If one of us very strongly wanted to have kids, we would, because we love each other. So with me not being able to be on birth control any longer, the best option for us was a vasectomy and freezing sperm as a just in case backup plan. 
We go in depth about Danny’s experience with his appointments for freezing sperm in this episode, but we’ll do another one on the vasectomy because that deserves an episode on it’s own. 

We're talking about this just to normalize the choice to not have kids. With our generation and the way the world is right now, the amount of people choosing to not have kids is increasing. 

At the end of the day, we live an amazing life together. We love the life we’re living right now, and the life we’re continuing to build together. 

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