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This essay has been condensed. It can (and should) be read in its entirety in "Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump's America," available today.
When I was twenty-five, I was surrounded by women wanting babies. A thirty-seven-year-old friend of mine told me she laid awake at night calculating the viability of her eggs. Nearly every thirty-something woman I knew had a number in her head — a number she’d had since childhood — of how many kids she wanted and when — two, three, four for me! I couldn’t help thinking, Shouldn’t you wait and see how the first one goes? Even the first time I scheduled a bikini wax I only scheduled one. I wanted to monitor the repercussions before I made any long-term commitments, and I’d like to think that living children are more high-stakes than ingrown pubic hairs.
I thought these women were ridiculous and irrational. When I checked the ticking of my own biological clock, I was smug — pleased to hear silence.
When I was twenty-eight, a friend of mine gave...