To bear or not bear children

My essay in The Yale Review about the literature of reproductive choice

I interrupt my back-to-school series to bring you my latest essay.

A specter is haunting me—the specter of babies. Baby chatter among friends freezing eggs and embryos, choosing sperm donors. Baby shower invites in my inbox. Babygrams on social media: tiny hairless alien swaddled newborns sleeping on breasts of women I once saw barfing in the corner of t…