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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 Bombardieri is a clinical social worker,
psychotherapist, and 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.
"He just said, 'Well, you know, you'll change your mind. You know,