Di, I have not read this whole thread, but I will pick up at your post of 8/23. Maybe I put this in the earlier part of this thread, or maybe I was just thinking about this topic. What this is: ***By the time I thought I was emotionally mature enough to have children, it was biologically too late.*** I have never been pregnant, as Anno reveals, both by choice and by accident. At age 15 I declared I would never have children, and the aunts, cousins, step-mother who was gathered at that table that day, said, "Of course you will." I did not know it at the time, but in retrospect I think I did not want to bring another child into my screwed up family. Once, at age 38, for the first time I thought I might be, and my h and I actually got excited. I agree that fertility is a biological phenomena, and not an achievement. And, I don't think that having children defines us as women. I don't feel inferior. It is what it is.