I Wish I Didn't Wait

How culture steals your fertility and sells you the "cure"

When I (Samantha) was growing up, my grandmother was one of the brightest lights in my life. She baked with us, taught us to draw, took us to Disney and ice skating in New York, and loved the Lord with a joy that made childhood feel magical. Some of my sweetest memories are sitting on her velvet brown couch, watching one of the many VHS movies she kept tucked inside her glass TV stand. I still have some of her knick-knacks in my own home.

Everyone deserves a grandmother like her. But she was gone too soon. I was only 15.

Now that I’m a mom of two little boys, that loss hits differently. I cherish every moment they have with their grandparents, because I understand something that most people never think about:

Every year you wait to have kids is one less year your children get with their grandparents.

And one less year they get with you.

This entire article is about that lost time and about the cultural script that encourages young women to throw it away.

This article is not for women who want marriage but haven’t met the right man yet, or those women who have been called to remain single.

This article is for those young women who are intentionally delaying marriage and motherhood because they’ve been sold a modern script of “Be older, richer, more established - then have kids.”

The biological truth no one wants to admit

You can debate politics, culture, or patriarchy all day long, but your ovaries aren’t listening. This isn’t misogyny or oppression. It’s biology. You have decades for a career, but only a small window to easily conceive, carry, and birth biological children.

And from college campuses to social media, you hear the same message echoing:

“Wait to have kids.”

“Have kids later, if ever.”

I wrote about this for Evie Magazine:

Eight thousand dollars was a lot of money for a college student like me, barely making rent each month. And all I had to do was donate some eggs.

Just a few days before seeing the ad, I was asking my cell phone company what their late payment policy was. Then I saw it: a bright pink flyer on a bulletin board offering thousands of dollars if I donate my eggs.

I ripped the number tab off and tucked it deep into my pocket.

It was tempting.

And they knew that.

Whether it’s the IVF industry seeking to profit off of creating human life or the abortion industry seeking to profit off of ending it, both groups deliberately target some of the most vulnerable women, at one of the most susceptible times of their lives.

The panic and the pivot: what happens after 30?

For many women, the carefree confidence of their 20s shifts around age 30. Even celebrities feel this. At 26, Taylor Swift was proudly “going home to the cats,”

At 35, she sings: “I’m so afraid I sealed my fate… No sign of soulmates.”

And “Please, I’ve been on my knees… Don’t want money, just someone who wants my company.”

Even Kelsea Ballerini - who divorced her husband because she “wasn’t ready for kids” - now sings about how all she wants is a family:

“Did I miss it? By now is it

A lucid dream? Is it my fault

For chasin’ things? A body clock

Doesn’t wait for, I did the damn tour

It’s what I wanted, what I’ve got

I spun around and then I stopped

And wondered if I missed the mark”

Jennifer Aniston did years of IVF, resulting in no children; her biggest regret was not freezing her eggs sooner. We’ve normalized believing egg freezing guarantees a baby, when the truth is that only 7–12% of frozen eggs ever result in a live birth.

Celebrities with unlimited wealth hit the same biological wall as everyone else.

The IVF Funnel: Delayed Motherhood → Infertility → Millions of Children Lost

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

The cultural push to delay motherhood sends women straight into the fertility industry. And IVF ends the lives of millions of embryos every single year. IVF creates embryos - living human beings - from sperm and egg in a lab. But from the very beginning, most will never make it.

1. Grading – Embryos are visually ranked; many are discarded immediately.

2. Genetic screening – 75% of clinics test embryos, and many discard those labeled “abnormal,” even though many would have developed normally.

3. Freezing – Leftover embryos are frozen indefinitely; ~1.5 million are sitting in U.S. freezers.

4. Attrition – When you include embryos discarded, frozen, or lost in thawing, research suggests only ~2.3% of IVF-created embryos result in a live birth.

Most die, and most only existed in the first place because women were told to “wait.” (Source)

Why Does This Matter? Because almost none of these embryos would exist (only to die) if women had simply not been pressured to delay motherhood beyond their most fertile years.

“Wait to have kids” doesn’t just hurt women. It kills their children - quietly, in petri dishes and freezers.

My Own Story: I Almost Fell For It Too

I wasn’t a feminist, I married young, and starting a family was always part of the plan. But somewhere along the way, the quiet message of our culture crept in - this idea that you need the house first, the savings first, the career stability first. That there’s a moment when you finally feel “ready.”

So we waited. Not because we didn’t want children, but because we thought responsibility meant timing everything perfectly.

And then one day, years later, I held my first son in my arms.

In that instant, it was painfully clear: all the things I thought we needed before having a baby were never the things that mattered. Waiting hadn’t made me more prepared, it had only postponed a joy I didn’t know I was missing.

Everyone’s Up To Something: The Industry Cashes In

While women are encouraged to “wait,” the fertility industry positions itself as the solution when biology catches up. They profit from predictable heartbreak and the cost isn’t only financial.

It’s measured in the lives of embryos and the grief of the mothers who never wanted this path in the first place.

Katy put it perfectly in response to Cecilia’s post:

What People Regret at the End of Life

People on their deathbeds never say:

“I wish I had spent more time at work.”

“I wish I had waited longer to start my family.”

They wish they had been a better spouse, parent, or child. They wish they had spent more time with the people they loved. No one regrets the children they had, they regret the ones they didn’t.

The world tells young women that motherhood is “1950s stuff” but motherhood isn’t outdated, it’s human nature.

And when I think of my grandmother - of the warmth she brought into my life, of the time I lost with her - I can’t help but think of this truth:

The advice to delay motherhood isn’t just a cultural mistake. It steals time from families and leads to the loss of countless children.

For young women in their 20s:

Don’t fear early marriage or motherhood. Don’t let culture steal your most fertile years. Don’t rob your children of the grandparents who would adore them or rob yourself of the years you’ll never get back with your children.

Because when the haze of “freedom” fades, what remains is what always mattered: The people who love you, the children you raise, the legacy you build.

That’s a real lasting legacy.

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Them Before Us is a global movement committed to defending children’s right to their mother and father. We believe that adult desires should never come at the expense of a child’s fundamental needs.

We are not professional lobbyists or political insiders. We are ordinary people with an extraordinary conviction: children must come first in every conversation about marriage, family, and fertility. We exist to make one thing clear: when adults sacrifice for children, society thrives. When children are forced to sacrifice for adults, everyone pays the price.

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