The Baby Decision

The Baby Decision opens with Laura and Michael Rose, a content couple immobilized by ambivalence about having a child. Their hopes for parenthood collide with fears about work, lifestyle, and relationship strain—echoing the conflicting messages they see in friends’ outcomes. Merle Bombardieri uses their dilemma to introduce her method: integrate feelings and facts, pursue growth over safety, and claim the right to decide on your own timetable. She sets a respectful tone with a Decision Maker’s Bill of Rights, acknowledges constraints such as finances and inequality, and explains why fertility and adoption appear early—to inform choices, support readers in treatment, and normalize alternatives.

A bird’s-eye chapter builds perspective before deeper work. Bombardieri argues the decision should be shared within couples to support later co-parenting and encourages single parents by choice to engage their “village.” To reduce panic, she reframes urgency as a feeling, not a fact, and offers calming steps. In true emergencies—unplanned pregnancy or medical changes—she urges taking days, not minutes, for rest, consultation, and second opinions. She contrasts fear-driven rumination with growth-oriented curiosity and uses worst-case visualizations to surface real risks and plan supports, lowering anxiety so both paths can be explored honestly.

Readers then enter “Secret Doors” to uncover hidden motives. Gestalt-style chair dialogues separate the wish to parent from the wish to remain childfree, revealing how pronatalist pressure can drown out an authentic no—or how fear can mute a yes. Imagery exercises bring abstract ideas into the body: pregnancy and birth, holding an infant, idealized child fantasies, and realistic scans of each developmental stage. Values tests—epitaphs, surprise pregnancy scenarios, and the “knapsack” of tradeoffs—force clarity about what one is willing to give up or reimagine. Timetable tools (hour counts, life-cycle mapping, “rocking chair” regret tests) help readers choose the path they’d regret least. Couples assess decision power, division of labor, and changed minds since courtship, and close with a pragmatic readiness checklist spanning safety, mental health, empathy, flexibility, sobriety, supports, and relationship stability.

External pressure gets its own chapter. Bombardieri shows how parental expectations, peer judgments, and cultural stereotypes intensify ambivalence by triggering shame, fear, and loyalty conflicts. Individuation—not reflexive compliance or rebellion—becomes the goal. She highlights projections (e.g., fearing a partner will repeat a parent’s mistakes) and offers assertiveness tools: a pressure victim’s bill of rights, humor, dodging, concise I-statements, reframing, and selective disclosure. Naming the “games” people play (“You’ll be sorry,” “We have more fun than you”) helps readers see others’ ambivalence rather than absorb it as truth.

“Poison vials” are the extremes of idealization and doom that distort judgment. Bombardieri punctures myths that parents must feel constant bliss or that childfree people will necessarily regret their choice. She distinguishes healthy self-love from selfishness and shows how motives evolve over a lifespan. Experiments like “borrowing” children can inform but mislead without context; she provides guardrails to make trials useful without overgeneralizing. Permission to change one’s mind—and to have only one child—keeps decisions flexible and reality-based.

Turning to happiness, Bombardieri argues it is value-defined. She explores adventure, risk, spontaneity, and flexibility, showing how both parenting and childfree paths can deliver meaning when aligned with a personal mission. Drawing on Robert Jay Lifton’s modes of “immortality” and ideas from Martin Buber and Abraham Maslow, she helps readers locate purpose beyond biology and confront the “Jonah complex,” the fear of one’s own potential. Solitude, freedom, and intimacy receive balanced treatment, as do community and “chosen family.” Research suggests either path can support well-being; differences are modest and moderated by planning and equity. The core rule: proceed only if both partners genuinely want a child.

When couples disagree, Bombardieri contrasts respectful I–Thou dialogue with coercive tactics. She catalogs manipulations—arm-twisting, avoidance, shaming, sabotage—and counters them with structured negotiation, scheduled talks, and clear “I” messages. She encourages identifying condition-based disagreements (timing, workload, finances, adoption) and asking, “How could I make my choice easier for you?” If stalemates persist, try counseling or a time-limited postponement; when one is adamantly for and the other adamantly against, she advises choosing childfree to protect the relationship. She rejects the idea of being a “single” parent within a marriage and examines second-marriage tensions between already-been parents and never-been parents, offering exercises to decouple old resentments from new partnerships. Therapy and grief work can deepen intimacy even when the decision stays childfree.

Delayed parenthood is presented with pros (maturity, stability, resources) and cons (medical risks, energy, overlapping retirement). Prenatal screening and sound health habits mitigate some risk, but over-35 motherhood is not ideal for everyone. Practical planning—fitness, finances, estate documents, college funds, and nurtured grandparent ties—prepares families. The chapter normalizes common reasons for delay and models calm responses to ageist criticism.

Choosing one child is framed as a “singular solution.” Research counters myths about only children, while guidance addresses potential downsides with peer contact and independence-building. The second- and third-child decisions get reality checks: enjoyment of one does not simply double, and stress and costs often surge. Budgeting, motive-testing, and grieving the imagined child help couples embrace a one-child family when it best fits.

Alternative parenting routes follow. For LGBT families, the book balances gains in acceptance with ongoing prejudice and offers checklists for who carries, donor choices, surrogacy, adoption, sequencing, and legal steps (e.g., second-parent adoption). Single parenthood by choice is validated with candid discussion of dating, identity questions, bias, and the need for robust supports. Ethical cautions around conception and known donors reinforce clarity and legal safety. Adoption—domestic, international, open, special-needs, and legal-risk—is mapped in detail, with emphasis on grieving infertility first, understanding home studies, and aligning expectations with a child’s needs.

Infertility receives a psychological toolkit: when to seek evaluation, coping with pregnancy loss as a family loss, and managing the stress of treatment and the anxiety of pregnancy after infertility. Readers are urged to use reputable medical care, support groups, and stress-reduction practices, and to set boundaries with online communities. When considering pauses or stopping, Bombardieri distinguishes stepping back from choosing alternatives and provides values questions, extended consultations, second opinions, and grief rituals to move from diffuse sorrow to processed grief—enabling a clearer yes, no, or next step.

As readers near a decision, Bombardieri normalizes last-minute panic. She recommends revisiting core exercises, a two-week “try-on” of each path, deciding one baby at a time, and noting the asymmetry of options—parenting is irreversible, while childfree people can later pursue pregnancy, adoption, or child-related roles. She explains when to seek workshops, individual therapy, or couples counseling, how to select neutral professionals, and why help reflects thoroughness, not weakness.

Two closing tracks support life after deciding. For a childfree life: protect boundaries, cultivate solitude and chosen family, channel care through meaningful work or relationships, and think carefully about sterilization’s benefits and irreversibility. For those choosing parenthood: prepare psychologically, learn child development, keep identity and couple time visible, and avoid maternal martyrdom through shared labor, realistic standards, and self-care.

The final chapters confront work–family realities. While advocating an “infrastructure of care,” Bombardieri offers immediate strategies: flexible pacing of careers, equitable division of labor, father involvement, and rigorous child care selection with trial periods and ongoing observation. The book ends by helping readers consolidate their decision, “borrow” satisfactions from the road not taken, manage ambivalence without proselytizing, and announce choices strategically—especially at work. Many experience relief, energy, and renewed creativity once a deliberate decision replaces indecision.