Content warning: covers themes of body image.
As a young girl and later as a teenager, I would fantasise about having a family of my own one day. A true love, babies and a white picket fence; it was all part of the plan for my life. I have vivid memories of sitting in the quadrangle at lunchtime in high school, enthusiastically discussing my favourite baby names with my best friends. If someone suggested a name I liked, I'd pull out my phone and add it to a running list in my notes.
The list got longer and longer over the years. But while I was building that list of names, I was learning to keep lists of other things too. How many calories I was consuming, how many pieces of bread I'd eaten, how many minutes of exercise I'd done that day. There are pages and pages in my teenage diaries that read like an extreme personal training program.
By the time I left high school, my obsession had turned outward. I began to develop an acute sense of climate anxiety. I spent the long summer breaks during my uni days driving to and from my part-time job through the haze of bushfire smoke. Monitoring the 'Fires Near Me' app on my lunch break. Trying in vain to remember the smell of fresh air.
Somewhere along the line I realised that the list of names in my phone was a futile exercise.
I made the decision that I wouldn't have children.
I don't want to bring a human into a world that according to research, is heading towards a . And I certainly don't feel comfortable bringing a child into the world knowing how my brain reacts to the slightest change in my body's appearance. The possibility that a child might bear the brunt of my misplaced body insecurities is enough to convince me out of giving birth.
The possibility that a child might bear the brunt of my misplaced body insecurities is enough to convince me out of giving birth
I know that no parent is perfect, but I'm convinced that if I wanted to become one, I would need to be pretty damn close. And I know myself well enough to know that there is no way that I can deal with the weight of that kind of perfectionism. Frankly, the basic requirement of having to love, care for and raise a baby up to be a good human being is terrifying to me. Or, it was.
Last year, I met my partner. And now, just over a year into our relationship, my decision not to have children doesn't seem quite so clear-cut anymore. That realisation has been a conflicting one. I have always resented the argument put to people who remain childless by choice - that they'll change their mind when they meet the right person.
Well, now I'm confident that I've met the right person. And suddenly I am wavering. 'They would be such a great parent,' I found myself thinking as I watched them meet my toddler cousins.
My cousins, uninhibited by the social anxieties of grown-ups, immediately pepper them with questions. "Do you like Lego? Are you and Liv married? Can I have a hug?"
With only a fleeting look of panic, I watched my partner kneel on the carpet and patiently answer their questions, obligingly providing hugs and confirming that we are not in fact married.
I have always resented the argument put to people who remain childless by choice - that they'll change their mind when they meet the right person
Madly in love with my partner as I am, I can see for the very first time exactly what I'm giving up. It's no longer an abstract idea of parenting alongside a partner that I've never met.
I'm giving up the possibility of children that have my big nose and their cheeky grin. I'm giving up the possibility of children whose laughs are even more obnoxiously loud than ours. I'm giving up the chance to love a little human who might share their parent's taste in terrible jokes and my fondness for sad songs.
I'm giving up what I've come to view as one of the most profound bonds you can have with someone; to have created another human who is made from the best and worst bits of yourself and the person you love.
Now, when I think about my decision not to have children it is not with the determined surety that I once had. Instead, the thought is tinged with sorrow. I watch my partner 'Roar!' like a dinosaur and 'oink oink' like a pig; sending my cousins into fits of laughter. And I feel sad that we will never hear the giggles of our own offspring.
At family dinner with their parents, I watch my partner's sister affectionately teasing them. And I can't help but feel like our lives will lose some richness because we will never watch that sibling dynamic play out in our own home.
And yet that potential loss cannot rule out the intense fear that the idea of having children evokes in me. It's a deep and profound fear. I doubt I will ever overcome it enough to bear children. But I suppose that I am holding onto the hope that in some way I can still carry out the noble duty of parenthood - to create and to care.
My partner and I dream often of the garden that we'll have in our future home; a space we can nurture, where we can grow together with the plants. Where we can appreciate the raw power of nature. After all, isn't that exactly what it takes to make a family?
*Name changed for privacy.
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