The conversation on fertility—whether you’re thinking about kids in the near future or not—is still plagued by anxiety-inducing messages that keep women up at night picturing a ticking biological clock. Women deserve better—no fear mongering, just facts. So Glamour took the pulse of what women do and don’t know about their reproductive health to bring you the Modern State of Fertility.

My roommate came with me to my first IVF class. We took our seats between a couple and a woman there on her own. She had a folder full of information; her eagerness apparent in the tapping of her foot, her informed questions, her careful note taking. The couple held hands and smiled. Under the table, I texted the friend who’d be picking me up for the next doctor’s appointment. I’ll be late. People have lots of questions.

I had no questions, and little interest in being in the class at all. It was required to attend by the clinic I was working with—a clinic I hadn’t researched or purposefully chosen, the clinic I had ended up with because it was affiliated with the team of doctors treating my newly diagnosed brain cancer.

After months of brain fog, memory problems, and word finding issues I’d assumed were related to the stress of grad school, an MRI revealed a tumor in my brain—anaplastic astrocytoma grade 3, to be exact, in the same class as highly terminal glioblastoma. One craniotomy, ICU stay, and pathology report later, I found myself staring blankly as a doctor explained that the chemo I needed would likely destroy my chance of getting pregnant someday, should I ever want to do so.

Fertility was far from my mind. I was 27, busy pursuing my Masters in social work, hanging out with my friends and my girlfriend, and dreaming about being financially stable enough to get my first dog. The doctor suggested I look into fertility preservation as soon as possible. “You want to give yourself the chance,” he said, “just in case.” Suddenly I was on what my doctors called the fertility “fast track”—my appointments, medications, even my enrollment in the IVF info sessions expedited to get ahead of the vigorous regimen of radiation and chemotherapy I was about to endure.

I wanted more than just a chance at motherhood; having children has always been a dream. For as long as I can remember I’ve pictured starting a family one day—just one day very far in the future. Adding to the ambiguity, I’m in a queer, same-sex relationship and I hadn’t even begun to think about how my partner and I might go about having kids. We weren’t even certain we’d even end up together. We’ve been dating for almost two years, and while it seems likely that we are heading in the direction of marriage at some point, we are definitely not ready to have kids together. We’d barely talked about moving in together or whether she’d come to Thanksgiving next year, let alone whether we’d want to conceive biologically, adopt, or foster. We were, and are, at the beginning of considering a life together—a time that should be filled with the glow of possibility, the freedom to dream without commitment.

Navigating the line between what we’d decide together, and what was up to me, became a new challenge in our relationship. We went together to appointments, but she let me do the talking and the decision making. She told me it was my body, my future, and she’d be there beside me no matter what I did. I was grateful, but mourned a world in which we’d have had the time to know what we’d wanted together, to be able to fully have her on my team.

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