Poignant questions. I love your point that "having children is a statement of hope and belief in the human experiment " – well put.

One question for you. I agree that history has countless examples of continuing to have children despite terrible circumstances. But, do we have examples of that since we invented birth control? (Sincere question - we might. I just got to thinking that it might be more that people had children because, well, they had they sure weren't going to stop having sex and every now and then that makes children, if the timing's right.)