of ever becoming one. and survey data states that the vast majority of the 50% who don't become mothers didn't do so by choice, but because they simply didn't meet the right person at the right time.

there are certainly cases where a woman pushes the process. fratstud and i worked with a gal who wigged out, quit her job and moved to london to go to pastry school. when she figured out that being a pastry chef pays sh** and that she didn't want to be a 39 year old making $16 an hour, she moved in with her mom in arizona, met some dude online and got knocked up within a couple weeks of meeting the guy.

heck, i went on a couple dates with a woman who was 37 and had a best friend the same age who decided to give up on the chances of natural conception and go to the sperm bank. said friend was convinced that her odds of finding a man would greatly increase once she was a single mom.

but those are edge cases. for most women, meeting a partner means 1-2 years of courting, a 6-12 month long engagement and then some amount of time trying to get pregnant before you have a kid. and any breakup in the middle of that resets the entire timeline. and, make no mistake, there is a hard end date. the odds of a woman giving birth after 40 are so low that the government barely even keeps the stats - they generally lump them in with 35 year olds. when you see the disaggregated numbers, you're looking at less than 5% of births to women over 40, with the number basically rounding to zero once you hit 45.