In a pandemic, to baby or not to baby?

But despite these adjustments, all this family time has had one unexpected consequence. I find myself suddenly longing for a second child.

I shared this alarming thought with a friend, who also has one child a little older than ours. And he said that he too, for the first time ever, questioned whether they should have had another.

I’ve decided that this could be due to a unique and unprecedented set of circumstances that’s physiologically influencing my biological clock — I’m calling them corona hormones — in ways only this moment in time could.

For one, fear can make a mother preternaturally focused. When confronting the reality that some, perhaps many, people around us will die, procreating becomes an evolutionarily appealing act of rebellion. While the smallness of our family feels thrifty and well-suited to hunkering down in a pandemic, it also somehow feels too small for the scope of it. Strength in numbers seems the better biological approach.

That primal rationalizing is coupled with a more emotional sense of urgency.