Pallavi Gogoi

But at that age, it can really take a toll on the body.

Think about it.

First, you got to get hormone injections to harvest eggs.

And then you have to take more hormones to prepare your body to get pregnant through IVF.

And then there's childbirth.

I don't need to tell you.

Childbirth is never easy.

And the thing is, even after you have your baby, there's more.

One mom, she was in her late 40s, and she told me that she didn't anticipate for it to be so physical, especially the first two years.

There's a lot of carrying a child up and down the stairs, in and out of car seats.

And she told me, you know, my knees hurt.

Yeah, yeah.

The other thing is when you choose to have a kid by yourself, sure, it's empowering.

But another thing that was surprising to me, people talked about the emotional toll that that decision takes.

Aisha, we talked about Stephanie Gobler.

She decided to have her boys after a breakup.

But there are a lot of other women I spoke to who went the same route, and they talked about the grieving that they go through when they decide to let go of that dream of having a family with another person and raising the kids together.

Let me share with you the story of Nilu Rehman.

She's 41 and she lives right outside of Baltimore.

She works at Johns Hopkins University.