Modern Love · The New York Times

I Didn’t Want to Have Kids. My Husband Did. Could Our Marriage Survive?

February 25, 2026·53 min·2 clips

Helena found out she was pregnant the same day her husband came home from a trip having just learned his sister had died — and seeing his face beam through grief made her want to try.

Anna Martin opens by talking with Helena de Groot about the question that kept returning: whether to have a child. Helena says that for a long time her answer was mostly no. Even so, the doubt kept circling back. The question did not stay abstract. It started to shape her life, the people she loved, and the shape of her marriage. Helena is also bringing that same question into her new podcast, Creation Myth. Anna wants to understand how one choice can take over so much of a person’s inner life. Helena talks through the unease of not feeling fully decided. She does not pretend she had confidence. She describes the question as something she could not quite set down. Then the conversation turns toward a moment that changes everything. Helena tells her husband she is pregnant. He has just learned that his sister has died. The loss was not a surprise, but it was tragic, and the timing gives the scene a strange, almost cosmic feel. Helena hears the moment as one life beginning while another ends. Her husband’s face changes as she speaks. She sees him beam. That reaction lands hard. It makes her think maybe she should stop trying to force the outcome and let life run its course. The episode does not turn that feeling into certainty. Helena says there is no real trying with having a kid. She also says she had no confidence that she could do it. What she felt instead was a mix of surrender and permission. Pregnancy then changes her body and mind in ways she did not expect. She calls it a profound physical and emotional shift. The hormones feel powerful. She feels calm and optimistic in a way she does not usually feel. That change gives her a new kind of faith. Maybe this was what being a mother would feel like. Maybe a different self would just arrive. Later, Helena returns to the longer view. She does not land on regret as the final word. She lands on curiosity. The conversation leaves room for what was chosen, what was lost, and what might have been.

As heard by us

A tender Modern Love conversation about marriage, motherhood, grief, and the softer language Helena de Groot finds for regret.

Modern Love follows Helena de Groot through the question that kept returning to her life and marriage: whether to have a child when she usually felt motherhood was not for her. The episode is strongest when pregnancy and grief arrive at once.

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Why you'd press play

A child decision that keeps testing a body, a family, and a way of thinking.

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