It's weird...
I go through my life mostly being ok about my situation not having kids, which i have pretty much accepted. But I do obviously still feel sad at times seeing friends and family with kids, particularly the one who says she never wanted kids and now seems blissfully happy 🙄 (it really would be so much easier to stay friends with her if she told me she hated it occasionally!!) Anyway I keep thinking to myself, well you could have gone further, you could have gone abroad etc. I still could. But I don't. And it's just quite a weird situation to be in to know theoretically you could do something to change your source of unhappiness, but not doing that. I know my reasons are a combination of factors that could also cause unhappiness (Age, stress of process, lack of certainty, expense etc) which all make sense. I think it's really hard to explain to other people why you wouldn't just do this, it's hard to explain to myself at times. I guess ultimately the desire isn't strong enough to put myself/us through it, but that doesn't mean the desire isn't there at all and that it doesn't hurt or make me feel sad at times. I think it's just a complicated thing to come to terms with when you know that you could have done more but you chose not to, and accepting your choice whilst also feeling sad about the loss of what could have been and what others have but you don't. I don't know if I'm explaining this well but if anyone else feels similarly I'd love to hear it :)