Surrogacy on top of actual harvesting is very expensive and time-consuming and painful if even possible without donor sperm/eggs. I doubt most people are able t

Surrogacy on top of actual harvesting is very expensive and time-consuming and painful if even possible without donor sperm/eggs. I doubt most people are able to make up the $100k+ needed with earning potential differences in the 10-15 years of waiting that you are talking about. Maybe couples in tech and other fields making six figures could save that up, but that's JUST a basic pregnancy, forget any parenting costs, and most people are not making six figures. A lot of folks start considering adoption before they'll do surrogacy with or without donors just due to sheer cost. Even if a couple decides to go at it with IVF that's easily $10-20k/cycle (and older = more likely to want PGD etc. adding to costs) and a lot of emotional/physical hardship and time sunk into the effort. After a point there is just no luck on your side either no matter how much money you throw at it... I have cried with too many friends over their failed cycles. And some of them discover this in their 20s, not even 40+. If you want to have kids, it's going to cost money and time _somewhere_. If you want to have bio kids, it's likely to be far less painful and far better (in terms of cost, maternal outcome, child outcome, etc.) to do it while younger if possible. Maybe there are tradeoffs - and as a pregnant 20something woman in tech that struggled with infertility treatments but thankfully not all the way to the pain that is IVF and beyond, I'm acutely aware of them - but that's a personal decision to make. I also had older parents that were not as lucky as yours and find it to be a hardship I refuse to put my own children through. It is not necessarily a crazy or bad idea to have children earlier if you can and want to.