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Australia's birth rate has plummeted to a record low, as more Australian women put off motherhood or opt out entirely.
ABS data shows the current birth rate now sits at 1.5 births per woman as a growing number of women choose to be childfree for a range of personal reasons, from financial pressure to sustainability concerns.
Cheryll, 35, gave up her dreams of becoming a mother after sinking about $20,000 into fertility treatments with "nothing to show for it".
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The Queenslander started IVF in 2022 after an ectopic pregnancy almost killed her, but could only afford a limited number of treatments.
"We saved every spare penny we had and put it towards the infertility treatments," Cheryll told 9news.
"After our last embryo transfer, we just hit a wall emotionally and couldn't continue. Cost of living definitely played into our decision and the fact that we had spent so much already."
According to IVF Australia, one cycle of IVF can cost more than $11,500 out of pocket in 2024. A cycle of Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) can cost in excess of $12,500, while the cycle cost for a frozen embryo transfer (FET) sits at about $4,200.
Have you got a story? Contact reporter Maddison Leach at mleach@nine.com.au
Last year, Cheryll and her partner decided they couldn't afford to continue IVF, nor raise a child comfortably in the current cost of living crisis.
Both work full time and commute up to four hours each day. They can't afford to move closer to work, and their rent was recently raised by $75 a week.
"Childcare is really expensive, then there's the cost of having another mouth to feed. It would all be too much," Cheryll said.
"Rents and costs keep rising but wages don't, so we would be in trouble if we had a kid. If we had another rent increase, we'd end up homeless. We'd be joining our local tent city."
She and her partner don't want to raise a child in poverty.
They are now putting money they would have spent on kids towards travel.
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Cheryll believes that women like her play a role in the nation's plummeting fertility rate, which dropped to 286,998 births in 2023 — numbers not seen since 2006.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers, a father of three, called the plummeting birth rate a "long-term trend" and acknowledged that "affordability is a big part of that challenge".
But it's not the only reason women aren't having kids.
Victoria local Laura, 39, said she just never felt the urge to become a mother.
"The other part of my decision [to be childfree] is sort of psychological … almost like not wanting to pass trauma on to other generations," she told 9news.
"My parents did the best they could, but I'm spending so much of my life trying to resolve some of my childhood stuff."
As a result of her choice to remain childfree, Laura feels less pressure dating because she doesn't have to find the "father of [her] child", and doesn't worry about the effect becoming a mother could have on her career.
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Though she and Cheryll are comfortable with their decisions, they've both copped criticism.
"There's heaps of stigma associated with childless women. We're seen as defective, sad, lonely, pathetic. We're portrayed as resentful, jealous and bitter," Cheryll said.
Laura pointed to the US, where Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance recently labelled prominent Democrats "childless cat ladies" who don't have "a direct stake" in the nation's future.
Both feel there's too much pressure on Australian women to become mums for a multitude of reasons, but that's unlikely to change if the birth rate keeps falling.
It's already well below the 2.1 births per woman needed to keep a natural population balance without counting immigration and may prompt calls for Australian couples to have more kids.
In 2004, then-Treasurer Peter Costello urged Australians to have more babies, issuing a plea for parents to "have one for mum, one for dad and one for the country".
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