After Naima Green married her wife and fellow artist, Sable Elyse Smith, suddenly it seemed as if everyone in their orbit was curious if a baby would follow.

As a teacher, Green loves children, and she has often photographed pregnant friends and new parents as a gesture for her next chapter. But she is ambivalent about having kids of her own, she explained during a phone interview. Like many people her age, she’s gone back and forth on the reality of it, from what would happen to the life and artistic practice she’s built in New York, to how realistic it would be to conceive. Three years ago, at age 32, a doctor told her she should have begun trying years earlier, which was somewhat unactionable advice without a time machine.

Still, she felt a pull toward pregnancy she didn’t quite under

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