They want a second baby. But even with $100K, they can't afford it.

Kailah Brewer always wanted to have two children. She and her husband both grew up in large families and felt like their resources were stretched thin . Her parents couldn't help her buy her first car or assist with college funds, she said.

But when the Brewers started talking family planning , two kids felt manageable. And especially after her oldest, 5-year-old Kailo Brewer, was diagnosed with autism , she wanted him to have a sibling to grow up with and to help support him as an adult, after his parents are gone .

Kailah Brewer is a 32-year-old teacher in Chesapeake, Virginia, although she's stayed home the last few years to be with Kailo. She and her husband planned her second pregnancy down to the month. If Kailo started going to school in September 2026, and she got pregnant a month later, she'd have their second baby in June. Then she'd have all summer with the new baby before going back to work.

It all made perfect sense, until she crunched the numbers. Her heart fell. Though her husband, the family's sole earner right now, makes about $100,000 a year as a welder, they're strapped between her student loan debt, high child care costs and Kailo's medical expenses.

More: They don't need Medicaid. But their kids do.

When Brewer sees pronatalism news and President Donald Trump urging women to have more babies with $1,000 savings accounts for newborns and child care tax credits , she said it "feels like a slap in the face."

The administration's recent policies, along with the current economy, she said, have left her feeling like she can't grow her family. Head Start is one of the only affordable child care options for kids with disabilities like Kailo, but funding freezes have led to major cuts to the program; and Brewer hopes someday Kailo's medical needs will be covered under Medicaid , but their waiver application was denied. The Brewers have an advocate working for them pro bono to appeal their Medicaid application denial.

"There's no way we'll be able to afford (another child)," Brewer told USA TODAY. She's been grieving their status as a "one and done family, not by choice," over the last few months.

Brewer isn't alone. Despite America's declining birth rate , a 2024 Institute for Family Studies/YouGov survey found 41% of women under 35 want to have children. Another survey from the institute found that among women aged 18-55 who want more children than they have, their top two barriers are not having a suitable spouse and affordability. Some women are now pinning their family planning plights on conservative policies, even though the Trump administration has built a substantial platform around raising the United States' fertility rate.

There's been a recent baby boom in the White House , with pregnancy announcements from second lady Usha Vance , Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and other women connected to the Trump administration.

"Pronatalism has sort of become the global warming of the right," said Malcom Collins , a prominent proponent of the movement that promotes  childbearing  in response to  global birth rate declines .

Conservatives are having more babies than liberals, according to a study from the  Institute for Family Studies , a family policy think tank. The relationship between voting Republican and having more children is growing stronger over time, the study found, although generally the U.S. fertility rate is declining .

More: President Donald Trump wanted a baby boom. Is it here?

"We are a family who actually wants to have another child, but the system is not supportive for that at all," Brewer said. She recently thought about going back to school to get her master's degree in education so she could make more money as a teacher, but Trump stripped education of its professional degree status , limiting her student loan options.

"We would have to go the private loan route," she said. "Which, you know, there's no public service loan forgiveness for that."

Health fears, political uncertainty is shaping family planning for some women

Most people have to grapple with a lot of pressing questions before deciding to have a baby or to grow their family, said Karen Guzzo , director of the Carolina Population Center at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Americans facing fertility decisions are asking themselves: Am I in a stable partnership? Can I afford to take time off if I have a baby? Do I have the right health care? Can I afford child care? Is my house big enough? Do I have family support?

"I think the average person is looking around right now and saying, 'not so much,'" Guzzo said. There are a lot of people who would like to have a child, or to grow their family, "and they're just not sure they can do it."

Among adults younger than 50 who don't have children and say they are unlikely to in the future, 38% said their concerns about the state of the world is a major reason, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey of 770 adults. Another 36% cited not being able to afford to raise a child, and 26% cited concerns about the environment.

Having kids is "a commitment to the future," Guzzo said, and shows confidence that a parent can give their kid a good life. "And I think it's really hard for many young adults to feel that way," she said.

Trump wants more babies, but only in native-born, well-off American families, Guzzo said, adding "That's not, to me, real  pronatalism ."

Kara Kushnir , a mental health therapist in New Jersey who focuses on families and perinatal mental health, said she's noticed a swell in fear among her clients who want to be mothers but don't know if they can or should. This theme of uncertainty "is so much more pervasive and daunting" than she's seen before.

"I think there is an immense grief that women are feeling in our country of what they expected, of what they want to hope for, but feel they're not allowed to hope for," Kushnir said. "And a lot of the work lies in not allowing the hope to be extinguished."

Some of her patients who are struggling with fertility and are considering in vitro fertilization, or IVF, to get pregnant are afraid of going through that potentially painful − and expensive − procedure when the IVF process has come under scrutiny following the Supreme Court 's overturning of Roe v. Wade .

Other women with a history of miscarriage are fearful, too, she said, since access to maternal health interventions , such as dilation and curettage (D&C), are limited in some states.

"It is shaping people's decision making," Kushnir said. Many women are afraid to even bring up their concerns to their doctors, she said, because it can be hard to gauge where a provider stands on certain issues surrounding maternal health and fertility.

As a mental health clinician, Kushnir and her colleagues are weighing whether these fears are coming from a place of paranoia, or are rooted in reality.

Kushnir tends to find the latter is true, more and more.

"When people are bringing these concerns, I have to validate their fear while also stoking courage and stoking consideration to not let fear win," Kushnir said. "And that's a really big ask."

She suggests women have honest conversations with their doctors about their worries, including asking what their providers would do if their baby received a fatal diagnosis while in the womb, or if they had a miscarriage, or if other laws surrounding fertility change in the coming years.

"It's really about instilling hope in these women, to choose regardless of what it feels like is being taken from them," Kushnir said.

'Because of this experience, I will not grow my family.'

Tori Nardone, 32, was in her second trimester of her second pregnancy when her doctors shared the news. Her baby wasn't going to live.

Doctors noticed the fatal fetal anomaly in November of 2024. "They were surprised that I hadn't miscarried yet," she said. Carrying a baby she knew was going to die to term was not an option for her. "I can't even formulate words on how detrimental to someone's mental and physical health that would be," she said.

But in the second trimester, living in South Carolina, Nardone couldn't get an abortion because doctors couldn't "definitively prove" the anomaly they knew was there with a placenta sample.

"I got poked and prodded," she said. Ultimately, "they were unsuccessful in getting that sample."

About a week after learning about their baby's condition, Nardone and her husband traveled to Virginia so she could safely end her pregnancy.

In the months that followed, Nardone wanted to try again, but her husband was hesitant. He was worried for her health. They talked about moving to another state, but their family, community and work are in South Carolina.

When it came time to try for another pregnancy, Nardone said she had a panic attack every time she made an appointment to get her IUD removed.

"It was like my body was having an adverse reaction to even thinking about going through that process, but also the possibility of a worst-case scenario again," she said.

It was then that Nardone decided she couldn't have another baby.

"(People) always say, 'You can't live in fear. You can't act as if the worst thing can happen.' But it did happen to me," Nardone said. "So I have to move forward with my life, based on that."

Nardone works in women's rights advocacy and has written about and testified with her story at a South Carolina Senate Medical Affairs Committee hearing on Senate Bill 323, also called the "Unborn Child Protection Act." She hears stories like her own echoed across the state at various protests and rallies. She believes everyone should have the right to an abortion, but her heart breaks for the women like herself who, because of lack of access to abortion, can't be mothers at all.

"There are a lot of us who − despite the political climate and the world that we live in − are desperate to be mothers. And we love being mothers," she said. "And because of this experience, I will not grow my family. And it enrages me that this system has robbed me of the experience of growing my family."

'People want to have children'

Nardone is still processing the reality of not having the family she always pictured.

"I'll probably never get over (it)," she said. "I will always be grieving what could have been."

Kushnir, too, is a mom of one and is hesitant to have another child because of threats to maternal health care access. She tries to quell these anxieties by focusing on the present and "enjoying the child that I have."

"And also trying to live a life that affords me moments of joy, while I also allow moments of rage and advocacy," she said.

When Brewer thinks about her son never having a sibling, her heart breaks, too.

"People want to have children," Brewer said. "But they want to do it the 'right way,' and it feels like the goalpost just keeps getting moved further and further back."

Madeline Mitchell's role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with  Pivotal  and  Journalism Funding Partners . Funders do not provide editorial input.

Reach Madeline at  memitchell@usatoday.com  and  @maddiemitch_  on X.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: They want a second baby. But even with $100K, they can't afford it.