I'd be willing to bet that if you could've had kids without the worry, you would've done it in a heartbeat.
Nope. Remember, I was *15* when I realized I didn't want children. I have never been a person that cared all that much about babies and the younger crowd. Meaning, everyone fights to hold the baby, I gladly let them do it. I've never had a "Mommy hormone" where I felt the longing for kids or felt my clock ticking. I was philosophical in that, if I got pregnant, I'd have been happy because, hey babies are a joy. But I never wanted to try. There isn't any motivation behind my decision other than that there was never any motivation to start with.
I vehemently disagree with the "it's different when it's your own" because, if that were true, we wouldn't have the plague of child abuse that is rampant. Nor would we, imho, have the plague of abortion...people would be happier to be pregnant, to be parents, if it were "different".
Besides, what if it ISN'T different? What if I hated the kid? I mean, you can't euthanize them, you can't take them to the shelter and you can't toss them out of a moving car on the side of the road, right? So you're stuck. (Of course, those are extremes. I wouldn't do any of those to a cat or dog, so I certainly wouldn't do it to a child!)
When I went through the emergency hysterectomy that saved my life, my Dad; in the interest of not wanting me to feel like I was missing out on anything just in case my childfreeness was an attempt to cover up sadness over not being able to have kids, started to push the topic of adoption. M and I gave real consideration to this. I started praying and asking if THIS is what He wanted me to do. But, when it came down to it, I just didn't have the desire. It simply was not there.
I understand that this feeling, or absolute lack of feeling, is unfathomable to those who are happily childed. Believe me when I say it's equally unfathomable to ME why people WANT children. I just don't have that mindset. Kids are nice and I get along great with the older ones, but it never makes me think "gee, if I could have only had one of my own". *shrug* You can say I'm selfish if you'd like, but I like my life as is. It's made me a good teacher and friend to the kids in my life. And that's good enough for me.