Captain Kirk is crying on CNN. He is describing what he felt as he looked back at earth from the cold void of space. He says he was overcome, not with awe, but heartbreak. He was able to see just how rare and radiant our miracle planet is, how seemingly unique in the cosmos, and he was flooded with grief at our continued failure to protect her. I’m crying too. Billionaire men riding phallic rockets always bums me out but that’s not why. I’m crying because I am pregnant and he is right. I am pregnant on a burning, breaking, planet.

My husband and I are one of countless millennial couples who have deliberated for years whether to have kids in light of climate change. Images of “Mad Max” aren’t so far off in our minds. We are privileged to live in what’s known as a “wildland-urban interface” in Southern California, where fire season is now year-round and we live with permanent “go bags” in our cars. We know we will be forced to evacuate from our home either while I am carrying our child, or at some point in his early years, likely more than once, eventually annually. This burden is nothing compared to what has happened and awaits so many more worldwide. Among the many things our son may hate us for, he may eventually demand to know how we grown-ups could have let this happen. Even if we right the ship and get to carbon neutral by 2050, which is in no way a certainty, he will be forced to endure an angry if not apocalyptic climate, and an earth already robbed of so many of its wonders. We will tell him that we tried and are trying; we vote, march, recycle, and drive Priuses. But we will need to tell him about human nature. We will tell him of brave leaders, often children, who exemplify the best of who we can be. But we will also have to tell him how human beings are destructive and don’t like to face their destructiveness. We will need to tell him that people don’t like truths that are scary and inconvenient and it is easier to blame strangers and buy pretty things than it is to change. We will have to tell him about madness and how contagious it is. And we will tell him that we love him, and it’s going to be okay, even if we aren’t so sure.

I remind myself that throughout history expectant parents have had to question whether this ruthless furnace of a world is a place to bring an innocent life into. We ultimately came to believe — perhaps at any time— and precisely at this time, having a child is a radical act of faith. It is a yes to life that isn’t reasonable, just deeply right, for us.

What we can promise to our son as he wiggles in my womb, blissfully unaware of carbon levels, Paris accords, or strange and scary words like Exxon or the GOP, is that we will we love him. We will play together in the too hot sun, and be stubborn in our gladness while the world breaks, burns, and begins anew. We will promise to do our best to face reality and gradually help him to do the same. On some level isn’t that the only way humanity has ever really stood a chance? Loving each other, facing the truth together, as a family.

William Shatner weeps. I look to my belly, growing like a new planet, and I still feel hope.

Life won’t be stopped.