They earn nearly $200,000. Can they afford to have kids in SoCal?

As a girl growing up in Michigan, Quinn played M.A.S.H. with friends, a pencil-and paper game that claims to predict if you’ll live in a mansion, apartment, shack or house, as well as what car you’ll drive, who you’ll marry and how many children you’ll have.

“I was supposed to have 37 kids and live in a shack,” she said, laughing.

Coelho-Kostolny grew up in Napa Valley surrounded by a gaggle of five siblings and several cousins. In his late teens, he helped care for his nieces and nephews when they were sick and loved teaching them things.

“Kids are cool,” he said. “Weird little undeveloped humans that are like sponges.”

But he never felt a strong emotional pull to have kids of his own.

When the couple, who met through a mutual friend in San Francisco, announced their engagement on Facebook in 2013, they got a message from Coelho-Kostolny’s sister. It was a list of 35 questions couples should talk through before deciding whether to get married.

One question read, “Do you want to have children?”

Neither felt strongly in favor, but decided not to rule anything out — they described themselves, at that time, “as fence sitters.”

Soon after they got married in 2014, the couple relocated to Burbank for job opportunities. They eventually got a cat named Sofie and built a community among people who, like them, love to hike, cook and travel. Their close friends had a son and chose them as godparents.

They prioritized travel and adventure — swimming with dolphins in the Bahamas, skydiving at Lake Elsinore. On their eighth anniversary, for which bronze is the traditional gift, they posed in front of the “Bronze Fonz,” a metallic statue depicting the Happy Days character in Milwaukee.

Their lives felt full, but they still hadn’t made a final decision.

Through the years, Quinn had cycled through a series of emotions around the idea of parenthood, starting with apathy and then guilt. Her mother had only once mentioned that she dreamed of grandchildren, but society had instilled in her so much messaging about a woman’s worth being tied to motherhood. Eventually, her emotions pivoted to research.

She discussed it with her therapist, read a book called “The Baby Decision” and had deep conversations with friends who had children. By then, she had all but made up her mind, but worried about swaying her husband.

He was leaning that way too, especially when they considered finances.

Rent for their two-bedroom apartment was $2,400 a month, and they still had so many things they wanted to do such as tour the East Coast for a couple of months and attend Neotropolis, a festival in the Mojave Desert that they described as “Burning Man for really, really nerdy people.” They both hope to pursue further education, and Quinn still owes $11,000 in loans from her time at the Academy of Art in San Francisco.

The couple know they probably will help care for both Quinn’s mother and stepfather and her father and stepmother one day — a factor that they’ve considered in planning their finances, since it would require them to relocate to a larger home.

Around the time they made their decision, Quinn lighted a candle and said a few words in her mind while thinking of the two names — the boy’s name for her father and stepfather, and the girl’s name for a name her mother had considered giving her. A small, silent moment for a different life.

Before long, around his 36th birthday, Coelho-Kostolny scheduled a vasectomy.

Since the procedure, Quinn has had a few fleeting moments of panic in which she wonders if they made the right decision. But most of the time she feels deep freedom.

“I would rather regret not having children,” she said, “than regret having them.”