In September 2017, feeling the first twinges of labor, I walked beyond the ten-block radius my ob-gyn had prescribed me, defying her bed-rest orders for one reason: to tour day-care centers and get my unborn kid on as many wait lists as possible.

I knew I had to take the risk only because I’d worked for three years on youth and family programs at a high-quality New York nonprofit.

When I’d started in 2012, our preschool had a two-year wait list. By the time I left, the wait list had swelled to almost four years, which meant that most children who had been added to the list never got into the program. We had at least twenty applications for children in utero, and two for children who hadn’t yet been conceived. Sometimes mothers mentioned to me that they’d miscarried, but would like to keep their application open, and did in fact conceive again before receiving an offer of admission. One baby died while on the list.