In this article, I study fertility decisions with special emphasis on the timing of births and abortions over the life cycle. Given the policy debate regarding abortion availability and recent evidence of its positive impact on women's outcomes, understanding the fertility process should help guide the discussion. Here, I present a life‐cycle model of consumption–savings and fertility decisions in an environment with uninsurable income shocks and imperfect fertility control. My model presents a framework in which both opportunity costs of child rearing and technological restrictions (in the form of contraception effectiveness) have roles shaping lifetime fertility choices.