According to our favorite country sweetheart’s discography, Kelsea Ballerini has been love-torn in la, rolled out the welcome mat in her ‘Penthouse,’ and now? She’s sitting on the swings in Mount Pleasant. Her upcoming EP (dropping November 14) is a six-track, emoji-coded adventure that kicks off with ‘I Sit In Parks.’ Written solely by Kelsea and co-produced with longtime creative partner Alysa Vanderheym (aka the mastermind behind PATTERNS, SUBJECT TO CHANGE, and many more soft girl anthems), the track is a tender gut-punch for the overachievers who’ve ticked every box except the one they whisper about at 2 a.m.—family.
It’s honest in the way only Kelsea can be: not even a vape or a platinum plaque can numb the ache of wondering if you’ve missed your window. While she sits in parks, she people-watches—spotting women her age who may not have a mantle full of ACMs, but do have a toddler with their exact eyes. As always, Kelsea doesn’t just skim the surface of our thoughts—she paints the whole emotional canvas until you can practically feel the rubber of a sun-warmed tire swing and the lump in your throat that comes with it.
Eggs, Expectations, And Emmy-Worthy Tears: Fertility On Screen
Whether it started early—like the second you pinned your dream wedding dress and accidentally mapped out the next 30 years—or crept in later like a plot twist you didn’t see coming, that ache to be chosen, seen, wanted is a universal one. It’s so real, it’s even written itself into the arcs of our favorite fictional women. From the basketball courts of One Tree Hill to the operating rooms of Grey’s Anatomy, there are at least five fictional women who probably scribbled lyrics to ‘I Sit In Parks’ in the margins of their own storylines—long before Kelsea ever laid it to melody.
Robin Scherbatsky: Biological Clocks Don’t Wait For Prime Time Anchors
Our infamous Robin Scherbatsky—who first sparkled under a disco ball as Canadian teen pop sensation Robin Sparkles before trading denim jackets for news anchor blazers—would absolutely feel the sting of Kelsea’s aching lyric: “Is it my fault for chasing things a body clock doesn’t wait for?” For most of How I Met Your Mother, Robin was fine with not having kids…until she found out she couldn’t.
In Season 7, Episode 12 (‘Symphony of Illumination’), a pregnancy scare with Barney leads to the reveal that she’s infertile. At first, she masks the heartbreak with humor—in classic HIMYM fashion—but underneath the monologue about independence and “not being that kind of woman,” is grief. Her phantom children sit on the couch of Barney’s luxurious apartment, presented like a dream sequence, a haunting parallel to Ted’s very real kids listening to this story unfold from the future.
Then come the Christmas lights. Ted covers his apartment in them, a glowing gesture of love and comfort, and Robin finally lets him in on her truth. She later marries Barney (briefly), and while she never becomes a mother, she builds a life that’s wholly hers—filled with world travel, career wins, and hard-earned peace. She never sat on a playground swing with a toddler, but you can bet she sat in plenty of metaphorical parks, wondering if success was worth what it didn’t leave room for.
April Kepner: Seattle Grace’s Patron Saint Of Shattered Plans
One of the gorgeous things about the ‘I Sit In Parks’ music video (besides Kelsea herself, glowing in that red, flowing gown) is the duality it quietly plays with. At the start, she places a fish-eye lens on the camera—a dreamy, distorted filter that hints she might be hallucinating the life she longs for. By the end, the illusion crumbles. The camera pulls back, revealing a set—props, lights, and empty space. We realize we’ve been watching a “lucid dream,” not a life lived. For most, what’s real is the child in front of them; for Kelsea, it’s the glittering world that fades when the lights go out. It’s a commentary on surface-level relationships, fake smiles, and empty success—and how, deep down, family is the thing that feels most true.
That ache for something deeper—and the tension between what we see and what we believe—lives inside our favorite Seattle Grace ex-resident, Grey’s Anatomy’s April Kepner. Faith wasn’t just her personality trait; it was her anchor. And yet, April’s entire arc is a tug-of-war between what she believes in spiritually and what she feels emotionally. After marrying Jackson Avery, April becomes pregnant with their first child, Samuel Norbert Avery. But when he’s diagnosed with type II osteogenesis imperfecta—a fatal condition—she and Jackson are faced with the devastating choice to induce labor at 24 weeks. Samuel dies shortly after birth.
April’s grief cracks her wide open, testing her faith in ways no Sunday sermon could prepare her for. She spirals, runs to war zones, tries to outrun God and herself—but ultimately, her faith becomes the thread she follows back. Later, after divorcing Jackson, April finds out she’s pregnant again. This time, she keeps it to herself for a while, shielding Jackson—and maybe her own heart—from reopening that wound. However, Harriet is born healthy, and together they embark on the journey of co-parenting. April’s story mirrors Kelsea’s message: that success, romance, even divine conviction can be surrounded by illusion. But when the set falls away—when the filters are gone—what matters most is the love we fight for, the faith we hold onto, and the family we create…even if it looks different than we dreamed.
Brooke Davis: CEO Of Fashion, Fertility Feelings & Fire
The girl behind the red door—who would 100% circle “Two kids are laughing and crying on red swings” with a red highlighter—not just because it matches her fiery rage, but because she did eventually end up with twin babies named Davis and Jude Baker. Yes, Davis. As in, the ultimate Brooke move: immortalizing herself in motherhood like a legacy brand. Of course, we’re talking about One Tree Hill’s Brooke Davis—pom-pom swayer, high fashion exec, and soft-hearted girl who didn’t get her fairytale right away.
In Season 7, Episode 9 (‘Now You Lift Your Eyes to the Sun’), after some Julian chaos and a rogue love triangle with Alex, Brooke finds out she can’t have children. Cue the mirror scene—a callback to earlier moments where she wrote affirmations about her worth in lipstick. This time, she cracks: “Why can’t you be the girl who gets the boy and the baby, Brooke Davis?” Her fertility arc eventually shifts, and she does get pregnant—but Brooke has always carried that ache. A girl made of ambition, tenderness, and a whole lot of heart.
Daisy Jones: Rockstars Don’t Do Baby Showers…Or Do They?
Our wildcard firecracker, Daisy Jones—all furry coats, bare feet, and rock god chaos—from Daisy Jones & The Six got far too familiar with the ache of being second best. Despite the explosive connection with lead singer, Billy Dunne, he never truly chose her. His heart stayed tethered to Camila—his wife, the mother of his child—no matter how loud the sparks screamed between him and Daisy. In true self-sacrificing fashion, Daisy lets him go. Not because the love wasn’t there, but because they brought out the worst in each other. She walks away so he can walk back to his family. And yet…after Camila gets sick and eventually passes, it’s Daisy he finds at the end—timing finally catching up to fate.
But long before that reunion, Daisy begins healing. She chooses herself, gets clean, and becomes a mother in her own right. We see her at the series’ end with her daughter—who’s wearing the most Ballerini-coded outfit, by the way—a subtle nod to the way her story blooms on her own terms. Honestly, she probably already belted out “Tarryn’s due in June, the album’s due in March” in a studio session sometime in the 80s—one part prophecy, one part diary entry (Tarryn, Kelsea’s real-life hair and makeup artist, already welcomed her own bundle of joy).
Monica Geller: Five-Course Fertility Struggles, Served with Sarcasm
Our straight-laced chef and one-fifth of the Friends inner circle, Monica Geller, didn’t just dream of happily ever after—she planned it like a five-course meal. When it came time to marry Chandler, she whipped out a wedding binder bigger than the table (complete with swatches and emergency checklists). So you know she had the baby names picked out way before the proposal. She probably also had a themed nursery mood board before Pinterest even existed—think: color-coded onesies and Noah’s Ark wallpaper straight out of Kelsea’s line, “And I hit the vape, hallucinate a nursery with Noah’s Ark.”
But when Monica and Chandler faced fertility struggles, things got painfully real. His sperm had low motility, and her body was labeled “inhospitable”—a clinical word that hits like a punch to the gut when all you want is a baby to hold. Monica’s heartbreak was quiet but constant, showing up in tearful doctor visits and scenes where hope hung by a thread. Eventually, they chose adoption—and in one of the show’s most tender arcs, they end up with twins. Erica (named after the birth mom) and Jack (named after Monica’s dad, naturally—cue the emotional damage). It wasn’t the path she planned, but Monica’s motherhood moment still arrived—messy, delayed, and somehow more beautiful because of it.
So, which fictional femme are you sharing a park bench and a pair of earbuds with, both of you silently sobbing to ‘I Sit In Parks?’ Maybe it’s one of our five leading ladies—or maybe it’s someone else entirely who gets your ache. Slide into our mentions on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook and let us know who’s crying next to you.
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT KELSEA BALLERINI:
FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | WEBSITE | YOUTUBE
