"The people who make the personal sacrifice to raise children to enable all of the things we experience every day as part of this human experience deserve some gratitude."

You aren't making a personal sacrifice by choosing to have kids, I am sorry to break it you. You probably want the ego boost that seeing mini-yous bring to you. The Earth might be fine without humans. Experiences will continue happening without humans, fyi. Also, if you really cared about putting someone ahead of yourself, why not adopt the millions of orphaned babies out there?

According to Buddhism, life = suffering. From that perspective, you could be bringing unnecessary suffering to beings that needn't have been born at all.

Sorry, I am probably keeping you from making sacrifices-- please continue.