Just Making Sure

Getting my caboose kiddo ready for school this morning.
Zipping up her jacket. Kissing her forehead.
"You know, I sure was surprised when I found out you were coming along," I told her. "But, I'm so glad you surprised me."
She giggled and then headed out the door with a smile on her face.
I meant what I said--and it was tinged with only a little bit of guilt.
When I wrote Baby Changes Everything: Embracing and Preparing for Motherhood after 35, I was honest about how shocked I was by my pregnancy at 41.
S-H-O-C-K-E-D.
For awhile, I felt like I was going in reverse and fast-forward at the same time.
My caboose kiddo is now almost 8. She's old enough to know the book is about her--that there would have been no book if there had been no her.
I just want to make sure she never doubts that I love her and I want her in my life.
I admit to being an initially reluctant Mommy-Come-Lately®, but I truly am loving late-in-life motherhood now. I also admit it took a little while for my emotions to stop reeling and for me to wrap my brain around the sudden u-turn in my life back to maternity clothes and morning sickness and being a 41-year-old mom-to be.
I've met other women surprised by late-in-life motherhood--one just a couple of weeks ago when I spoke at a Hearts at Home conference. She was trying to grasp the reality that she was pregnant again at 41.
Sounded familiar.
We hugged--and I told her that it was okay that she wasn't over-the-moon thrilled about her pregnancy right that minute. I believe she will fall in love with her caboose kiddo minute by minute, day by day--experience by experience. That's how it happens sometimes.
That's how it happened for me.