childbearing

I turned to books for guidance. I read in a biography of Julia Child that, despite a life of fame and excitement, she may have regretted not having children. I felt those words reverberate in me. Still, I was in my 40s by that point. There were risks associated with late childbearing, of course. What felt more daring still was challenging my own idea of who I was: I had never thought of myself as a mother, and it seemed a little late to make such a drastic change to my identity.
But, I realized, I had changed already; it had happened so gradually I almost hadn't noticed. My work had given me great satisfaction, but there were parts of me that it didn't reach. I found myself thinking back on those times at the Flamingo Bowl. I didn't want only the solitude of work. I yearned for more joy, more clamor, more life in my life.
My husband and I began to discuss the possibility of having children. He had found, to his surprise, that he enjoyed being an uncle, discovering the pleasures of play and making merry. He allowed that he too had felt a deeper pull to create a family.
For me, the transformative moment came, oddly enough, through my work: I had been writing a memoir that was, in part, a wish to understand my life without children. But one morning I started working on a novel about a woman who had grown up without any biological family, who stands starkly alone in the mystery of her own identity.
While researching the book, I started chatting with a mother and her eight-year-old daughter in a café. It came up in conversation that the daughter was adopted. After showing me her crayoned drawings, the girl turned to her mother and very delicately wrapped one arm around the woman's neck. I watched, bewitched. And I walked away with a new dream, feeling all but certain that I wanted to adopt my own child.
I was terrified: The more important the decision, the more frightening it is. I collected quotes on taking risks. When we began the adoption application process, I cut out a quote from journalist Dorothy Thompson, who said, "Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live