I'd long wanted to write about that moment when a woman steps off the career track to have her first child. For me, that was a scary time.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It was a sad process for me to become a mom, and a long process. I felt so embarrassed that I couldn't have a biological child.
It was an odd coincidence that my career took off the same decade as having babies. I often wished it had been different, that I had my big career bump in my thirties and my babies in my forties or vice versa.
I quite liked having a baby - I think I won't put it more strongly than that. But I had no intention of allowing motherhood to disrupt my work as an archeologist.
When you discover that you are going to have a child, it stirs up memories of your own childhood.
Being a mother was too important to me to risk running out of time.
I guess the most seminal moment going early way back was my father died when I was 3 years old. I was raised by my grandparents, and my mother went back and got a degree.
I knew I wanted to be a father; I didn't know it was going to be this awesome or that my kid would come out so beautiful and lovely.
When I got pregnant, I had to concentrate on being pregnant for a whole nine months, even though I knew it was ruining my career at the time.
The happiest moment of my life was probably when my daughter was born.
Becoming a mother was the single defining event of my life. It felt like the whole world shifted.