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Who would think of all people…me would be turning 40 without children. Not only was I raised to be a mother; I love children and that was my dream in life. A little background….The summer before I entered the 5th grade my parents became foster parents for infants. As a result I became a foster sister helping to raise over 300 babies from near birth to adoptions (usually between 3 and 6 months old).

I have been to fertility doctors and there is nothing wrong with me…I just can’t get or stay pregnant. Plus, I am a lesbian so I don’t get pregnant naturally and must go through a procedure to try. I am turning 40 on all days this year…..Mother’s day!!!! So, not only is it the worst day of the year…but it is my friggn birthday….

Everyone one wants to make a big deal out of me turning the Big 40….I could care less…..I would rather the day go by unnoticed….and when I say I want to skip it …. I am being selfish for not allowing people to celebrate my life and their love for me. How can I celebrate my life and be happy with my ultimate dream of being a mother will have basically ended on 5-9-2010.

For the last year or so, there’s been a book called “The Secret” at or near the top of the nonfiction bestseller list, its reign broken only by Steven Colbert’s outstanding “I Am America And So Can You!” and various other short-term winners. I have no earthly clue what the book’s about, as I tend to regard anyone claiming to have deduced “the secret” to anything with the sort of dubious caution normally reserved for streetcorner Rolex salesmen and infomercials.

However, I’ve discovered a secret of my own that far outweighs anything peddled by any bestselling author or anyone with a bunch of silly college degrees or actual formal schooling: the secret of youth. Specifically, it’s the secret to guys turning 40, like your humble scribe, keeping their youthful outlook and demeanor. All you have to do is wait until your late 30s to start having children.

I spent a lot of years convinced that I had no business proliferating my own sort of genetic weirdness and sending more little Wilsons out into the world. It took a good woman who knew me far better than I know myself and in whom I found endless wonder, challenge and delight to convince me otherwise. Never in my life has a change of mind turned out better. Alex and Cooper, my sons, have taught me that I had only scratched the surface of my capacity to love, and that my capacity for patience still needs quite a bit of work.