If all goes well, a grandbaby will be arriving in August! [View all]

A first for me, a third for my previously-married husband. I had our kids late, at 38 and 41, and will be 75 in April.

On Christmas Day, our younger son and his adorable wife surprised us with the announcement that they are expecting their first child. They are 33 and 31, and have been married for 3 years. We had absolutely no idea that they were even close to being ready for this, so were completely shocked.

They did it in a cute way. We were at her parents' house, which has been the custom for the last 5 years since they became an official couple. They gave us a calendar and said that their favorite picture was the one for August. We flipped to that page and did not notice right away that in the square for August 22nd, in orange marker, our DIL's favorite color, she had written "Baby (our last name) Due Date." I'm sure my eyes must have about popped out of my head. I burst into tears.

I'm excited and terrified all at the same time. Due to a career in pediatrics, I know all too well all the things that can go wrong. In nursing school, we were all looking forward to our OB class, thinking, "Oh, moms and babies. This is going to be fun!" Not so much. The instructors spent the first 6 weeks lecturing about all the potential complications, and most of us temporarily vowed that we were never going to have kids.

I know I will not draw an easy breath until this baby arrives safely. NIPT (non-invasive prenatal testing) lab test drawn this week, so we will know more in a couple of weeks. They do plan to find out the gender and will tell us.