Five days before I turned 46, I gave birth to my first child: a small, solemn-faced boy with enormous eyes, and ears like tiny coracles. For weeks I could not name him; to reduce this feeling to a single word seemed impossible.
Any birth feels something like magic, but to become a mother at this age has felt astonishing; a dove drawn from my sleeve, the ace of hearts pulled from behind my ear. But it has come, too, with a certain intricacy. Older motherhood is not the most straightforward experience, and it elicits reactions that may be variously amazed or appalled or at the very least complicated.
