While other girls were dreaming of their Senior Prom, finishing school, and going to college, I was dreaming of having a baby.

After I got married, of course. I’m from the old one-room school with outside toilets; light years before premarital sex became acceptable.

Actually, I wasn’t even thinking about how babies were made. I just wanted one.

Call it maternal instinct. Call it insanity. I just wanted a baby.

To hold in my arms.

To love.

To protect.

To fight to the death for.

Finally, on a blissful, Sunday morning, four weeks before my delivery date, my dream came true. My tiny baby boy was born.

It was a bittersweet moment. My husband wasn’t with me, holding my hand and telling me everything would be okay; that our baby would pull through in spite of the doctor’s doubt and our baby’s breathing problems. We separated two months before our son was born.

Four years as a single mom and no child support was tough. I worked. I scrimped. I barely made ends meet.

I cried a lot.

Worried a lot.

Slammed doors a lot.

But I never stopped loving and caring for my son.

He was the reason for me to keep going.

Then one evening, at the least of romantic places . . . a service station, I met my Knight in Bermuda shorts, wire-rim glasses, and yellow button down shirt.

It was not love at first sight.

Nor was it love at second sight.

But as time went on, I fell in love with the gentle giant and married him. How could any mother not love the man who loves her child as she loves him.

Although I continued working to supplement our income, my heart was ever longing to be a stay-at-home mom.

Several long years of misery in the working field, I convinced my husband that we wouldn’t starve to death if I quit my job to stay home where I belong.

As with anything, unless you’re super rich, there were sacrifices. We couldn’t afford designer clothes and trade cars every year. We didn’t go on cruises or travel the world. Sometimes a simple trip to the beach was out of our budget.

But the trade-off and the investment we made in our son was worth all the luxuries in the world.

This morning, nearly five decades later, I sat reminiscing about my life. Suddenly, I felt a twinge of regret that I hadn’t done this and hadn’t achieved that and asked myself, why?

Then I remembered.

I smiled.

My stay-at-home mom career was worth all the PhD’s in the world!