1417. This is a locket that my beautiful new friend showed me at her newborn session. She had “forgotten to get married and forgotten to get pregnant” and found herself at 40, focused on her amazing, highly successful and creative career, but wanting more. The more of a balanced life. She met her now-husband, and they tried to conceive for years. Throughout it all she wore this locket, a photo of her beloved grandfather on one side, a handwritten prayer: ‘babies’, on the other, as she endured the gutting rhythm of hope and loss that is infertility. The unrepentant cycle that torments so many of us beautiful, successful and vibrant women throughout our thirties and forties, until a choice (we think it is one choice – but it actually becomes a new choice, each and every thirty days) must be made. To take extraordinary action or to rewire our hearts and minds to cherish a life different than that of: mom.

She, her husband and a superhero surrogate woman used science, grace, magic and a new definition of family to bring this gorgeous baby into the world. He may just be the most loved individual on the planet. And as such sends that love out in shock waves to all who hold him.