I'm pregnant at 47. It's not how I once pictured things, but it was the right path for me.

• When I first got pregnant at the age of 47, I felt a sense of parental imposter syndrome. 
• I was anxious about being the oldest mom on the playground and wore big clothing to hide my belly.
• Around my sixth month of pregnancy, something changed, and the shame dissipated.

"Wear sensible shoes when you're carrying frozen sperm." Excellent advice given to me after I tripped on the first go-around, thanks to some un-sensibly heeled boots. I nearly sent the precious vial clutched in my sweaty palm flying into the bowels of Grand Central as I tottered toward my first attempt at getting knocked up solo.

That was eight years ago and followed an egg-freezing debacle that made it blindingly clear my path to parenthood would be circuitous, at best. To wit: Directly beneath the extremely subpar results of my fertility tests, the doctor's notes read, "!@#$" — assumedly a stand-in for an expletive and, as it turned out, a very accurate foreshadowing of what was to come.

Being pregnant at my age has proven a challenge, in more ways than one

Now, at 47, I am eight months pregnant and nearly downright blissful. The getting here, though, was a challenge — not just the scaling-Everest-like efforts it took to achieve a successful pregnancy, but, when it finally happened, contending with what felt like parental imposter syndrome.

Human nature being as it is, once I was pregnant and the fear of a future without a child receded, it was soon replaced with another anxiety: I was about to be the oldest mom on the playground, and playgrounds are notoriously rough-and-tumble territory.

My unease at becoming an older parent manifested in efforts to hide my growing belly and my age — wearing the baggiest outfits and sharing my birthdate under my breath at ultrasound appointments. I fought a constant need to justify myself, wishing I had a T-shirt that succinctly explained the how and why of my pregnancy. I ruminated over whether showing up pregnant and single to my Catholic high school's 30-year reunion would be more or less shocking than had I shown up pregnant at graduation.

But after my sixth month of pregnancy, something changed. I was done with the shame. Feeling the kicks and head butts of my growing baby reminded me that I was in the middle of something wondrous, sublime. And I recognized that the people closest to me felt only joy about my choices.

But I also wasn't ready to be a parent when I was younger

The truth is, I was not ready to be a parent even a handful of years earlier, not physically, professionally, or even geographically. It was this long journey that prepared me for parenthood.

When I started down this path, I found the uncertainty of it profoundly disturbing. Everyone rhapsodizes about the calming, healing nature of the ocean, but I find its boundlessness and unknowability overwhelming and disquieting. Give me a river, the water safely contained between two banks; the deep-rooted trees on the not-so-far shore; the solid mountains rising in the distance. Entering the 'TTC stage' — a ubiquitous acronym in the fertility community for Trying to Conceive — felt like submerging myself in a roiling sea with no safe harbor.

But, having no other terra firm left to tread in my quest for a child, I dove in. Through one unsuccessful intrauterine insemination after another, I maintained a semi-sanguine attitude. All the while, I worried that I might lose my way in those murky waters, that I would become bitter about having landed in this position. I was vigilant in monitoring my psyche for signs of that darkness.

Many months passed. I moved on to IVF. The ongoing stream of hormone shots, blood tests, and scans became just another chore to check off the to-do list.

At this point, I was 41. Somehow, I had kept my head above water. Work was engaging, and I had a robust social life. Eventually, after yet another failed attempt at IVF, my doctor told me it was time to talk about using an egg donor. I was on board — my desire was to love and nurture a child, not create a genetic mini-me — but this approach required another big pivot, including taking out a sizable chunk of my 401(k), something I was lucky to be in a position to do. I was weary and needed a break.

Time passed — my father died, and I made major professional moves and one literal move across the country. Life got in the way, and knowing that I would be moving ahead with an egg donor took the pressure off my already-busted biological clock.

Last summer, following two surgeries (one nearly killed me) for uterine fibroids, I was finally ready to go. I had found both an egg and sperm donor that I was very excited about (the ultra-odd, dating app-like experience of that is a story for another time), embryos were made, and the procedure to knock me up was set for September.

In what I found to be an utterly shocking turn of events, the embryo implanted on the first try. This month, I will finally become a mom.

The truth is, there was no other path to parenthood for me. My journey forged me into someone who will be a better and happier mom than I would have been had I taken a different route. It gave me confidence in my ability to navigate the tumultuous, uncertain waters of parenthood without drowning. I know now that if I do get dragged under occasionally, I will bob right back up and find the shore, and the joy, again.