What Am I Doing Here?

My wife and I have always been very education- and career-driven people.  We were married in 2004, and shortly thereafter each of us was accepted into grad school.  We made a specific choice not to bring children into this world until we were both finished with school and life was relatively stable.  That took some time.  Once we finally felt that we were in a good place (I was a tenure-track assistant professor at a local university and she was a master's-level therapist for one of the premier provider of services for children), we were both in our 30's and discovered that there were fertility issues.  After more than three years of trying to get pregnant, a few different fertility treatments, and two miscarriages, we were just about ready to give up and look into adoption.  

Well, so many of our friends and family told us that it would happen when we least expected it, and those words proved very true.  

Now, here we are: my wife is 5 months pregnant (due in March).  When this child (a daughter) is born, I will be 38 and my wife will be 35.  Not that many decades ago, ours would have been labeled a "geriatric pregnancy".  No kidding.  Look it up.  Thankfully, that is not the case any longer as more and more people are waiting until their 30's and even 40's before having children.  Still, I have friends from high school and college who have children in their teens.  My own sister, who is almost the exact same age as my wife, has two girls, the oldest of which is 15 (and 16 is just around the corner) and the youngest of which was born just a little over a month after my wife and I were married (she's 11!).  So, in many ways this late pregnancy is still a bit outside the norm.

Don't think that I am worrying over it.  That is not the case.  But, as you may or may not already know, I am a notorious over-thinker.  So, looking at being a first-time father at age 38 has, naturally, gotten the gears turning in my mind, assessing and contextualizing what exactly this all means.  (Forgive me. I can't help it.)  So, this is the place where I'm going to process some of my thoughts.  It may seem odd to air private thoughts in a public forum, and most people may not care and may never read it.  That's fine by me.  But, if there is, perhaps, even one other person out there going through a similar situation, and reading my random ramblings on the subject should provide some comfort, then it's worth it.