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Was this a rationalization or just acceptance of the imperfect compromises of real life? Again, I decided I was willing to deal with those gray areas.

Finally, I considered what the rest of my life might look like, and what I wanted from it. It turned out that more than my fear of being criticized was my fear of living a life of might-have-been. Unmarried or not, I did want to know and feel what it meant to carry, love, nurture and watch a child grow. I refused to accept the script that seemingly was written for me, and for so many women before me.

As my thinking slowly evolved, a few events clinched the matter. A last relationship in my early 40s faltered and died. I spoke to friends I trusted — first elliptically, then directly. Surprisingly, again and again I heard the words, “I will support you.” It was my most gratifying and instructive discovery, and I think it taught me to trust in the goodwill of others more than I ever had.

Then another friend sent me a magazine article about some women — more or less like me — who had chosen to pursue motherhood on their own. So they were out there. Many of them belonged to a national organization called Single Mothers by Choice (SMC). I promptly joined.

In fact, membership was my mother’s gift to me. Many of our parents initially oppose or worry about what they consider a radical step. My mother doesn’t fit that mold. I had carefully broached the subject with her, and she immediately encouraged me. It made a big difference.

From SMC, I received a list of women in my neighborhood who were single mothers or “triers” or “thinkers,” as the group distinguished the status of its members. It was a surprisingly long list, and they lived north and south, east and west of me, some no more than a block or two away. Shortly afterward, I attended a workshop run by SMC’s founder, Jane Mattes. Several single women who had chosen to raise a child alone — whether by adoption, donor insemination, or carrying on a pregnancy when the man had opted out — spoke from the heart to a roomful of women on the brink of action. The speakers were smart, attractive, articulate, regular women who had had the same dreams and disappointments as others but who also had had the gumption to determine their own fates. Their kids were there too — the miracles they had created. Not one woman minimized the difficulty of the road she had chosen, but not one said she should have chosen otherwise.

After that workshop, there was no turning back.

Even with the critical decision made, I approached each subsequent step — finding a doctor and a donor, telling my boss, my rabbi, my friends and coworkers, then planning for pregnancy — with ambivalence and fear, always with a feeling of being unprepared, of leaping into the unknown.

Still, at every point, I was surprised by how much better things turned out than I had expected, how much support I got, how impressed everyone was with my courage (hah!). The best thing I heard, again and again, was from other single women who said, “What you did gives us choices too.”

Of that I’m proud. I’m also proud of what I learned about my own strength and what I made happen. In so many ways, this decision turned into a life-affirming adventure that has given me unexpected insights into myself and others, as well as a new sense of empowerment.

P.S. I gave birth to a beautiful, brilliant, charming boy. But that’s another story.