Woman Who Adopted 3 Sisters 9 Years Ago Is Pregnant at 39: 'Families Are Made in Different Ways' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Nicole Walters and Alex Csillag.Photo:Leah Marie Photography

Nicole Walters Wedding

Leah Marie Photography

WhenNicole Waltersfound out she was pregnant at 39, she couldn’t believe the news.

“The doctors were like, ‘Don’t hold on to any expectations, and the longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be.’ So we were fully ready to engage in IVF [in vitro fertilization],” Walters tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview.

She and her husband Alex Csillag, a trombone player and composer whom she married this past June, were initially heartbroken.

Still, she was already a mom to three girls shewelcomed through adoption in 2015when married to her first husband, Josh. Over the past nine years, Walters guided her daughters through multiple challenges, including one who had stage 4 cancer and another who experienced alcohol addiction but is now in recovery.

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Nicole Walters and Adam Csillag.Courtesy of Nicole Walters

Nicole Walters and husband with postive pregnancy tests

Courtesy of Nicole Walters

The two announced their exciting pregnancy news at their wedding in June.

“As an older mom, people said not to share the news just in case something happens,” Walters says about their decision to share their pregnancy at two months along. “We’re not counting on anything happening but if it does, we want the people closest to us to support us and to be here to love us.”

Walters, author of a best-selling memoirNothing Is Missing,admits she has more experience parenting toddlers and teenagers than caring for a newborn. Her older daughters Daya, 25, and Krissy, 22, both have jobs and live on their own while Ally, 12, is still in middle school.

“It’s kind of cool,” she says. “You get to have one kid at a time in your home and each one is in their own phase of life.”

One thing Walters is embracing during her pregnancy is the fact that she is an older mom. “I’m enjoying the fact that I feel more financially stable, I’m comfortable in my relationship and I don’t have a lot of the hang-ups I did in my 20s,” she says.

As for whether the couple is looking to have more children in the future, Walters jokes she is “team one and done.”

“We’ve got women who are adopting in their 60s, parents that are becoming foster families in their 70s, and women who are carrying and delivering in their late 40s and 50s. So let’s chuck all the stigma and stereotypes to the side and allow others to build the family they want.”

source: people.com