Fans of Nicole Kidman know her best for her big-screen roles, but the actress considers the part she plays off-screen her personal favorite — the role of mom to her four children.
But in a new interview with People, the 51-year-old cover star confessed that she would have loved to have had even more kids to call her own, if only she'd met the love of her life, Keith Urban, sooner.
Kidman already had two of her children — daughter Isabella, 26, and son Conner, 23, whom she'd adopted with ex-husband Tom Cruise — when she met country crooner Urban in 2005.
And it didn't take long before she knew Urban was the one she wanted to grow her family and her future around.
"It was my (38th) birthday, and he stood outside with gardenias at 5 a.m. on my stoop in New York,” she remembered. "That is when I went, ‘This is the man I hope I get to marry.’"
Just one year later, that dream came true, and in two more years, they welcomed daughter Sunday Rose to the world. In 2010, another little girl, Faith, joined their family.
But looking back now, Kidman can't help but wonder how big their brood might have been, if they'd had an earlier start.
"We go, 'Oh gosh, I wonder if we met when we were 25, then we could’ve had 10 of them!'" Kidman explained. "But Keith says, 'Stop the wanting mind.’ It’s far better to be completely in love and satiated with what you’ve been given, what we’ve been given."
Those are words the couple lives by now, and it's easy to find proof of that in some of the sweet moments together they've shared on social media.
But those smiles, cuddles and happy times aren't the only evidence of their enduring bond.
In fact, Kidman told People, that it was the hard times that really solidified their relationship. For instance, when Urban entered rehab just four months after they said their "I dos."
"Real love happens not when everything is going well but when things are going badly," Kidman said of that experience.
She knows Urban feels the same way. After she suffered the loss of her father in 2014, he canceled a show and flew out to be by her side.
"He said, 'This is why you have me. You don’t have to go through this alone,'" she recalled. "He came back that night, and I just fell into him."
