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(AP) Diane Keaton says she planned to wait until she was in a "strong and substantive" relationship before becoming a mother - but that never happened for her.

"Motherhood was not an urge I couldn't resist, it was more like a thought I'd been thinking for a very long time," says Keaton, who celebrates her 62nd birthday Saturday. "So I plunged in."

The Oscar-winning actress, whose past romantic partners include Woody Allen and Warren Beatty, adopted daughter Dexter, now 12, and son Duke, 7.

"I've had such an unusual life. Obviously career-oriented. I was happy to be a daughter well into my 40s. That was something that meant a lot to me," Keaton tells Ladies' Home Journal in its February issue, on newsstands next Tuesday. "I didn't think that I was ever going to be prepared to be a mother."