I Can’t Wait…..

I can't wait til they sleep through the night. I can't wait til they walk. Til they talk. Til school. Til they drive. Til travel soccer is over. Til they get a job, go to college. I can't wait to be an empty nester.

Why do we wish away the exact moments we'll spend the rest of our lives trying to get back?

I had four of them on my own. I enjoyed every minute I had with them. But I still rushed, and the older they got, the more I rushed. Working, raising, surviving. What I actually needed was to slow down and just be there. I didn't have that luxury. I was too deep in it to see it while it was happening.

Back then, overnight support wasn't normalized. It definitely wasn't on anyone's registry! It felt like a luxury for someone else's life, women who worked full-time, women who "really" needed the help, not me. If it had existed the way it does now, if someone had told me it was allowed, I would've said yes in two seconds. What I would give for one more night of prayers in the bunk beds, rested enough to actually be present for them!

Now I watch the news like everyone else. Postpartum stories, mental health crises. And my heart aches, because we were already rushing through this phase of life, and now there's a new layer stacked on top? We're rushing through the pregnancy, rushing to set up the nursery, and now rushing through fear too. Scared of baby blues, which is simply 80% of women…..almost everyone! Scared for the mothers with diagnosed postpartum depression who just need rest, food, sleep, support, kindness, someone gentle enough to notice. Scared of postpartum psychosis, which is real but rare, a fraction of a percent, and deserves to be taken seriously as an emergency…..not treated like it's coming for every new mother.

But here's what's different now. We have a choice. We don't have to keep running scared or running fast. We can choose to prepare instead.

We shop for months for a wedding dress or clothes for an upcoming trip. We book hair and makeup a year out for a special event. We spend thousands on strollers and tech bassinets and apps that track every wake hour or ounce of milk. We know how to prepare for the moments we care about. This is one of those moments… Maybe the biggest one.

I know overnight support works…. because I watch it work! Not one single client, mom or partner, has ever walked away from it and asked for less. Not one. Every single one asks for more. More hours, more nights, more of that one calm voice in the chaos saying “you're doing great, just trust in yourself”

That's what I want normalized. Not because I'm selling something. Because I lived the version without it, and I've now watched what happens when women have it. It's not a luxury. It's what protects a new family from drowning in fear before they've even had the chance to fall in love with this new life.

Stop listening to the fear. Start listening to what it's trying to teach you. Prepare. Choose peace and wisdom over panic.

Because underneath all of it, the fear, the rushing, the wishing away of nights we'll never get back, there's one simple truth we keep forgetting. We don't have children to survive them. We have them to fall in love with them. To watch them figure out their own hands, their own voice, their own tiny personality unfolding right in front of us. To feel that specific kind of love that only shows up once someone hands you a baby and says, she's yours now!

That's what all of this is actually for. Not the registry, not the routines, not getting through it. The joy. The wonder. The privilege of being someone's whole world for a little while.

So protect that. Rest enough to actually feel it. Prepare enough to actually enjoy it. Because if we're not doing this for the joy of it, what exactly are we doing it for!??!