Great Expectations: Cara @ 32 weeks

By Cara Joyner

You may remember, from the last update, that we moved. One week before Christmas Eve, we bought our first house - and not just a house, but an old house needing work in every corner.

Even as I sit here, trying to find words to describe these days and this growing baby, my mind is spinning with questions like, 'What color will the living room be?' 'Where are my sweaters?' 'What are we going to do with all those boxes sitting in the room that's supposed to be the nursery?'

As we inch closer to the day this little one will make his big debut, we find ourselves dividing priorities into 'before the baby is born' and 'after the baby is born.'

Even now though, as I sit at the computer and listen to my husband paint nearby, I know that soon everything will slow - nearly to a stop.

One of my favorites things about a newborn is the way they stop the world that was racing before their arrival. Women in labor don't care if there are dirty socks hiding on the sofa or legos scattered across the kitchen floor. Those unpainted walls in the bathroom, they mean nothing to a woman with a tiny baby sleeping on her chest - skin to skin, breathing in new baby smell.

Newborns absorb every ounce of our attention and energy. Maybe that's because we need them to slow us down. We need them remind us what we really need. We need them to remind us that it's okay to stay inside, turn off the phone and just be.

So yes, I'm drowning in the waters of fixing up an old house; but soon everything will slow and all I'll be doing is holding, staring at and cuddling my three baby boys. I can't wait.

Cara Joyner is a mother of two who writes regularly at carajoyner.com and in various publications. She is also a Professional Birth Doula and Childbirth Educator (trained by Lamaze International).