"With all that is going on, I can't get sick," I said.

"It appears you can," my friend answered.

I had picked up a stomach bug. Not one of those that cleans you out for a day. I had gotten one that lingers, with stomach cramps and heart burn, intestinal cramps and gas. No one else in the house had it. It appeared I had not washed up well enough after getting a chicken ready for the oven. I stumbled through five days, staying home, hardly sleeping. There are things I do not control. Like illness.

There are risks I can control. I stopped downhill skiing when we moved to the shore. In part it is twice as far to drive. But I was never a great skier, and if I broke a bone, the family would be in trouble.

There are risks that are harder to be aware of. December was so icy; I fell three times. I was not paying enough attention to where I put my feet. Though I was only bruised from those falls, I got to be very cautious when walking. So many friends have broken a wrist or an ankle from a simple slip.

When I think about risks and things we can't control, I think about pregnancy, birth, and raising a baby. We say, "We're planning to start a family." But this is one thing that we have very little control over.

A couple plans to have a child and discover that there is a fertility issue in one partner or the other. A different, long journey begins.

Another couple, hoping for a child, discovers the woman is pregnant. There is celebration. Planning begins. But sometime in that first trimester, a miscarriage happens. The child is lost. The grief is real though very little understood by people who have not been through this loss. Sometimes, later in the pregnancy, when mom's body has changed significantly and the child is real and tangible within, the baby dies. There is heartbreak.

The journey through pregnancy brings challenges we expect--clothes that no longer fit--but so many changes are taking place in the body, that there are physical challenges we don't plan for. We all know that there is morning sickness in the early stages, but I have visited women in hospital with such intense nausea that they cannot keep food down. Receiving intravenous treatment, they wonder how they are going to get through this. The news that it only lasts a few months (usually) is hardly enough to help.

One of the first things established when a woman gets pregnant is the due date. This becomes the moment that all plans revolve around. When the stuff a baby needs will arrive. When trusted family will come and stay. When the woman will take maternity leave.

Employers start to plan around temporarily replacing the women around her due date. Some women plan to get off work a month early to be ready. Seems sensible. However, late pregnancy problems may throw that plan out the window. A few women are in bed for a month or more near the end. More have to watch their blood pressure. The due date can be moved up a month. Or, the babe is just so comfortable where it is, that the due date is pushed back weeks. Medical intervention can be required.

Then there is the birth itself. That is an unpredictable, individual adventure.  

I think we are a bit more ready for the diverse challenges of raising the baby, the toddler, the child, the teenager. We know they are an individual, though a colicky baby is a challenge that is hard to imagine unless you have lived with a two-month-old who cries. Constantly.  

There are other interruptions to our plans. Your doctor orders a stress test. You fail it. A journey including stents or bypasses begins. A vague uneasiness or a specific pain leads to a cancer diagnosis. The illness removes our plan for the month or the year or the next few years.

In our society, we like to be in control. We like to plan our lives. But what we find is that life brings what life is going to bring, and we have to learn to adapt.

Cathy Hird lives on the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway