I am a planner. I plan plans. Itineraries make me happy. In college I created weekly spreadsheets broken down into 30 minute increments to make plans of my days. It’s insane, but it’s comforting. Anxiety fills my days and with plans I can keep it in check. Plans make me a control freak. I am admitting it. I am a control freak.
In some scenarios planning does not mean it’s going to happen. A due date passes, a 2pm nap doesn’t get taken, a trip to the post office doesn’t get checked off {why doesn’t that ever get done!?}.
I just can’t handle when my plans go awry.
That wasn’t my plan.
Having a kiddo {or kiddos} prohibits some tasks from getting completed, car problems, money, or things just come up. It’s a fact of life that things come up. But what happens when your plan gets way off course?
I have made plans for everything. Graduate college in four years {check!}, get married at 25 {ahem, 22}, have 3 kids by 30 {one kid down…only 1 year and 4 months until I’m 30. Yikes.}, have kids two years apart {um, she’ll turn 2 this month…not happening}, and the list goes on.
The plan was to wait until my daughter turned one to start trying for baby #2. That would give us a three month cushion to still deliver within the 2 year time frame. Negative pregnancy test after negative pregnancy test. Month after month. Finally, after seven months of trying it was time to make the appointment. The appointment when you have to admit to yourself your plan isn’t happening. {Dear OB/GYN, I am sorry I cried. I am a crier.} Turns out that I have Graves’ Disease, a hyperactive thyroid condition. Luckily, this illness is treatable with months of medication and eventually a treatment that will kill the thyroid followed by a daily pill of hormone replacement.
Then the endocrinologist said these words, “You can’t get pregnant until the treatment is over. You’ll need to get back on birth control.”
Birth. Control. Two very ugly words when you want to make a baby.
That definitely was not my plan.
After picking my broken heart off the floor, I realized that I am lucky enough to still have a chance to get pregnant and I have a treatable condition. Be thankful for the little things. Seriously, sometimes that is all you have to hold on to.
There are times when you have to face the fact that everything happens for a reason. While many times we have no idea what that reason is, it can help cope. Had we not started “trying” for baby #2 I may not have paid as much attention to my health.
While my plan isn’t going as planned, a new plan is being conceived. Often times we get so discouraged by the wrench that we miss the bigger picture. Find the silver lining, per se.
Plans should be put in place as guidance. I am coming to terms that you don’t have to cross everything off your list by the end of the day. Be grateful for the day and do what you need to survive it, but enjoy it and stop worrying. Everything happens for a reason.
{P.S. This is yet another reason not to ask a woman about the size of her family. I will cry in your face. You’ve been warned.}
Do you have advice on how to deal with plans that fall through? Let us know in the comments!
