My Love-Hate Relationship with Planning
Planning is my thing. It’s etched into my character. Be it chores at home, projects at work, or community engagements like the Legion of Mary and our parish’s Finance Council, I’m always sketching a plan before diving in. Whenever I try to go rogue and drop planning completely, tasks often remain unfinished or done ineffectively.
Do all my plans go perfectly? Hardly. But planning serves multiple purposes:
Pause: Whether it’s organizing the pantry or solving a costly business redundancy with automation, a plan forces me to stop and understand the lay of the land before jumping in. I prefer this to spontaneity, which is rare in my life.
Focus: A plan helps me focus on the end goal, keeping distractions at bay.
Comfort: Give me 1,000 tasks to do, and with a plan, I’ll be fine. Give me 10 without a plan, and I’m stressed out.
Planning helps me finish projects, both big and small, and manage my resources like time and money more effectively. Less waste, more efficiency. Less stress, more results.
Yet, I recognize that my need to plan reveals a character flaw: the desire for control. The need to dictate outcomes. Planning is both a strength and a weakness.
Planning to Control
Matthew and I anxiously waited to get pregnant. On Reddit, couples like us are called “TTC” – Trying To Conceive. It’s both a state and an identity. If you’ve been there, you know how chastening this period is. It’s an endless loop. You start thinking in months and live each one like playing an arcade claw machine. The second you know you missed it, you’re already feeding a coin for the next round. Month after month, we failed and tried again, and before I knew it, it turned into an obsession.
I jotted down in my journal, “Project BEEF: Be Fully Engaged to Establish a Family.” I turned pregnancy into a project, making a plan to control the outcome. Growing up, my mother used tell me during exams, “Do your best and God will do the rest.” Project BEEF was me doing my best. In fact, I was overachieving here. Hello, God?! Where’s the rest part?
Balancing effort and surrender is a cross I bear in life. This tug-of-war shakes my peace. For months, I kept pulling my end of the rope, hoping to get pregnant. I tugged until I was stuck and exhausted, still losing. At my breaking point, I let go, and God gently reeled me back in. With His overflowing mercy, God seemed to say, “Are you done trying on your own? Let me help you.”
August 2022 was the time we abandoned the TTC identity. Matthew and I decided as a couple that we would no longer try. Well, that is, try too hard. It was time to fully surrender the heavy yoke to Jesus Christ. Ovulation kits and all TTC paraphernalia were once and for all tucked away in the cabinets. With sheer faith, we walked away from the claw machine empty-handed.
But not for long.
I got pregnant the very next month.
Andrew’s conception was God’s teaching moment. So, I resolved that my entire pregnancy would be an exercise in complete surrender. From conception to birth, I submitted everything to God. This is one of life’s paradoxes: in surrender, there is deliverance. In submission, there is freedom. I set myself free from anxiety by submitting each one of Andrew’s little breaths to God’s mighty hands.
People would get curious how I felt as a first-time mom. “Are you nervous? Anxious? Excited?” They asked. My answer: I’m just joyful. One of my favorite prayers in Mass is, “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, grant peace in our days… free from sin and safe from all distress…” God’s peace sustains the joy.
Ditching the Birth Plan
Two weeks ago, my OBGYN suggested we start thinking about a birth plan. I nodded to appease, not agree. “What about an epidural?” she asked. “If I need it, I’ll take it. If I don’t, I won’t,” I replied.
Have you seen a 21st-century birth plan? Google it, and you’ll find one on Etsy for less than $5. A birth plan attempts to control something truly out of our hands. The reality of conception and birth reminds us we are agents of creation, not the creators.
“With creation, God does not abandon his creatures to themselves. He not only gives them being and existence but also, at every moment, upholds and sustains them… Recognizing this utter dependence is a source of wisdom and freedom, of joy and confidence.” CCC 301
I don’t have a birth plan because it’s unnecessary. Instead of offering pause, it commands action. Instead of focusing on what’s important, it distracts with extras. Instead of comfort, it brings anxiety. Most importantly, it contradicts the theme of this pregnancy: total surrender to God.
Yes, I’m a planner, but I have no plan for Andrew’s birth. I want to take things as they come, decide with conviction, err, try, and learn along the way. We prepare for what’s necessary and leave the rest to prayer. For something as uncertain as a first-time pregnancy, like everything else in life, prayer – not a plan – is what we really need.
