inshallah, I will be in control

I have been thinking a lot about control versus fate. In Pakistan, everything is inshallah - god willing. This is rather scary when the pilot says ' we will be landing in 5 minutes, inshallah' but also true, we actually do not know categorically that we will land. My friend's Ottawa Valley grandfather used to say 'I'll see you next week, if I'm spared' -very much the same sentiment.

I was thinking this because we believe we can control our health, pregnancies and our lives.. so much so that if someone gets cancer or has a disabled baby, we look for the fault - did they smoke? were they overweight? did they eat tuna while pregnant? it's like we don't want to admit that Bad Things Happen, and the challenge is to deal with them. We are lucky in that we do have control over so much in our lives, we can predict with great surety that we will have a house to go home to, that we will survive childbirth, that our jobs will continue for more than a day or week.. but I think we take it way too far.

I do feel so lucky to be here in Canada, to have a bed to sleep in, an indoor toilet for the hourly nightly pees, how fortunate to have a month off before the baby comes to rest.. and think how hard it must be for the majority of women in the world who have none of my advantages and go through pregnancy without complaint, continuing to work and look after other kids..