What motherhood has taught me about control and uncertainty.

Mother’s day+1 day. Photo credit: Myself :)

March 2011. My daughter was in the ICU. My boss kept calling me to come back to the office.

Her tiny arms were full of IVs. Antibiotics. A severe infection at birth had left her on the verge of meningitis. When they let me see her, I would gaze at her, so small, so fragile, and the only thing I could do was sing to her. I sang my own adapted version of "Quién es la que viene allí" by the Chilean band Los Tres. I sang so that something sweet could reach us in the midst of the pain. Singing to her, talking to her, caressing her, and breastfeeding her was all I had left when everything else was out of my control.

While she was fighting, and I was supposedly on maternity leave, my phone kept ringing. My boss, new to his role at the time, needed me. My position was demanding and came with a long list of responsibilities.

Before all of this, before becoming a mother, I thought I had the "perfect plan": I would simply incorporate my baby into my life structure. But life has its own agenda.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹

Before that moment, I lived clinging to certainty. I had a stable career, a clear plan, and the feeling that if I organized myself well enough, I could handle anything. And I wasn't alone in this. As Adam Grant points out, we've built entire societies trying to domesticate uncertainty: laws, technology, structures, planning. I too lived under that logic of control.

But in that ICU, I understood something that changed me forever.

We're not designed to live with absolute guarantees. We're designed to 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘦 uncertainty.

For thousands of years, uncertainty was the natural condition of human life. The problem is that we've become so used to minimizing it that when something we can't control appears, we automatically feel it as a threat.

And perhaps that's the real challenge: to stop obsessively fighting to eliminate uncertainty… and learn to inhabit it without losing ourselves.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗶𝗻𝗵𝗮𝗯𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗻

There are moments when no decision comes with guarantees.

In the midst of that brutal uncertainty, with my daughter in critical condition and facing different diagnoses, I understood that I couldn't control everything, but I could choose where to be present. I chose my daughter. I resigned from my job, gave up my maternity protections, and let go of my career security at that moment.

I didn't do it from heroic courage. I did it from the acceptance that love forces us to enter territories where no maps exist. I chose to inhabit the unknown of her condition and her recovery over the false security of a desk.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗮𝘂𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹

Today, Monday, as I write this, I just got back from hiking a hill in Golden with my dog Trufa. I needed some time for myself after an intense week: routines, work, kids' sports, volunteering, end-of-school-year activities, that invisible logistics that mothers know so well.

And in that solitude I sought today, I thought something that maybe many moms don't dare say out loud: sometimes we want to celebrate Mother's Day… without kids around.

And that's okay. Because the rest of the days we celebrate with them, in their routines, in conversations, in sleepless nights when they're sick, in laughter and cuddles.

While hiking, I was listening to the podcast "The Curiosity Shop" (which I love!!). It was a conversation between Brené Brown and Adam Grant about uncertainty. And I thought: motherhood is perhaps the most profoundly uncertain experience a human being can live.

There's no manual. There are no guarantees. Just the daily decision to be present, to give your best, even when you don't know what comes next.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜'𝗺 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘆

Emotional strength doesn't come from eliminating uncertainty, but from developing the capacity to remain present within it.

When my daughter was in the ICU, I found inner clarity by singing to her. I couldn't control her diagnosis, but I could give her my voice, my presence, my love.

When I resigned from that job, I built community. I leaned on my family, on friends, on people who held me up when I couldn't hold myself. One of my HOWs (my life philosophy) is "Do it together." Uncertainty is better inhabited when you have a support network.

And when the path got confusing, I did my part. I moved forward with what I had. I gave what I could give, and I let go of what I had to let go. Because another one of my HOWs is "Look up" (not at the ceiling, at the sky): trusting that the universe already knows its part.

Doubt is terrible, uncomfortable, sometimes painful. But it's what allows you to question, learn, and evolve. Without it, there's no growth.

𝟭𝟱 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿

Today, that baby, Laura, whose situation was tremendously critical at birth, is 15 years old.

And still, many nights, she asks me to sing "Quién es la que viene allí."

That unbreakable bond was born right there: in an ICU where neither of us had control over anything. And where I learned that life isn't about reaching a destination where everything is under control, but about learning to walk with steady steps, with an open heart, even when we can't see the end of the path.

✎ What helps you inhabit uncertainty?