Baby Showers

A baby shower. I got an emailed invite to a baby shower at work from a girl I’m on a committee with, for a baby shower she’s throwing for another girl on the same committee. On Halloween. At work.

I used to attend these events. Hell, I even hosted one or two myself. That was before Jimmy. I was pregnant with Jimmy at the same time as three cousins were also pregnant. Most with their first child. My mom’s niece was expecting twins, my dad’s middle sister (Aunt A)’s son’s wife was expecting their first, and my dad’s older sister (Aunt V)’s daughter was expecting her second after miscarrying her first.

My dad’s niece, my cousin M, miscarried her second child. This is a girl who we never thought would be married, let alone have kids. She had really severe endometriosis and had been told there was little hope she’d ever get pregnant (I actually think one doctor told her she’d NEVER get pregnant). She married a great guy who had three kids from his previous marriage. And then she got pregnant… twice. And lost both. It was determined after the second loss that she had severe gestational diabetes. But that was it. She didn’t see any specialists, didn’t go to an RE, she just said that was all she could handle.

My mom’s niece’s shower was the day that I delivered Jimmy. Mom and I were going to drive down to it. That didn’t happen. Her twins were delivered about two weeks before Jimmy’s due date. She had been hospitalized with contractions for about a month. The delivery of her son went just fine, and then things went really sour really fast. Her daughter was a crash C-section delivery, and had aspirated meconium. She was having major breathing issues, so they Med-flighted her to a hospital 45 minutes away from the hospital my cousin was in, where she stayed for about two weeks. Everything was fine in the end -- they’re both healthy and happy little kids. But the day this all happened, my mother called me at work, and I went to the ladies’ room and sobbed. I couldn’t handle the thought that another child in my family wouldn’t make it.

And then my cousin’s wife’s shower. Two months after Jimmy, I was supposed to attend her shower with my cousin M and our mothers at the mom-to-be’s friend’s house. For a baby that was due one week after Jimmy.

On a good day, I wouldn’t choose to spend time with the group who was hosting the shower. Think young Stepford Wives, who think a broken fingernail is a tragedy. And the mom-to-be’s sister is a witch. She was the wet towel at the wedding, ordering everyone around (my husband nicknamed her “the General”). But I responded to the mom-to-be’s sister that I would do my best to be there. I did add that I’d have to “play it by ear”, and see how I was doing the day of the shower. Why? Because this cousin and his wife came to Jimmy’s service. Even after we told them that we would understand if they didn’t, with her being at the same place in her pregnancy as me. They came anyway.

The deal with this shower was that if I was going, my cousin M would go. Well, the morning of the shower, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go and listen to a bunch of women smile and gloat all over someone who was still pregnant while I was picking out a gravestone for my son. I couldn’t watch my cousin M’s face. I couldn’t watch everyone congratulating Aunt A on the grandchild-to-be while my mom and Aunt V sat there. So, through the tears that wouldn’t stop that day, I called my mother to tell her I wasn’t going.

Boy, did I get an earful. How dare I tell them all that I would go and now I wasn’t! I must be very depressed, and truly need medication! I wasn’t being very considerate of her, my aunts, or my cousins! I called my Aunt A, who was VERY understanding (as I sobbed on the phone), and my Aunt V (to have her call my cousin M, who wasn’t handling the day well either and who wasn’t answering her phone) to tell them I wasn’t going. Then I went over to my parents’ house to drop the gifts off for my mother to take. I got greeted with more crap. The problem: she didn’t want to go anymore than I did, because it was going to be a painful day. But instead of dealing with that, I got the brunt of her anger. Even my father told her to lay off. I finally screamed back, as I was going out the door, that after having had a husband have a heart attack three months before and then burying my perfectly healthy son in the course of three months, the fact that I wasn’t in a corner somewhere drinking/popping pills/smoking something, but instead was still standing and functioning was a miracle in itself, and to lay the hell off.

So… I haven’t been to a baby shower since. In many ways, I’ve been lucky, being older, because most of my friends and family are beyond the baby years. That was the last baby shower I was supposed to attend. Until this invitation came along. My favorite SIL is right: they shouldn't have these things until the baby has arrived and is safe in his/her mother's arms. Now that I know what can go wrong. I don't know how to get around that particular elephant in the room.