I’ve said from the beginning that I didn’t think a baby shower was a good choice for me. I had heard enough stories (and talked to enough women) to know that sometimes they can dissolve into an opportunity for the mothers present to attempt to one-up each other in terms of who had the most painful/longest/shortest/scariest birthing experience. I long for a blessingway, but I don’t run in the right circles for it to happen. If I was going to gather together with a group of women, I wanted it to be a celebration of not just the baby and items s/he needs as life begins, but also of the impending event that would force me to transform from woman to mother. I thought that the possibility of a “horror shower” was my only option and so I wanted to avoid one altogether, opting for an open house after baby comes.


I think we’re planning on having cake, but don’t go thinking that anything like this monstrosity will be making an appearance. Via Cake Wrecks.

Then, the baby shower offers started pouring in from my dear friend in Dallas. What a wonderful group of women I am surrounded by! I started to rethink my position a bit, thinking back on the reactions I’ve had when talking about my home birth. No horror stories had been offered, no criticism voiced. The only people who had yet do to these things? My family, who I guess know me well enough that they think they are entitled to attempt to scare me into thinking childbirth is to an awful event to be dreaded. The women in Dallas though were just the opposite! They asked questions, often voiced astonishment, and wished me well. I realized that these were the kind of women I would be happy to have surrounding me in the weeks leading up to the birth, and so I accepted the offer of a friend and told her to being planning. She sent out the evite email on Monday and it’s been so fun to check the RSVPs to see who is coming. I told her no cheesy snickers-bar-melted-in-a-diaper games. We’ll see if she has other ideas in mind. :)

The best part about choosing to have a shower before baby comes, is as a mom who doesn’t know the gender, I’m guaranteed to receive gender neutral gifts! We’re attempting to go absolutely as minimal as possible, in part because we both don’t like clutter, and also because we’re hoping for a move to business school in the Fall and it doesn’t make sense to stock up on a bunch of baby stuff we won’t be using until after the move happens (high chair, exersaucer, etc). I spent a few hours putting together a Wishpot registry here and a quick Babies “R” Us one here, and if any moms out there would like to give me feedback on the items I chose I’d love to hear it (I’ve deleted and added several things already!)

March 27th is the schedule baby shower day. I hope I can find someone to take a few pictures for me, I don’t think my guests would appreciate it if I was the one trying to do so!

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