Why I still hate baby showers.

April 9, 2009 at 11:32 am | Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

This past weekend I went to a baby shower for a friend from college.

Believe it or not, I was actually looking forward to going. A was due in April with identical twins, but had them at 26 weeks when her water broke on New Year’s Day.

Her babies are still in the NICU. In different hospitals, since one of the girls needed surgery to correct a preemie condition in her eyes. She’s back at work. From all I heard, she didn’t WANT to have a shower because she wants to spend as much time as she can with them. The girls are doing okay, really well given how small they were when they were born.

I was looking forward to the shower because then I could do SOMETHING for her. Even if it was as little as getting her girls sleepsacks and crib sheets.

Because there is so much more I wish I could do for her. I wish I could tell her that I know what it’s like to be scared. And to feel like an outsider in a world full of blissfully ignorant people.

But I digress. So I gladly went. And I got there, a little early, and picked a seat and sat down. And people started trickling in.

The vast majority with big pregnant bellies.

That didn’t really bother me. Not really. Because after all, I have a baby at home. Who has been a balm to my soul, who’s allowed me HEALING from the pain of infertility.

And then someone at the table announced that yes, she was pregnant. 14 weeks.

That didn’t bother me either.

But then someone asked her, “are you going to find out what it is?”

Her answer? “Of course. I’m a planner.”

After that, things started going downhill. The squeals “OMG! I’m pregnant too! Do you think it’s a boy or a girl? When will you find out? How long were you trying?” made me want to vomit.

(I’m not kidding, either.)

And at some point during the shower, I leaned over to my best friend J and said “This is seriously like my worst nightmare.”

It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized why the shower bothered me so damn much.

It took me, personally, a lot of heartbreak and blaming myself and fear and worry to realize that having a baby was NOT UP TO ME. And the resentment I feel toward women who get pregnant on their timeline is directly correlated to how much they think that they’re in control.

Let’s look at the girl who’s 14 weeks pregnant. The planner. She and her husband got married last October. They just bought a house last month. And she’s pregnant. Of course I don’t know for sure – I don’t know what goes on behind closed doors – but the only conclusion I can make is that everything she wanted happened on her timeline.

Which promotes a VERY BIG UNTRUTH.

We are told as little girls that if we work hard, and try hard, we can ultimately succeed at anything. ANYTHING. We can make our lives look the way we want them to just by working hard.

And it couldn’t be further from the truth. I mean, shit – look at the SHOWER ITSELF. It was for a woman who has gone through HELL because she delivered her babies early.

So wait. Does that mean she FAILED? Because she couldn’t carry them to term? And of course I don’t know for sure, but I can guarantee you that, on some level, at some point in the past few months, poor A blamed herself. How could she not? Her body failed her, when it mattered most.

Just the way I blamed myself when we couldn’t conceive. I tried everything when we cycle – Exercising. Not exercising. Acupuncture. Abstaining from alcohol. Abstaining from sex. Meditation. Losing weight. And I was SO quick to blame myself when a cycle didn’t work.

Because, you know, if I had just worked HARDER, maybe we would be pregnant.

So in that room that day, I looked for my infertile cohorts. There WERE some, right? I mean, 1 out of 7 couples are infertile. There had to be someone who was in my boat.

There weren’t any. (To be fair, two of my friends that I know had problems weren’t there.) I felt very alone, and very much the exception to the rule. And it brought up all those feelings of failure again.

Because well, maybe I WAS a freak.

Granted, I will say that my best friend was quick to say, during the discussion of “planning” for a baby that they were fortunate in that it happened right away. And she was sweet enough to call me afterwards, too, in the hopes that she didn’t offend me by saying that they had thought about planning to get pregnant.

I wasn’t upset about that, and I told her so.

See, it’s not about the fact that I’m bitter that women can get pregnant on their timeline anymore.

(I’ll be honest, though. A few years ago? Yeah, okay. It was about that.)

But I’m infertile. It’s our reality that we can never just have sex and get pregnant. That’s OKAY. I’m okay with it, I’ve accepted that.

Here’s the thing. I don’t resent a woman because she can get pregnant on her timeline. Not anymore.

I resent a woman for TAKING CREDIT for it, though.

Because it’s NOT UP TO YOU. You got pregnant because you ovulated and a sperm fertilized it and made an embryo which was chromosomally normal. It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with biology and statistics and things that are much bigger and wider than our little lives.

And it wasn’t my fault that we couldn’t get pregnant for so long. And it wasn’t A’s fault for having her twins so early.

And as she sat there, away from her babies, opening up gift after gift after gift, all I could wish was that people could SEE that. That we should sit there and be thankful for miracles. That her 26 week old babies are, for the most part, THRIVING. Maybe even 20 years ago, they might not actually be alive today.

Bad shit happens to good people. Good shit happens to bad people.

But at the end of the day, it’s not up to us. Not any of it.

(Okay, so maybe it’s not baby showers I hate.)