Why I won't be having a baby shower
They’ve been standard procedure in the US for decades, and over the past few years, baby showers have been growing in popularity on this side of the Atlantic too.
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They’re a lovely opportunity for a mum-to-be to spend an afternoon eating cake with her closest female friends and relatives, celebrating the impending new arrival, and generally being pampered and fussed over.
Or are they?
Here, one expectant mum explains why she has told her friends not to throw her a baby shower under any circumstances.
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"I’m not one of those people who think that nothing good has ever come out of America (well, hello, Jared Leto…), but when it comes to baby showers, I’d quite like to send them straight back to where they came from.
As soon as I’d had my 12-week scan, I made it VERY clear to my best friends that they’d be off my Christmas card list for life if they attempted to organise one for me.
I mean, come on… We’re grown women here. Are we seriously supposed to pretend that sitting in someone’s living room, drinking tea from baby bottles, eating teeny tiny cupcakes iced in delicate shades of pink and blue and playing Guess Who? with each other’s baby photos is fun?
It’s all just ridiculously girlie and twee, and it’s not like we mums-to-be can even neck a few cosmos to liven things up a bit.
Besides, it feels like tempting fate. By all means shower me with gifts once I’ve given birth, but I’d rather save the frivolities until my baby is safely in my arms.
To me, baby showers always feel a bit grabby. No matter how hard you try to dress them up as a celebration or a girls’ get-together, we all know the real agenda is to lavish the mum-to-be with presents.
Is it just me, or is it not a bit greedy to expect your friends to come bearing gifts to your baby shower – and then to cough up for another present once you’ve delivered?
What about those of us – like my very good friend – who doesn’t ever want a baby? Should she chuck a ‘child-free by choice’ party and get us all to bring her shoes, bottles of vodka and new lipsticks?
And don’t even get me started on baby showers with gift lists. It’s up to me and my other half to work out what we need for our newborn and budget for it – not to make our friends shell out for designer brands that are out of our price range.
Whenever I get a baby shower invitation, I can’t help feeling for women who are trying for a baby or can’t have kids. I was lucky to get pregnant within a relatively short time, but from the time we started trying to getting the BFP, I ached every time I saw a woman with a big bump or a tiny baby.
I can only imagine how painful baby showers must be for women who are having trouble getting pregnant – it must feel like their noses are being rubbed in someone else’s fertility.
I refuse to put any of my friends through that ordeal.
On top of everything else, I cringe at the thought of being the centre of attention just because I’m up the duff.
I felt uncomfortable enough with all eyes on me on my wedding day, when I’d spent nine months dieting, was wearing the most flattering dress I’ve ever owned and had a small army of professionals to make me look beautiful.
The idea of being in the limelight at 30-something weeks pregnant, with an enormo-bump, a face full of spots and the world’s ugliest maternity jeans fills me with horror.
I find it totally bizarre that we’re supposed to have this big celebration of the fact that sperm managed to meet egg successfully in my uterus. Yes, having a baby is a pretty amazing thing, but it’s not like I’m the first woman in the world to get pregnant.
So, while I’m flattered that my friends wanted to throw me a baby shower, I’m sticking to my guns on this one.
If they want to spoil me, I’d rather they waited until six months after the birth and then took me out for a good old girls’ night out just like we used to.
And they’d better not even *think* about bringing a nappy full of Nutella."
