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This post has been cross-posted from my blog, Wisermom.org
Let me begin this way:
I am an ass.
Now, some history.
If you've read much of this blog before, then you may already know that I had IVF in order to get pregnant, and maybe you know that's because I have blocked fallopian tubes after an ectopic pregnancy (naturally conceived) I had last year. You might even know that I've been trying to get pregnant since January 2005.
And you may recall me saying that infertility sucks balls. Before infertility, I was the kind of person who'd look at someone undergoing treatment like IVF and say, "there are so many kids already born who need homes - why would anyone go through IVF?" Oh yes, I did say that. And I meant it, working with a lot of homeless kids in shelters at the time. I mentally stab myself in the leg with a fork for that now.
So. For the past 3+ years I have been as avoidant of any baby-related social event as I could be. I was extra specially hyper avoidant of the dreaded friend/extended family member's baby shower. Just. Couldn't. Do. It.
Because I have an ego, early in my pregnancy I'd made an announcement to those I thought needed to hear it - no baby shower! I did not want to ask my family and friends to participate in an event I had willfully (maybe even spitefully) ignored for the last 3+ years of my life. I just couldn't face those people or look at how poorly I'd handled my feelings over being infertile in the social context. So more avoidance had been my plan.
How was I going to get the hundreds, or perhaps thousands of dollars worth of gear I was going to need? Hell, I thought these babies would be more like puppies. A cardboard box and some sheets would do, right? They don't do anything but eat and sleep for awhile - how much could they possibly need? (Hey, I might be 39 years old but what did do I know about babies?)
Six weeks ago or so, someone let it slip that a surprise shower was in the works. I won't say who. Actually, no less than five someones let it slip. I was told out of kindness, so I would be able to either stop it or prepare myself for it. When I found out, I cried. I was angry, frustrated, a little humiliated and damn it, here was another thing about this pregnancy that felt out of control.
Then I mentally slapped myself. Because I suddenly understood clearly that this baby shower wasn't about me, and this was something I was going to have to get used to if I was going to be a Mom.
See, the masterminds of the dreaded affair were my stepmother and her daughter, my stepsister, "A". A has been battling cancer for almost five years. She's been recovering most recently from lung surgery ever since April. She is still on oxygen and has dialysis three days a week (from the damage previous cancer treatment has done to her kidneys).
There is nothing - nothing - like a loved one's cancer to make you understand what is and what is not a big deal in life. My ego? SO not a big deal. Even though I couldn't see that at first, my stepmom could. And she understood that my babies needed stuff, and that I was going to need help no matter how reluctant I am to admit it or accept it.
While my stepmom was booking the restaurant and paying the bills, A was in charge of all the details - from the invitations to the decorations to the shower games. She put that shower at the center of her free time for over a month, painting custom made centerpieces and hand rolling adorable little favors between dialysis and schlepping into the city for experimental chemo treatment. "I loved doing it," she said. I know she did, too.
If that realization wasn't humbling enough, all of my extended family came out. All of them - even those whose RSVPs I never returned when they had showers of their own, to whom I'd never bothered to send a card or gift of acknowledgment of any kind when their own kids were born. They were all there and they outfitted my two kids better
