Baby showers after a loss are hard, heartbreaking, nerve wracking, happy, loving, terrifying events and you pray they end fast or that you can leave quickly. You want to show the person how happy and excited you are for them and you are happy for them. But sometimes its hard- very hard to be a part of. I remember being at my sisters baby shower and waddling around. I was trying to run a game my mom had asked me to do for her and feeling my stomach and my heart were going to lay on the floor; I didn't want to be there. Later as she unwrapped her gifts it was lovely to see and be excited for her, her little Brookie or Ben; it was lovely to see everyone so excited for her too. Along with those feelings there was still this jealous green goblin in me, and she had been with me since I found out my sister was pregnant.
This may sound self centered but keep in mind a handful of months before I had been cradling my gorgeous but dead baby boy. I had gone through the entire pregnancy, labored, delivered him and praying that he really would be okay and the doctors were wrong. Yet, I was asked to run a baby shower in the same place mine had been for my son a year before for my sister who is almost 6 years my junior, who didn't wan't a baby (before) and didn't seem to comprehend the gift of motherhood. It seemed like a cruel and sick torture forced upon me by my mother. I really wanted to go home, and hide.
I managed to keep it together, to hide my fear and to avoid to people about my growing belly mostly because no one wanted to ask about it (probably in case for some horrid reason I would loose another baby).
Fast forward 17 months from this.
To this day, baby showers freak me out a bit. People want to touch my daughter at them now (I'm not overly comfortable with strangers with my kid and shes currently 15 almost 16 months old and adorable). I don't like the anxiety they cause me but it has lessened with time. When a loss mama declines an invite to a baby-shower, please go easy on her; she still loves you and wants you and your baby to have every happiness. It is however an emotional minefield, and some days the added emotions can be overwhelming.
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