Disclaimer: If I seem more concerned with the party details than how freakin’ awesome my friends are in this post – please excuse me, I don’t mean to be – I can’t help myself, I LOVE a great party and I got some fab ideas from what my girls put together for me – it was an EPIC baby shower and I really do have the best friends in the entire world.  To say I was overwhelmed by their generosity is a gross understatement, these girls are like family to me and I know bubble will be showered with loved when (s)he gets here.

/disclaimer.

Phew!

It felt like a dream, a dream that I’ve had for a long, long time, and, like most dreams, it passed by in a hazy blur.

With an uncertain, potential/likely move in our future, I was informed by a number of my nearest and dearest that I couldn’t leave the USA without having a baby shower.  Baby showers are something I’d brand as “inherently American”, we don’t have them at home and I’d only ever been to one “in-the-flesh”, on a trip to Iowa, before we moved to Houston.

In the last four years, I’ve hosted two baby showers, and attended at least three more.  To say they are a cultural staple here is an understatement.  They are almost a holiday in themselves. Each time, you go, you bring a gift, you’re genuinely happy for the expectant mother, but you secretly smoulder with a little bit of jealousy, “Some day, it’ll be me”, you think.  Some day.  The longer you try to conceive, the more showers you go to and with each one, the jealousy grows and doubt creeps in, you start to wonder, WILL it ever be me?

So, when my friends graciously offered to host one for me, I got so gleefully excited that I grabbed the opportunity to have a morning all about bubble and I, with both hands – hey, call me selfish, but you would have grabbed it too!

True, my shower, at almost 19 weeks pregnant, is considered VERY early here in the US, as most wait for a much larger bump and try to strike a balance between being near to due date, whilst also being on the “right” side of “beached whale”.

We, however, opted for very early, over “not being here to have one at all” and, after listening to me complain for years about trying to get pregnant, I owed my girls the delight of a baby shower, to celebrate the huge achievement of conceiving our wonderful little bubble.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over this whole wacky fertility journey, is to not take procreation for granted, babies truly are little miracles, and they should be celebrated at every opportunity – and celebrate we did!

I got to pick the theme, and, with a quick “gender neutral baby shower” search on google and Pinterest, I fell in love with a “What’ll it bee?” Bumble bee theme, with yellow, black and white as a colour palette

Beyond that, I was done, my girls took over and my only job, was to show up.  For a control freak, I was momentarily panicked to give up any semblance of control, especially since Shelley tormented me – just a smidge – by hiding the guest list on Evite, so I didn’t even know who was coming until they all started to show up!

And, let’s just take a moment to talk about that EPIC ‘diaper cake’ that my girl Lindsay over at Chicky Babe Creations put together for me – no, you can’t have mine, go get your own! 😛

Where do I even start? Their creativity was beautiful, from the welcome/goodbye signs on the front door;

…to the yummy food, (Tray bakes, pasta salad, chicken salad sandwiches, fruit, cupcakes, punch and lemonade)

…their choices of games, (‘The price is right’ – aka guess the price of the baby things, name the baby and leave advice for the baby/parents) It needs noting here that I’m SO grateful that I have tasteful friends (no chocolate microwaved in diapers here!) and wasn’t advanced enough in my pregnancy to have my bump guess-tim-ated – cause that could have just been awkward! LOL!

…their adorable favours, (Honey sticks – cinnamon, peach and original flavour)

…and their gifts (everything from baths, to books and from toys to diaper bags – I got it all!)

it was everything I could ever want in a baby shower.  It was an amazing experience and I was totally spoiled rotten!

Since I hadn’t yet had my Gender scan, the group were intent on determining the gender of our little bubble, and so, with the help from google and very complicated, scientific methodology, following very strict instructions, we did three things to determine the gender of bubble;

1. Ring on a string

2. Pick up a key

3. Populous vote

And it was unanimously decided that bubble is a girl – we’ll re-check that logic soon enough at our scan.

There was something very magical about the whole experience, some of your bestest friends coming together to celebrate this tiny, fragile life that you’ve played a part in creating.

Considering the emotional drain you are put through during pregnancy, it made a huge difference to my attitude, my mood and my well being to be surrounded by such love and celebration.

It reminded me that fear and anxiety side, we have waited for this, worked for this and deserve this and we shouldn’t feel guilty for being happy during this time.

At the end of the day, you only have your first child, once and I feel like my first 19 weeks of pregnancy have been spent so caught up in the anxiety of “what if’s”, panicking at every twinge and filled with terror other peoples horror stories, as well as the political minefield of reproduction, that I honestly haven’t enjoyed it all that much, and that makes sad, cause I deserve to enjoy it, damnit! (Though does anyone *really* enjoy pregnancy? Discuss.)

Thankfully, I have some great friends who showed me the light, who told me that it’s ok to be happy that i’m growing a tiny little person in my tummy, that bubble should indeed be celebrated and shouted from the rafters, and those wonderful friends threw me a shindig just to prove it!

Most of y’all can’t see this, but I wanted to keep Shelley’s blog post about my shower handy.

And no, you can’t have my friends – go get your own 😉