Unlike the holidays, which you can see coming on the calendar and plan for, baby showers are the bombs that can go off in your life at any time. It seemed like I was constantly being invited to baby showers throughout my own waiting period. I thought it would get easier after I completed the home study, but it never did.

Every time I went to a baby shower, I faced the following issues:

• I still wasn’t a mother.


• I would never experience being pregnant.


• I wondered if I would have a baby shower for my baby.


• If I had a baby shower, I would not be able to receive gender-specific items in case the adoption fell through.


• If I had a baby shower, I would not even know for sure if the gifts would be used for THIS baby.

I knew that the baby shower was about my friend and not about me, but it was so hard to plaster a smile on my face while I was wracked with pain inside. It was hard to celebrate another person’s joy when every single aspect of the baby shower was a painful reminder of what I did not have myself.

In her book Infertility: A Survival Guide for Couples and Those Who Love Them, Cindy Lewis Dake says:

Pure torture…Don’t you agree? Baby showers hit us where it hurts the most.

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If you react the same way to baby showers, you are definitely not alone, and there is nothing “wrong” with you. It is normal to feel pain when you are grieving.

I have put together four tips for surviving baby showers:

1. Send a gift instead of attending.


2. Order the present on-line.


3. Don’t host baby showers.


4. Develop a coping strategy if you must attend.

I will discuss the first two here and then the last two in the next blog.

1. Send a gift instead of attending.

If at all possible, don’t go. While you might not be able to duck out of a baby shower for your sister, you can probably avoid most of the baby showers that come your way. You don’t have to go. In fact, not going is a kindness not only to yourself but also to the mom-to-be. The mom-to-be wants a room filled with people who are truly happy for her. There is no reason to put yourself through the pain or the mom-to-be through the awkwardness.

2. Order the present on-line.

When you desperately want to become a parent, it is sheer torture to walk into a Babies R Us. There is no need to put yourself through this. Instead, on a day when you feel like you are in a good place and can handle it, search the Babies R Us website and select a gift to be your standard gift for any baby shower. I suggest a gift set like the Johnson's Bathtime Essentials Gift Set. Bookmark the product, and use this as your default gift for any baby shower. Then, whenever you get invited to a baby shower, you don’t even have to put any thought into the gift (which means you minimize the time you spend thinking about babies). Click the bookmark, enter your friend’s address, check the gift wrap option, and – voila – the baby shower is behind you.