So Sick...

...of people! Not so much the people, but the stupid things people seem to say without thinking about it at all! I mean, there are the obvious...like I don't want to hear "Oh my, look how big you're getting!!! You're going to be huge by April!" or "It's going to hurt soooo much! You'd better get an epi!"

The thing really bothering me at the moment though is everyone having an opinion on my baby shower, or lack there of.

With my husband being in the Air Force, we are about 2,000 miles away from home right now, and have not had the finances or opportunity to take a trip home during the pregnancy. Had we been closer to home, the issue with a shower would have been people fighting over who got to throw it, (It's the first grandchild on my side and a miracle on both sides, since we were very likely never supposed to get pregnant.) but out here I've had everyone asking me about it for months, but no one to throw it for me. It is 2009, so I had decided to throw etiquette out the window and try to organize it with the help of my husband. (We had planned on a co-ed shower since a good number of our friends are men.)

Well, we just can't do it. Between the issue of where to have it and other baby related things we need to spend money on, not to mention the pure amount of energy and time that goes into planing something like that, (and I am short on both at the moment.) we just aren't going to be able to swing it. I have been telling people this for quite awhile now, trying to prepare them and hoping that letting them know that I just can't do it on top of everything else will mean they will stop asking. After all, it makes me feel like absolute shit that my first child won't have a baby shower because we're 2,000 miles away from anyone who we're close enough to that might throw us one.

Instead of people letting it go though, I've just been bombarded with "Well, can't you do this?" and "Surely you could afford to do that!" and pressure from nearly every side to somehow make it work. Perhaps people are just trying to be helpful, but the reality is that it just makes me feel that everyone wants an excuse to have a party and expects me to throw it, and I just find myself wanting to scream at them "If you want the damn shower so much, how about you be a friend and plan the damn thing?!!!" After all, it is not like my husband and I have not done favors for and been good friends to other people, and all I'm getting from everyone is that they want me to have a shower, but no one wants to actually be the one to throw it.

Almost worse than the people who just don't seem to get that I can't financially, emotionally or physically plan a shower right now, are the people who act like I have no right to be disappointed and say "Oh well, you can just have one next time!" Now, I don't know how most people feel about their showers, since this is my first child, but the shower is not for ME. It's a celebration for my baby and for my miracle pregnancy, which means I can't just "have one next time". There won't be a next time!!! This is the only time I will be pregnant with this child and my first pregnancy. Yes, I could have a shower for my next child, but it's not like it will be some replacement for the fact that I didn't get to have a shower with this one. It will be a celebration of my next child, and I will still have missed out on the shower to celebrate my first. And I have the right to be disappointed about that! I'm not moping around or griping about it to strangers on the street, but I do feel that I have the right to feel a little let down and the right to blog about it if I so wish to vent my feelings that way. If people don't like it, they don't have to read, but I certainly don't need comments about how I shouldn't be upset or how I can just make up for it "next time".

Not to mention, I might never get this chance again. I know that some women take for granted their ability to get pregnant...After all, some of them seem to need only to look at their husbands to end up popping out another child. For me though, I can't take any pregnancy lightly or assume that I will have another chance at it. Medical science still can not explain how my body managed to get pregnant, much less sustain it this long. God has blessed us with this child, but that does not mean He'll see fit to do so again. After all, there are thousands of couples out there who would make amazing parents that never get blessed with a pregnancy, so I think it would be pretty cocky of me to assume that because I was blessed with this one I will be blessed again. I obviously hope, but to just take it as a given seems to me to be terribly ungrateful for this blessing, and I will not throw such a gift back into God's face. The notion that keeps getting thrown into my face of "next time" is simply annoying and makes me feel like people honestly don't understand what it's like to relish every moment of a thing, and every experience, because it might never pass your way again. I don't think for a minute that my friends understand how hurt I feel when they start throwing around "next time" and "no big deal", because I don't think any of them would try to hurt me intentionally, but I wish that people would stop and think before they let things come flying out of their mouth. I know that I try to when I am am talking to people about what could be a sensitive subject, and the baby shower (while it might seem petty) and pregnancy certainly is that to me.

Even if getting pregnant for me was just as easy as drinking water, I still feel to talk about "next time" so casually is like throwing one of life's greatest blessings aside like a used tissue. If I knew for sure that I would get pregnant again and be able to have many more children, I would still feel disappointed that I am going to miss out on the shower for this child this time...It is a little thing, and will not matter in the end when I am holding my perfect little miracle in my arms, but I am still entitled to feel disappointment, and am sick of people acting like I am not.

I know that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and this is mine...

Think before you speak, especially when you are talking to the conflicting and volatile ball of emotions and hormones that is a pregnant woman.

Thanks for reading!