Daddy Shower

I'm stressing about the baby coming early. Maybe I'm just worrying because T and my midwife aren't in town at the moment, but I can definitely feel my cervix changing. Last week, Louis and I traded cars for a day while I took it to the tire shop and then decided it would be a good idea to detail it for him. I just wanted the car to be clean before I installed the car seat, but apparently I overdid it. After hauling out the vacuum, cleaning the floor mats, and working on the car in the sun for a long time, I ended up with a headache and regular, crampy contractions. The next day or so, the baby dropped lower and I can now feel the baby's head pressing on my cervix. Yikes. I promised I would take it easy after that.

And then we had our showers.

Really, the baby showers were wonderful. I feel like we are surrounded by so much love and support and I just feel incredibly fortunate. We've written about 50 thank-you cards so far, but there are still so many more people to thank. A simple note doesn't seem adequate sometimes.

The daddy shower at Louis' work was a lot more fun than I was expecting. Our three-tier cake was homemade by one of his realtor co-workers, who also shaped frogs and ducks and a baby quilt out of fondant and placed them around the cakes. The main activity was the sharing of daddy/parenting advice by all the people who came. It was not a shy group to begin with, but once the advice started, people just kept calling out all kinds of things. I liked that most people there had older or grown children, so their perspective was different. One of my favorite pieces of advice was from a really nice guy who told Louis, "One of the best things you can do for your kids is to love their mother." It was interesting that the crowd was made up of hardcore professionals and elected officials, but when people started talking about parenting and babies and daddy advice, everyone was so personal. A couple people even cried as they shared their stories. It was really touching. More than one realtor shared that they enjoyed working in that particular office so much because their kids were always welcome to stop by and the atmosphere was very family-friendly. It's true. I really like Louis' real estate co-workers and have always felt welcomed and included in the family or community events they have.

I loved that the people who knew me asked about my work and how it tied together with our birth plans. Not only did I not receive any judgment about homebirthing (or cloth diapering or breastfeeding, etc) but quite a few people were super supportive. I've really gotten used to hearing other women's birth stories once they know what I do, but now I'm loving that other women will come up and whisper that they, too, co-slept or cloth diapered or whatever. It has happened so frequently lately. In some ways it feels like they are sort of confessing this crazy thing they did and hoping that I won't judge them. Like the birth stories, some women have said it was the first time they shared their story with anyone outside their family. I love hearing their stories! I'm just so hopeful that my generation will be more "out" about this stuff than the last generation.

I also loved that our congressman's chief of staff knows that I'm now a midwife and no longer a doula. She asked how doula work was going, and another person who happened to overhear her updated her on my status, and she was so pleased. Yay! Who knew I could get the warm fuzzies from a shower at the real estate office?

It was a full night, but like the other showers, we had such a great time. So many people are exciting about meeting our baby! I love it.

Now that a lot of the shower buzz has settled down, I really will do my best to take it easy. I promise. I have to keep little one in there for two more weeks. Oh, I'm really looking forward to T coming home.