My MIL and the Baby Shower

Even before I was pregnant I wasn't 100% sure how I felt about baby showers.  I had only been to one or two before we were TTC and they seemed much like bridal showers.  A nice way to celebrate and of course I was happy to bring along a gift for the mom-to-be.  Then we began TTC and I dreaded getting invitations to baby showers.  I only went to the ones that were absolutely necessary.  For the other ones (J's cousin's 19 year old girlfriend!) I politely declined and sent a gift.  That worked well for most of the showers since many of my friends and family members live out of town and I'm the oldest grandchild so there hasn't been a flurry of babies in my family, yet. 

After I became pregnant and learned that J's sister and SIL were also expecting I knew that things would get crazy.  Our due dates are very close together and almost right away my MIL started talking about having a shower for all 3 of us at once.  Almost immediately I knew I didn't want to do that.  I started thinking of all the awful things that could happen.  We could have a shower and then find out that something was wrong with the baby, or the baby could be born early, or I would wake and discover I wasn't really pregnant, and on and on.  I know these thoughts aren't healthy and are unlikely to really happen, but it was also unlikely that we would have so much trouble getting pregnant, and it's a hard feeling to shake.  I started hoping that she would just drop the huge shower idea, but I should have known better than to think that. 

She called me one evening (during the week of our VBS, so I was crazy busy) and wanted to talk about dates for the possible shower.  She wanted to have it in October.  Yikes, I started freaking out.  I don't know when people are supposed to have showers, but that seemed way too early to me to have a shower.  If I was 30 weeks or more along maybe I would be comfortable, and then again maybe not, maybe I'll never be comfortable.  We already have plans every single Saturday in October (we are really into tailgating for college football, plus I have some work commitments that month) so I said that I was only available on Sundays and that I would be extremely uncomfortable having the shower unless it was at the very end of the month.  She didn't seem to listen and said it would all be based on when my SIL could travel since she lives several states away and will have to fly in for the shower.  Ugh!  Well I guess being subtle specifically saying out loud that I was uncomfortable didn't work.  I figured I would wait until I heard what the "official" date for the shower was and then determine if I wouldn't be comfortable.  But she never got back to me about a date for the shower.  It's been two weeks so I'm sure she's moving forward on making plans and setting things up, but never followed up with me about it.  I don't know why I'm surprised since it's just how she does things.  When I was getting married she picked a date for my bridal shower that I was going to be on vacation because she never asked me what days worked for me (she did end up changing the date, but acted like it was my fault). 

I'm not trying to be ungrateful.  I know she's excited about us having a baby and that lots of people like coming to baby showers and giving gifts for the mom-to-be and I'm not trying to take that away from anyone, but I feel like she's not trying to understand my feelings at all.  I'm absolutely thrilled to be pregnant and I'm enjoying every moment of it, but it's still hard.  I have visions of myself crying in the bathroom during this huge shower because I'm so uncomfortable with all the baby talk and excitement and everything, because even though now I'm part of that "group" I'm really still an outsider and it seems like no one can relate unless they've been there.