Welcome to IVF This, episode 106- Baby Showers and Gender reveals

Hello, hello, hello, my beautiful friends. I hope you’re all doing so, so well today. Whatever day you’re listening to this. 

I’m gonna jump straight into the topic today. I think the fears and frustrations that surround gender reveals and baby showers is a pretty universal experience for us IVF’ers, so today we’re gonna talk about how to manage your emotions when you’re invited to one, when you’re not invited to one, and how to ensure you’re taking care of yourself in either scenario. 

I will fold in pregnancy announcements a little bit, but they’re not the primary focus of this episode- mostly because pregnancy announcements are not often a voluntary thing. Meaning that you have the choice to attend a baby shower or gender reveal. Very often pregnancy announcements are something we find out about by scrolling social media, we hear it from a friend of a friend, or people announce it mostly without but sometimes with our knowledge or even suspicion. I will do a future episode on how to manage those pregnancy and birth announcements that you aren’t expecting. But for now, what I want to make sure is understood at the outset, and I will reiterate during this episode is that you ALWAYS have the choice for if you want to attend or not. You might not FEEL like you have a choice, especially if it’s someone in your immediate or extended family, or a close friend. But you do always have a choice. 

So let’s start from the moment we receive those invitations. There are thoughts. So many thoughts. 

“When will it be my turn?”

“If I go, everyone is going to ask me when we will have kids.”

“Why don’t I deserve happiness?”

“This isn’t fair.”

And then amongst those thoughts, there are usually some self-judgement thoughts: “I’m such a terrible friend or person. I can’t be happy for anything. I’ve even had my clients say that that they fear that once they finally DO get pregnant, that no one will want to celebrate them because it took so long- and that feeds into a lot of the time scarcity that we experience. 

So there’s a few things to remember when you receive an invitation for one of these types of parties. 1) You get to choose whether you attend or not. 2) You don’t have to decide right away, and 3) you can change your mind at any time. 

Again, you might not FEEL like you can do any of these things. But something feeling true and something being true are two different things. 

So let’s break down the invited section into two parts: 

The first is when you are invited as a guest and the second is when you are participating in, or even hosting the party. 

So, when you are a guest, there tends to feel much less responsibility towards attending- even if it is someone that you are really close with or even family. 

As you are deciding if you want to attend or not, the MOST important thing that you consider is what are you willing to manage your mind around?

And when I say that, what I mean is, there are going to be thoughts and uncomfortable feelings, either way. There’s not really an option that doesn’t include at least some uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. You will have thoughts and feelings if you attend or not, like in making that decision. You will have thoughts and feelings on the day of whether you are going to the party or staying home. If everything is life is 50/50, then you can know with certainty that if you go you will have times when it will probably feel fun and exciting and you’re glad that you connected with your community, AND that you’re going to have pain associated with seeing pregnant bellies or even if kiddos are there, and possibly being asked invasive questions. Like it’s gonna be 50/50. If you stay home then you might feel relief from being there, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be thoughts and feelings associated with feeling left out, or isolated.

I think for a lot of us, myself included at SEVERAL times in my life, we have this belief that if we kind of decide one way or another then whatever emotion we expect to experience, should be the ONLY one we experience. But that’s not EVER true. We are emotionally complex humans. We feel a range of emotions all day, every day. And I think that’s where so much of our pain comes from is that we expect to feel a certain way, and when we don’t, or don’t exclusively feel that way, then we make that mean that something has gone wrong. But nothing has gone wrong. You’re human. 

More than one thing can be true at the same time. It can be true that you want to celebrate with your family or friends, AND that being in that situation and the thoughts associated with being there, can cause you a tremendous amount of pain. 

It can be true that the fear of being left out or left behind is so strong that it overpowers your desire to not attend. 

In any scenario that might be specific to you, there is no right or wrong answer. It doesn’t exist. So, again, you go back to that question: what am I willing to manage my mind around? 

Are you more willing to manage your mind around the thoughts and feelings you will have by going?  Or are you more willing to manage your mind around the thougths and feelings that will come with not attending. And BTW this decision will vary based on who, what, and when. You might be willing to manage your mind around going to one of the parties bc it’s your best friend that you’ve known since middle school, but maybe not willing to manage your mind around your cousin’s shower- or vice versa. 

This isn’t a one- sized fits all decision. If you have RSVP’d and it’s the day of but maybe you just got a negative beta, or less than stellar genetic results or something like that- then maybe you’re not in the best headspace to attend. And that’s ok. 

I had a client in that nearly exact situation. She was so excited to go, this was a friend that she’s known and cared about for a long time. But the day before or a couple of days before the shower, she received news that she didn’t have any viable embryos. She and I met between finding out about her embryos and the shower, and she had so much tension bc she wanted to go and be with her friends, she has RSVP’d, and bought a gift and everything, but she really didn’t think it would be good for her, to go. She felt very trapped. So through our discussion she decided that she would send a text to the mom-to-be and let her know that she would not be attending. We planned out the script that she would say, I think it was something like “I love you and this is not about me not wanting to celebrate with you or me being happy for you; this is about me needing some space and time to process my own heartache and I don’t want anything but joy for you on your day” or something like that. She dropped off her gift a few hours before the shower and went for a run and then took a shower and hung out in bed the rest of that afternoon. She cried when she felt like it, and allowed herself to feel sad. 

What she didn’t do was indulge in any of the brain drama of “you’re a terrible person. You’re so negative. Why can’t you just be happy for people?” all of that crap. She knew to expect it, because we talked about it, but that those thoughts were going to come either way, so she might as well make the decision based on what she KNEW she needed to take care of herself. 

And yes, people will have opinions about you, whether or not you attend. That’s human nature. But you know what other people’s thoughts are not? Your problem. They are not your problem. I know that’s easier said than done but think about this: people are going to have opinions regardless- meaning, whether you attend or not, people will have opions. And those opinions are solely based on THEIR own thoughts, feelings, experiences, that means that there is nothing you can do to change that. They are going to have them either way, and none of the opinions are actually about you. They are what that person believes they would or should do in that situation. Remember two things can be true at the same time. That someone thinks you should be doing something, and that you know what you need to do to take care of yourself. And when I say someone thinks you “should” be doing something- that opinion is not a universal truth. So when I say that more that two things can be true at the same time, I mean that their opinion can be true for them, and your decision can be true for you. But since YOU’RE decision is based on what you know you need, you like your reasons either way, AND you’re making the decision based on what you know you need rather than what you feel obligated to do- those are the only things you can control. 

So again, those few things to remember when you receive an invitation for one of these types of parties. 1) You get to choose whether you attend or not. 2) You don’t have to decide right away, and 3) you can change your mind at any time. 

I even had a client tell me that she had RSVP’d to a gender reveal and then decided, I think it was like the day before, that she didn’t want to do. That by going, she was going to self-inflict additional, unnecessary pain. So she texted the person she RSVP’d or maybe it was even the mom-to-be and said she was sick. I was like, “Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were sick.” She was like “Yea I’m sick of infertility’s shit.” Which I thought was genius. She allowed herself to change her mind. And she liked her reasons for not going- so she had her won back, the whole time. 

Ok, let’s switch gears to when you DON’T get the invite. Maybe you weren’t planning on attending but you expected an. Invite. Or even if you feel like you would have still gone, or at least tried to go, but never received the invite. So this hurts. It does. There’s no two-ways. It just sucks. 

The first thing that I want you to remember is that when you Don’t get the invite, it’s not because of you. Whomever is making that decision, is basing that decision on THEIR thoughts about you and the situation. Maybe they think they are sparing you from something painful, or they don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable, or maybe they’re just an asshole, that’s always an option. 

I do find, I am much more at peace, when I choose to believe that people are doing their best. 

That doesn’t mean that people can’t cause harm when they are trying their best, it just means that I don’t automatically assign a negative meaning behind things. 

If someone decides not to invite you, it’s not because of you. It’s their thoughts about you. It’s how they think THEY would feel in your situation. It’s their own desire for comfort. Seeing people in pain, or believing that they are in pain, is uncomfortable. So in the face of their OWN discomfort, they make decisions for you. Thinking they are doing it in service of you, but like most things people make decisions that are usually based in service of themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s how we all operate at any given time. 

Now, does all of that mean that you shouldn’t feel hurt? Not at all. But I find that when you can empathize or understand, however you want to word it, with why people do the things they do we are much less likely to make it about us as a person. We are much more likely to place the ownership of that decision, where it belongs- the person that made the decision. 

Now how you handle not receiving an invite, is very similar to how you handle getting the invite. You get to decide what to do. Do you have a conversation with that person, like the mom or parents to be? Do you ignore it? Do you write them off? You get to decide. You don’t have to decide right away, in fact, I would strongly encourage you taking time to journal about it, create some space for yourself to grieve that, without making it mean there is something wrong with you, and intentionally deciding how you would like to proceed. And know that you always have the right to change your mind. 

Now, I did mention that I would touch on pregnancy announcements. So this would go for when you are meeting up with a friend or a group of friends and you have a suspicion that an announcement will be part of the get together. Maybe a friend calls you up to go have dinner, or otherwise make plans with you and you’re pretty sure, maybe not certain, but pretty sure that will be the topic of conversation. 

The same rules, the same framework applies: What are you willing to manage your mind around?

1. You get to choose whether you attend or not. 2) You don’t have to decide right away, and 3) you can change your mind at any time. 

What I want to leave you with is that this time in your life, this journey is hard enough. We do not need to make it harder on ourselves. We can lovingly make decisions, decisions that support ourselves and how we can take care of ourselves, and that sometimes those decisions are in opposition to what other people believe or think you should do. And that’s ok. 

You are the person you will be spending your entire life with. You are the person you are going to be experiencing grief, joy, sadness, or happiness with. You are the person on your journey. Not someone else. You’re the only person who knows what is best for you, or how to take care of you. Knowing that and having your own back- well, that is what I want for each and every one of you. 

Ok, that is what I have for you today. I hope you have a great week and I will talk to you soon!!