With all the restrictions around from Covid I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to have a baby shower, especially not in person. One of my friends reached out to me asking me if I wanted her to organise something for me, so we tentatively booked a date (May 8th – week 30), hoping that restrictions would allow a small outdoor gathering by the time it came around. Thankfully, just that happened – gatherings of 10 people, outdoors, socially distanced were allowed! Yay!
I love Jericho Beach so suggested we do it there, and made a guest list of 10 people – which included babies and myself. Leidy (who organised the whole thing) asked if I had a theme in mind and I didn’t, so just said to keep it relaxed and beachy… she came out with all this awesome tropical decor, balloons and a lei for me – it was amazing! She brought pink iced cupcakes and made up individual plates of food so that all the guests could help themselves without any cross-contamination. And although it was a quite windy, it stayed dry for the whole afternoon and it only really clouded over as we wrapped up the games!
Tom went for a coffee with a friend during the shower (a husband of one of the attendees of my shower) and they came to the park just in time for opening presents and taking photos – so we managed some whole group shots, and Tom even appears in a couple of them!
It was such a lovely afternoon, we played an alphabet game where we had to write down a girl’s name for every letter of the alphabet (which I won! I’d been looking at lots of lists of names…) and then everyone filled out a little slip of paper making guesses on the full name, arrival date and time, birth weight and length and who our little one will look like! I have kept all the guesses so after she arrives we can see who came the closest… Finally, Leidy passed round some lolly/popsicle sticks and pens and asked people to write messages for me to read during labour. That was such a lovely touch and I’m sure I will look back on them when I need a push of encouragement!
It was a great shower and I got to wear my new birthday dress from my parents too! It’s so nice to gather with friends and know you have a good community around you who will not only celebrate with you but also pray with and support you when you need it too. They also showered us with gifts generously too helping us to feel more prepared practically! I feel so lucky to have these communities in Canada and the UK, and I’m looking forward to having some kind of “meet the baby” get together when we’re back in England in September or October!
Ellen Wiggins 