Did you have a baby shower?

[ElleDubloo]

Our pregnancy is still secret at the moment (only 5+5) but in a few months we'd like to throw a party to celebrate.

Did you have a baby shower / other celebration?
How pregnant were you at the time?
What did you do?
Did you ask for gifts / donations to charity?

I'd quite like to wait until the summer, and invite friends round to my in-laws' house (much bigger than our flat) where we'll have a barbecue, balloons, bubbles, fizzy drinks and games We might ask for donations to a children's charity in lieu of gifts (because I like shopping for things myself!)

I didn't. Would have secretly sort-of liked one but it also feels like tempting fate. Plus, I think you usually need someone to host it for you and I don't have anyone (woe is me ;)).

Yep my sister organised one for me, it was a special treat at the end of pregnancy, an opportunity to relax have lunch, games, cakes etc with friends and family before your world implodes in new parenthood.

Was a lovley moment & a great memory.

I did, but only because my American friend was desperate to organise one for me. It ended up being an afternoon tea with partners and children there. She'd organised a few games and there was no mention of gifts on the invite and I didn't put together a gift list. Everyone bought little gifts anyway and one of the games resulted in my having pre-addressed thank you cards to send back.

A few people were very sceptical about it beforehand, but it was a lovely low-key afternoon and DH and I had a great time

Totally not my thing. I'd be mortified and what if everything goes wrong after it. The idea gives me funny feelings of tempting fate and the like! Strange as I don't feel that way about other people's, but I'm still not keen. Feels excessive and grabby.

My friends are holding one for me (I found out because 2 separate sets of friends had started organising and almost ended up with 2!) . I've asked not to be included in any of the prep though and refused to have it at my house - just felt too odd.

I have been asked a lot though what we need help with and have been told it would be easier for friends/relatives if we had a list for them to have so I've made one but I've worded the intro extra, extra carefully because it did feel a bit greedy.

My uni friends threw me one as a surprise. We're all quite young and I'm the first of our group to have a child, so they were all really excited and it was cute. Basically I walked back into class from lunch and they'd set up a little surprise party and bought gifts which was lovely of them.

It's definitely a no-no to plan your own, though.