On the drive back home from Vermont on Sunday, Jerry asked me if I felt showered. He wasn't asking if I had remembered to shower that day (which I had, by the way!), he was referring to the outpouring of love, generosity, and support we had showered on us over the weekend. The baby-love-fest began at about 12:30pm on Friday with a surprise shower from folks in our division at work. We seriously work with some of the most caring, most generous, most wonderful people on the planet, who also happen to be fabulous cooks. They lured us in with promises of a pot-luck lunch and then showered us with gifts and advice and good stories. Jerry just kept saying "Any one of those presents from everyone would have been enough!"
Saturday morning we woke up, packed up, and headed to Vermont for a family shower. Jerry's mom, grandma, sister, and aunt made the trip up from NJ. My family made the trip off their mountain. My mom, sister, and nieces put together a perfectly "us" shower. There was plenty of food and very little in the way of shower games. Delightful. Several ladies who were like mothers to me growing up joined us and most amazing of all, my best friend who lives in Orlando happened to already be traveling to the area for her sister's PhD hooding and was able to come. I woke up on Saturday, realized I was going to see Annie, and immediately burst into tears. To say that it meant a lot to me to have her there would possibly be the biggest understatement of the year. To try and quantify how much it meant to me to be able to physically see her, have her see me, have her touch the baby-belly, have her feel baby's kicks and rolls is literally unfathomable. I'm sitting here with tears in my eyes as I think about how much her physical presence, even for a few hours of this pregnancy, means to me. Now I have to stop thinking about it so I don't start bawling. (I love you Annie B!)
The family shower was equally as wonderful in some of the same and some very different ways. We experienced the fun of taking people from NJ to the North Chittenden Grange Hall (which literally doesn't even have an address). We heard and told stories. We opened mountains of gifts. We were showered with everything good in the world; love, wisdom, kindness, creativity, humor, generosity, and tiny things babies need. (FYI - Tiny hoodies make my heart melt. As do tiny socks.)
To top off this whole experience, we had the amazing good fortune to wake up on Sunday morning and celebrate Mother's Day with both of our mothers. While there was some debate about if I qualified yet, it didn't matter one bit to me because it was the perfect ending to a perfect weekend.
UPDATE: We need to add another group of amazing people we work with to the thank you list. A group of Jerry's co-workers from around campus had a surprise shower for us yesterday. I knew about it since there really wasn't a good way to get me there without knowing! But again, variations on a theme... they gave us some of the nicest, most generous presents ever. Books and tiny clothes and toys and so much more. The amount of love this child has already received is staggering.
I'll leave you with some of the words of wisdom we received on Friday from a co-worker who has a way with words. I'll be framing the scrap of paper it was written on and hanging it in the baby's room, hoping that it holds true.
"Lucky little human to drop in on such parents."
To that I say... lucky parents to have such a village. From the bottom of my heart, thank you all.
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