where do gifts for dead babies go?
i'm obsessed lately with what happened to the gifts people had for hans that they hadn't given us yet when he died.
we know they're out there. justin's aunt (the nutty one) brought with her to the shower the almost-but-not-quite-done blanket she was crocheting for him. what the hell did she do with it? it would make me laugh if she gave it to us for milo. justin's second cousin asked for the spelling of johannes because she was having something customized with his name; it must have been hard to return that one. maybe whatever it was is languishing on the company's clearance site, hoping that someone else with a child named "johannes" will come along, to which i say, good luck, suckas!
our friend's mom, who lives in another city, had brought something for hans and left it with our friends the week before he died. they told us they had this gift for us, and then he died, and we never heard anything more about it. was it something their own child, 5 months older than hans, could use? i hope so.
my now-sister-in-law's mom also told us she had something for hans, and then we didn't see her again until after hans died. what is the psychology in this situation? how do people feel about gifts they already had in hand for someone who died? do they debate whether they should give it to us or not? do they assume it would be painful for us if they did? do they throw these things away, or give them to goodwill, or give them to a friend's child? and how do you feel if you get a present originally intended for someone who died before they could accept it?
i don't want to make any of these people uncomfortable, but damn, i'd like to know how these things panned out.
there's a pile of wrapped baby gifts on the floor next to me as i write. today is the sister-in-law's baby shower, and we got the baby tub and ducky bath robe and towel they registered for and the crazy cat with all the buttons and zippers and ties and buckles (the modern, sexless replacement for dapper dan and dressy bessy) that they didn't ask for but we wanted for our niece. we thought about getting her the t-shirt that says, "if you think i'm good-looking, you should see my uncle!" but we decided that though it was funny, my sister-in-law's family may not find the possible implication that my husband possibly fathered her child as funny. some people have no sense of humor.
i have some trepidation about going. i feel it's important that i go, to support my sister-in-law, and to keep justin's extended family from clucking about how difficult it all must be for me. i skipped the girls' weekend in florida with my family because i couldn't have gotten back in time to make the shower today. so it's important and shit, but i still don't want to deal with it. i haven't seen much of justin's family since last easter, and even his grandmother i've avoided since the fall.
look, i felt crappy on the fourth of july and justin was working, so i skipped the family cookout at which everyone acted weird to my mother-in-law before breaking down in tears and telling her justin's cousin was having a baby. we skipped town for thanksgiving, and by christmas we knew we were pregnant but weren't ready to tell, and we didn't want to take the spotlight away from justin's brother and sister-in-law. we hid for the first few months of this year. i didn't realize that i had avoided almost all contact for a year until now, which just makes it worse.
i do not want to be an object of attention at my sister-in-law's shower, but i'm afraid it will be uncomfortable.
it's not that it's not within my power to not go. but the longer i put it off, the weirder it will be. i might as well get it over with today, right?
ugh.
we know they're out there. justin's aunt (the nutty one) brought with her to the shower the almost-but-not-quite-done blanket she was crocheting for him. what the hell did she do with it? it would make me laugh if she gave it to us for milo. justin's second cousin asked for the spelling of johannes because she was having something customized with his name; it must have been hard to return that one. maybe whatever it was is languishing on the company's clearance site, hoping that someone else with a child named "johannes" will come along, to which i say, good luck, suckas!
our friend's mom, who lives in another city, had brought something for hans and left it with our friends the week before he died. they told us they had this gift for us, and then he died, and we never heard anything more about it. was it something their own child, 5 months older than hans, could use? i hope so.
my now-sister-in-law's mom also told us she had something for hans, and then we didn't see her again until after hans died. what is the psychology in this situation? how do people feel about gifts they already had in hand for someone who died? do they debate whether they should give it to us or not? do they assume it would be painful for us if they did? do they throw these things away, or give them to goodwill, or give them to a friend's child? and how do you feel if you get a present originally intended for someone who died before they could accept it?
i don't want to make any of these people uncomfortable, but damn, i'd like to know how these things panned out.
there's a pile of wrapped baby gifts on the floor next to me as i write. today is the sister-in-law's baby shower, and we got the baby tub and ducky bath robe and towel they registered for and the crazy cat with all the buttons and zippers and ties and buckles (the modern, sexless replacement for dapper dan and dressy bessy) that they didn't ask for but we wanted for our niece. we thought about getting her the t-shirt that says, "if you think i'm good-looking, you should see my uncle!" but we decided that though it was funny, my sister-in-law's family may not find the possible implication that my husband possibly fathered her child as funny. some people have no sense of humor.
i have some trepidation about going. i feel it's important that i go, to support my sister-in-law, and to keep justin's extended family from clucking about how difficult it all must be for me. i skipped the girls' weekend in florida with my family because i couldn't have gotten back in time to make the shower today. so it's important and shit, but i still don't want to deal with it. i haven't seen much of justin's family since last easter, and even his grandmother i've avoided since the fall.
look, i felt crappy on the fourth of july and justin was working, so i skipped the family cookout at which everyone acted weird to my mother-in-law before breaking down in tears and telling her justin's cousin was having a baby. we skipped town for thanksgiving, and by christmas we knew we were pregnant but weren't ready to tell, and we didn't want to take the spotlight away from justin's brother and sister-in-law. we hid for the first few months of this year. i didn't realize that i had avoided almost all contact for a year until now, which just makes it worse.
i do not want to be an object of attention at my sister-in-law's shower, but i'm afraid it will be uncomfortable.
it's not that it's not within my power to not go. but the longer i put it off, the weirder it will be. i might as well get it over with today, right?
ugh.
posted by laura at 11:22 AM
8 Comments:
If they're like me, they either take them back or they re-gift them to someone else. Nobody has to know they were for a baby that died. Now, the more personalized gifts, I have no idea. My mom finished and gave me the blanket she crocheted for Alex. I still have it...for me.
I hope the shower isn't as dreadful as you imagine it will be. Good luck!
Good luck for the shower! I hope it goes well for you. I would probably go in your shoes also.
I don't know about the gifts. I think they probably get returned, or re-gifted. My mother gave me quite a few very nice little boy clothes when i had Chloe, with the explanation 'i went to TJ Maxx and they didn't have any nice things for girls'. Sure, lady. Presumably she didn't want to 'upset' me by mentioning that they were bought for Nicolas? Also i did not want to confront her about it so i accepted her silly explanation. And one particular outfit, i kept with his stuff and did not give to Chloe.
If you feel up to it, you could always ask what happened to those things. People do not understand how much our babies' things mean to us.
I'm with Kate. Ask what happened to those things. It's your right to know. I'd want them.
And you will probably feel better going today. But what do I know I haven't been in your situation.
Whatever you decide, I'm hoping at the end of the day you're happy hearing Milo's "thump thump thum" on the doppler.
Best freaking sound in the world.
Such a hard time. Go, and dwell if you feel like it. No one will remember 10 years from now. It's going to be hard getting your feet wet again however you do it.
Our family planned a double shower for preemie twins for after they came home, and one of them died shortly after birth, the night before the shower.
The shower was, of course cancelled and is just now being held a month later (baby born at less than 2 pounds is now 8 pounds!). I know she's got all these thoughts going through her head right now. The instructions on the shower invitation were to bring two of something. Nobody really knew what to do with the other thing. Luckily we got towels, and you can never have enough towels. But still.
Sad time. I'm sure Johannes is watching all this, and happy that the fun things he would have enjoyed are being enjoyed by someone else.
Feel the best you can today.
Hoping the shower goes well and the awkwardness is on the low end of the spectrum.
About the gifts--good question. I know there were tons of gifts from my m-in-law and sisters-in-law that were ready for him but obviously not given. When my s-in-law got pregnant, I was so freaked out that she would have a boy and our son's gifts would go to her. It really made me sad. Well, she's having a girl so I am assuming either the gifts were returned or put away in which they will be given to our second son. Not sure how I feel about that. I certainly hope he receives things intended just for him. It seems only fair. Yet, our nursery full of boy stuff intended for our first son will go to him. I like to think that this would have been the natural progression anyway. really good question though. Now I am just hoping no one calls 2nd boy by 1st boy's name. That's a whole issue unto itself!!
Good question. Last summer my MIL suddenly decided to give away the baby stuff from my niece and nephew - stuff she'd been holding onto for J's kids. I guess she assumed we wouldn't be needing them (even as she talked nonstop about the supposed inevitability of us having twins or triplets to replace the lost ones).
I'll tell you about the ultimate in gifts for dead babies - my mom received the same name as her stillborn sister. Exactly. Not even a change in spelling. I assume she got everything else, too. Including the complex.
The gift issue is a real sore spot for me. Julian died around the same time as the tsunami hit, and I heard that some of my well-meaning colleagues got together and sent the gifts planned for him to the tsunami victims. Nice thought, but anyone who knows me knows that I would have preferred being consulted about this (no one ever informed me directly, I only heard about it from a gossipy friend). Since I have very little of my son, I would have preferred if people just gave me the gifts anyway, or asked me what I would prefer, or if they were going to make a donation, I would have preferred if they'd have asked me where I wanted his things to go. Another (minor in the scheme of things) thing that irks me is that I received some parts of sets I had registered for and not others, though I know they are out there and probably got sent back. So I had to re-think my whole nursery decor. Do people really think they're sparing me any trauma by hiding this stuff from me, and sweeping every evidence of my child's existence under the rug? It's not like I don't think about him every day anyway. UGH!
Claire, my aunt was stillborn 61 years ago this month. (All I know is that it was in April.) Back then there were no support groups or anything; my grandparents were urged to put it behind them and move on, literally to forget about it. (Until they died, they never did.) The baby was buried on top of a relative in the family plot, with no marker of her own. Nothing to evince she even existed.
I like to think things are a bit more enlightened now. Are they?
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