adoptive shower etiquette?

Well guess I have my own etiquette then!:) I don't think a card inserted in the invite or even on the invite itself for the registry is tacky or STUPID. I think it's helpful to all and saves them the time of having to wonder what one needs or wants. No one is saying you HAVE to get those gifts registered for, just gives you an idea. I received many gifts that were not on the registry but were in line with our needs and loved them all. It's not a demand for gifts, imo. It's simply a guide and doesn't take anyone's choices away at all. If you don't want to give a gift, then don't. If you would rather give something else that you think is good, then do.

Hi all. I just wanted to chime in here because I am the owner of Baby Showers Central and have been a baby shower planner/consultant for 7 years. What I would tell people is definitely go with personal comfort level. The only thing I would NOT suggest is to have a shower within the first 4-6 weeks after an older baby/toddler/child comes home. That will be a very stressful time for the new parents and the child and the child may be frightened or overstimulated around a large amount of strangers no matter how much the family wants to meet him/her. With international adoptions or in situations where it is possible you will be adopting a toddler or older child, I would advise waiting until you receive information on your child (a referral or similar) so you will know what size and gender to buy for. For the adoption of a newborn or very young infant, I would not advise anything different than for a 'non-adoption' baby shower. Anytime after a match is made until up to a year after the child is home. Hope I explained that right!

Forgot to add, with the registry and such...I tell people that they know their friends and family much better than I do. Are you having a bunch of close friends, sisters, cousins, etc who don't give a hoot about how proper you are being and just want to know what size outfit to buy? Go ahead and write it then! Who cares what other people think? Is your shower being attended by people you don't know very well or friends and family you arent very close to? People you haven't seen in ages? Are you sending out un-vitations (invites to people you know won't come just because you know they'll be hurt if you didn't)? Half the congregation of grandma's church? Yeah, its probably tacky to give them a list of gifts you want them to buy you and at least a few people will be talking about the nerve you have behind your back :)

Ok, first I want to say sorry! I should never have said that writing on the invitation was "stupid." What I should have said is that if the lady writing the column was an "ediquette" person then stating that it "should" be written on the invite is stupid. I do feel stronglly that it is up to the person, and I totally agree with Marsha...if you know your buds (like I know mine) then write it on, or enclose a card. But, if you are looking for true "ediquette" than that is't it. I'm a dork girls...I even looked it up in Emily Posts! LOL!!!!. Anyway, I din't mean to write what I wrote to imply that doing this was "stupid" only that I thought the writer of the column was being silly in making such as general statement. Sorry about that. As I re-read my post I thought that I sounded very, very rude. Didn't mean it on my heart the way it came out. Baby showers are a time of love and for friends to gather to celebrate the life of a new baby. To me the gifts are a special extra. We actually had 2 showers. One for my best friends. They were told by the insert where we registered, and they nearly cleaned up the registry in wanting us to be ready. The other shower was for the ladies at church. That invitation didn't say anything about gifts because it was a celebration of my becoming a mommy after nearly 7 years of loss. A few people did bring gifts, but like I said it was a celebration. When I say it is a personal thing, I truly think that means with the group you are inviting as well. Anyway, sorry for the harshness of my previous post. It wasn't how I meant it. I was mostly giggling when I wrote it and yet it came out strong. OOPS!

But LOTS of people don't rsvp. (Now to me, THAT is bad etiquette). So if someone sure as heck isn't gonna rsvp, then I sure as heck want them to know where I'm registered! ;)

I think this is why I don't find a registry listed on the invite as tacky. No one says you HAVE to buy off the registry! And if someone wants to give you something "special" anyway, they won't even look at the registry. (BTW, I am invited to a shower at the end of Feb and there's no registry! :( I even looked online thinking they just didn't list it on the invite. I am bummed b/c now I have to think of something this woman I hardly know will want--she's having a 2nd child after having her 1st 8 YEARS ago!) Yes I will rsvp! ;)

There's always the assumption that the people attending the shower are good friends or relatives and would already know where you shop. When the rules where written years ago there was typically only one place to shop in town. I used to live in a small town and there was only one place to shop for baby items. So it was a no brainer for us to shop. Since I moved to Atlanta there are many places to register but I still know where my friends and relatives like to shop and I talk with them enough to find out if they have decided to register a different place. I will admit I feel very uncomfortable being invited to a shower for someone I don't personally know or barely know. If I don't socialize with them on a regular basis it makes it seem like they only want a gift. Same thing applies to wedding showers.

Sleep, Not to get OT here, but the shower I'm attending is for my DH's cousin's wife. We see them maybe, MAYBE once a year. Yep, I'd love a registry to know what to get. Here's something else I just thought of, when a registry's not listed, you end up getting TONS of clothes, IMO. And many people like to get the cutesy, impractical type clothing.

I was asked if I wanted a shower before or after by my best friend. At that time, I told her that I would rather wait until we had a baby in our arms. She threw a surprise shower for me when Hanna was 3 weeks old. It was amazing. However, the shower was not as big of a help as many "traditional" showers are since dh and I had already purchased most of the needed items ourselves.... AND.... doing thank you notes with a newborn was soooo hard. (big apology going out to any close friends and family who did not receive one- you KNOW I love you and I knew you would be ever so understanding).

It's funny...no one even asked me about a shower before our son was placed with us. But then again, our adoption was so FAST -- only 40 days start to finish, including the homestudy. The girls I worked with took me out to lunch and gave me a stuffed animal and a book on parenting the day before I left work. Several other close friends gave me small items for the baby before I went. But that was it. The THREE baby showers came after we got home, with the baby in attendance. Kid must have thought we did nothing but go to parties in this new place...LOL. He got a TON of stuff, but perhaps the best was the Toys R Us Giftcard for $250 from the folks at work. I used that thing for quite a while. So that everyone knew about our new son, in light of the very quick adoption, we also had announcements printed. I picked them out in advance, and then called the day of placement and told the printer to put the order through. They were delivered and waiting for me when I brought our son home and I wrote them out during his nap times. The wording included his birthdate, so that people would know not only he name but how old he was. Of course these announcements resulted in a NEW onslaught of presents. One of those announcements is the first thing in his adoption book.:) Robin

I can't WAIT to see what all the registry-haters have to say about this... Assuming I ever get this adoption to go through, my friend is going to have a shower for me here, in West Africa. The thing is, it's hard to get stuff here, and I'm just going right back to the US in June. It's Meredith's job to not only tell people what I want (I've started a list) but to also give them my US address so it can be shipped directly there. Tacky? Absolutely... but I'm going to be a single mom and I DON'T want to pay to ship grody, unsafe, plastic junk (which is all that's available here) back to the US! No one here really likes buying that stuff anyway, since it's outrageously priced. However, I also come from a family of list-makers. We all make lists for Christmas and birthdays, then e-mail them around. We exclude the person and do a Reply All to "claim" the things that we are going to buy. We DO augment with those "it had your name on it" items for fun, but the lists just really do make it infinitely easier to make sure people's preferences are accomodated. Don't forget - With showers, the purpose of a registry is not only to let you know what the person want, but to let you know what others have already bought. There are only so many Diaper Genies a person needs. As to where to put the information, I don't really have an opinion. It's become sort of standard to have it printed in the invitation, but I'll probably do mine by word of Meredith's mouth. Despite my own point above, I've not registered and made a very considerate list, instead, telling where each item can be purchased the cheapest online :D

I think that this is a very personal choice based on the comfort level. The communities where I've lived, both where I live now and previously, showers were given after the child was born. That is how ours was... of course, Grammie got into the act as we were waiting so we were well-prepared for Bug's sudden arrival, but what a joyful event it was to celebrate with our girl there. IMO, and it's just that, I think it is a but presumptuous (sp?) to have a shower after a match and before the birth in domestic situations. After all, the expecting mom hasn't finally made the decision to place yet. If it has to happen before, I like the idea of having one before the match as a sign of hope that your child will find you soon. Yeah, you get lots of gender neutral stuff, but hey, there is lots of stuff that you need for either sex, clothes aside. You could have a "clothes" shower after the baby is home with you. We discovered that people were so excited for us after Bug came home, they would just pop over with presents. We were overwhelmed with the generosity of others even before the shower happened when Bug was a month old.

Adoption is funny when it comes to these things...You are expecting...you just don't have a clue as to when it will happen, until you get a call, and even then you don't know for sure. But, there is so much stuff that you have to buy for a newborn. I have been picking up stuff here and there just in case...now my family is complaining that when the baby does come there won't be anything left to buy. I've also had the thought that it would be better to get the stuff for a baby in general vs. a specific baby just in case the adoption falls through. I have another question...you know when you find out someone is pregnant and you buy those cute little "You're expecting" cards. Why isn't there something like that for expecting adoptive parents? Sometimes I think that little bit of encouragement that others besides yourself are excited and they also believe that it WILL happen would go a long way...

[font=Century Gothic]Amen! (Seems I'm following you around the board today agreeing with everything. LOL)[/font]

...but I really would have liked someone to do something (even just circulating my registry) before hand. I told people and told people...this could go really fast! But no one really believed me. I spent the two months of our homestudy buying up a storm because I was not going to be caught unprepared!! Three weeks after the homestudy we were home with a baby and I really didn't "need" anything at that point. In fact, I ended up telling my mom and step mom not to buy any clothes for the 1st year (they were a little hurt by that) because I had soooo much stuff already! Now that they've been released from their bonds they're busy buying all kinds of stuff that I wouldn't buy in a million years but that's a topic for another day. :rolleyes: