No Zen for the Shower

My anxiety is increasing about this baby shower this weekend, the one that was supposed to be mine.  In the mail, I got a note to get a mammogram.  That means it has been a year since I escalated this journey to IVF.  A year, two pregnancies, three dead embryos.  Oh and the years dicking around almost dying before that.  My baby would be almost three years old.

I hate this.  I hate this for both of us.  I wish I could be what I should be, but I can't.

I'm tempted to send the damn gift and say I can't attend, because it's true.  I feel like I can't.  Over this journey, I've learned to remove myself from situations that will be too much to handle.  One year old's birthday parties.  Conversations about breast pumps.  Facebook.  Life.  I haven't been to a baby shower in two years, except work ones I couldn't skip, with acquantainces.

This will be the first time I am staring down my husband's gossipy, awful family in this context.  I want to hide.  My friend texted me that I am strong and brave and that I can do this.  But maybe I can't?  I can't even run in the back room and hide if it gets rough, because this is an awful relative hosting this at a place I've never been.  It's easier to handle kids than pregnant women for me.  Well, kids, then babies, then pregnant women.

I've been to a lot of yoga this week to try to center and zen or something.  But I keep going back to this mental image that she is hugely pregnant.  And I'm still here.