Everybody told me we'd be given a lot of presents for the baby, and warned me not to buy too much, but I had no idea of the huge number and amazing generosity of friends, family and people I hardly knew!
It all started about half way through the pregnancy, when people at work started giving me gifts in advance. At the hospital it was pretty crazy, but once we got home, the visitors started and so did the presents! They also came via post and I got to know the local postman quite well.
The sheer number of new outfits for Lewis was quite overwhelming. I was struggling to cope with looking after the new baby and recovering from a caesar, and the 5 or so new outfits received every day was too much. Having to take off tags, wash them, figure out what size and age they were was quite time consuming - which probably makes me sound ungrateful - I wasn't - I was just exhausted.
I initially had 50 thank you cards printed, but soon realised that wasn't enough and got another 50 done. We used the last one a few weeks ago - the gifts are still coming!
My friend, who is one of those people that has loads of friends, had 200 cards printed. She said the number of gifts was even more overwhelming than when she got married a few years ago.
We got some absolutely beautiful gifts from people I have never met; mostly our parents friends who have heard about us over the years but we haven't met.
I now choose my baby gifts with care, as I know what we got too much of and now know what is really needed. Although talking to friends, we all received quite different things. I got far too many hats and 000 outfits, while others got too many 0000 outfits that never got worn, but didn't get many 000 and 00 outfits.
