What do you know? Something I have an answer for on here.
The Baby Shower is a chance for people to "shower" the mother-to-be with gifts for her child. My wife loved both of the ones thrown for her by the other base wives. She said it was the only party where the gifts were all supposed to be useful so it was the only time she ever enjoyed presents.
We had a gift registry set up with the things we knew we needed. People could buy items off the list and mark it as bought so no one brought doubles.