Bless Your Heart

I talked to my Nanny the other day for the first time since she received my letter explaining our fertility situation. Nanny is my paternal grandmother. She is a native of Ireland and just became a citizen here in time for the last presidential election. Her accent is still very thick (keep that in mind as you give her a voice in your head).

People don’t really know what to say to us. We hear a lot of “So you’re going to adopt then right?” and “You never know, a miracle can still occur!”. But my Nanny takes the cake. She threw out the regular comments and then I explained that yes we are planning to adopt, but that since it is far more expensive to adopt than to birth a child it will be a couple of years before we can get started. And I explained the physical details and why it would definitely be a miracle if we were to get pregnant.

So then she says to me “Auch Shannon, don’t you know any wee girls who are in trouble who could give you their babies? Then you wouldn’t need an agency!”. Why didn’t we think of that?! All of my friends are unwed teenage pregnant people! My goodness, I’m sure they’d take $100 bucks in exchange for us taking care of their little mistake! Ok, Nanny aka Baby Broker, that would be illegal.

We talk a little more and then she tells me she must hang up because she just thought of her friend Maureen in Ireland who may know of some babies laying around that were born out of wedlock, because “you know that’s looked down on in shame over there. Now do you mind flying to Ireland to pick them up? Any preference on sex?” Like she’s ordering a horse for us to pick up or something!

I get to work this morning and I have a voice mail from Nanny. “Shannon, take down this number. It’s for a children’s home in SC. I tried the one in Florida, but they won’t let me take the wee one over state lines. So call them up and see what they’ve got in stock! Now, your Uncle Steve’s working on another children’s home for ya too. Get ready!”

Holy smokes. I can picture it now, Nanny pulling up in her Caddy with Pappy in the passenger seat peering out through his binoculars (he’s rapidly losing his sight to diabetes, and while so sad because I love him, the idea of him watching tv with binoculars sends me into hysterics). She’ll hop out of the car and unload a dozen or so babies for us to choose from. I suppose we should start looking for a crib! Or 3! Ha!