Nana

To my readers who pay attention to the time I am writing this, yes, I know it is 4:00am.  I also am aware that it seems to be a crazy time to be blogging, but I am actually holding down the fort in the ER and grateful to have just a bit of downtime after last night's busy shift.  Nonetheless, I find that during the down time I tend to get online and check my email, twitter, facebook, etc...Inevitably there are messages from my fellow mamas.  I am not just referring to the other moms from my orphanage, but the greater adopting from Haiti community.  Through the last two and a half years I have come to lean very heavily on these people.  Some of them I have cried with, some I have laughed with, some have vented to me and I to them as we claw and scratch our way through this process.  It dawned on me how fortunate I am to have these women in my life to hold me up through the rough periods. 

Suddenly today as I reflected on that, I was struck by the thought of another important woman in my life.  My nana.  She was my mom's mom.  I always knew my mom was adopted as well.  The story goes, "nana had fibroids and couldn't get pregnant".  I guess I have lived with that story my whole life that I never really thought about it.  It was the same sort of story that went along with them living in Iowa, or being german and irish.  I never considered the real depth of that circumstance.  Today I did.  My mom was born in 1944.  There were no ultrasounds.  There weren't hormonal tests, pee strips to figure out ovulation.  There were not hysterosalpingograms, inseminations or any of the other modern medical procedures we have come to rely on to create life.  Nana just couldn't get pregnant.  I suddenly thought about all the months of her waiting to get pregnant, all the disappointment.  I considered that at that time these things were not discussed openly.  She would have to keep these things to herself.  Then, the adoption.  I thought about her and grandpa waiting just like me for their little girl.  I suddenly wondered what it was like for her when she was handed her baby after all the years of disappointment.  Suddenly, Nana and I have so much in common.  However, I have these wonderful mamas to share my hard times and happy times with when she did not. 

I find myself wishing I could talk to Nana.  I wish I could hear HER story, not the pat answer story I have heard my whole life.  I guess in a sense I would like to be her Facebook, her email and her twitter.  I would like to hear how she felt God's touch in her new baby like I do in my children.  One day I will see her again and we will share our stories.  I can almost see her knowingly smile as I share the stories of meeting my children for the first time, and I will get to smile as she tells me about God having a sense of humor in that several months after bringing my mom home she found out she was 5 months pregnant.  We could share our heartaches and joys as only adoptive mothers can, and celebrate the one lady we have in common, my mom.