BASTARDETTE NOTES: FAMILY PLANNING FAMILY SPAMMING: GOD’S PLAN FOR YOU

OK. Bastardette lied. In her last blog she promised to do some catch-up posts before the dawn of the new year There’s a baker’s half-dozen in the oven, but…well..the oven broke. Seriously. Try to write (or do much of anything) when your entire electrical system blows out and it’s 10 degrees outside and you can’t get it fixed for 4 days and you’ve got to sit around wearing 3 pairs of sweat pants, 4 jackets and a wool hat waiting for the repair guy. Surfer Dude offered Bastardette shelter when she wasn’t waiting for the dog team, so she didn’t turn into a post-born snowflake. At least she doesn’t’ think she did. But as an adoptee, she’s really not allowed to know, and should just shut up lest a zygote be flushed.

Whatever, I didn’t want to close out the old year with nothing but a Dick Clark memory so I’m sending an inspiring and uplifting tale of me-ism, Family Planning: Adoption is a Journey of Faith, from the pen of desperate and (semi-) childless Carol Tice, reporter, adopter, and God nanny. To get the full impact of this soon-to-be adoption classic, the less dyspepsic may want to first visit the original post on AISH.com But if you feel the barf rising in your throat whenever desperate paps tell you that God misplaced Baby Bumble and now they’ve got to find it, then just skip the primary source and go directly to Bastardette.

BASTARDETTE NOTES: A Guide to Family Planning

Second Guessing God: The Tummy Mystery
“Give me children lest I die,” Carol Tice demands of God when He doesn’t answer her wish list for more babies after the birth of her yuppiely named bio son, Evan. Perhaps God was too busy jimmying a Diebold voting machine in Ohio or saving the life of a toddler trapped in a well and forgot to place the correct number of children in Ms. Tice’s tummy. Or even worse. He got confused and put Ms. Tice’s babies in the WRONG tummy! But never fear! Ms Tice knows that God means for her to have 2 boys and 1 girl, and she is more than willing to help Him correct His unfortunate error. In Tice’s words, I was driven in my adoption search by a strong feeling that God meant for me to have more than one child.” Well, I know for a fact that God means for me to summer in The Hamptons this year. Perhaps she could have a few words with Him about that. I’d be ever so grateful.

God Helps Those Who Help Themselves To Other People’s Children
Ms. Tice writes that she and DH (that’s Dear Husband for Internet illiterati) go on a desperate quest for perfect children to complete their family–one at a time, of course. Decorum please! This quest brings her to the brink of pediacentric agoraphobia. Going to any public place became torture. Why couldn’t my local Target store just make an announcement: “Attention parents! Please exit the store for an hour so that Carol can shop!” The sight of so many families with their matched pairs and trios and more of obviously biologically related kids – their parents seemingly oblivious to their good fortune – was like daggers stabbing my eyes.

The desperate duo advertise in their local pennysaver. (I would have used the personals in The New York Review of Books, but I guess once you hit the Baby Troll Trail you’ve got to economize. Besides, anybody reading the latest review of VS Naipaul probably isn’t about to pop a sprog for a pap.) They hear from extreme preggo Sarah whose fetus is clearly destined for the Tice household since the name Sarah opportunely means “Mother of the Jewish People.”

Family Values, Family Vultures
Unfortunately, Tice’s dream baby, Eylian Natan, nearly slips through the loophole after a bunch of greedy, grasping relatives and snoopy nurses show up at the hospital post-delivery trying to convince Sarah that there is something wrong with giving up her own flesh and blood to the nation building Tice Tribe:

The four days that followed presented many challenges. We were confronted with numerous relatives of Sarah’s, many of them unseen by us until that moment. Each had their own agenda — they were angry or confused, they wanted to adopt Eylian themselves or wanted Sarah to keep the baby. And three times a day, as the hospital shifts changed, a new head nurse would come in to try to convince Sarah to keep her baby.

Inside my brain was screaming, “Get away from my baby!” But the prayer reserve I had built up sustained me. I was able to smile at everyone and show nothing but joy, and go with the flow. And it wasn’t an act — I felt calm, deep inside.

Could I make this up? Trust me. This is the rill dill. And just when you think it can’t get any worse….

A Clean Sweep: God’s Plan Revealed
A few months after the Liberation of Baby Eyli, the Tices suffer a revelation sent directly from the lips of God to their ears while they are cleaning out the garage: Somewhere in America a Missing Girl needs to be found. And what good is a household of boys, anyway? They’re not gonna be real interested in pink princess outfits, are they? Bastardette can only imagine Ms. Tice’s reaction if they are, but that’s for another blog.

Unfortunately, the Great Baby Placer remains strangely silent after his initial whisper. (Could He be assisting Angelina Jolie?) Just when the Tices have given up hope of being complete and normal, however, God in his infinite wisdom rings up. Well, not God, exactly, but Sarah, who we all know by now serves as God’s miraculous baby-producing envoy.

Sarah, sounding like she’s taking her name a bit too seriously, admits to the Tices that she’s held out on them. Sometime after Eyli arrived safely behind the white picket fence, Baby Ariella popped out. Even better, the Sarah Family Vultures have flown the coop and the “newborn” 5-month old has been sentenced to a life of foster care. That is unless the Tices can find and claim her in time.

God has self-corrected without bothering to fuss around with 40 day prayers: The moment she spoke, I saw at last God’s whole plan for my family laid out in front of me. In my darkest days I had asked God to grant my fondest wish — and now, God wanted something in return. This was the reason Eyli had been ours — because he had a sister coming too, and God needed a family who would raise them together.

Pretzel Logic: Hand Me A Beer!
Obviously, somebody has been reading way too much Jeremiah! God reserved the un-conceived Ariella, who nobody knew about except Him, for the Tices. But to meet his Master Plan on schedule, He first had to get the unborn- Eyli–who could have been headed for Barbara Boxer or a truck driver in Colorado for all we know–safe and cuddly bed and boarded with the Tices. Only then could God–or more likely his representative– move ahead and get Sarah in sweaty sheets and….

Poor Ariella! Drop kicked by God into the ether, sailing by on a fluffy cloud looking for a friendly tummy to light in while she waits her Ticeian destiny.

Bastardette is totally confused and convoluted. Why did God have to create Eyli so Ariella, who didn’t even exist, could have a “family” she obviously didn’t need if she didn’t exist? And if she was sparkle in Dad’s eye, why didn’t he just put both babies in the right tummy to start with? Or maybe he did. He simply got sick of listening to God’s nag and made a statutory switch to shut her up. And now, after all that, He has to read about it on the ‘net. (Sorry, God! But at least I’m not harping for a baby!) Maybe this all explains why Osama is sitting in a cave somewhere watching Maury and the US is shooting up a country that has nothing to do with anything. Or why Bob Taft is still governor of Ohio. God’s ears were stopped up with baybee begging when he should have been keeping an eye on Dick Cheney.

On second reading, Bastardette suggests that readers go directly to the original Tice sighting. I mean, will anything I say here make any sense without the original. (Kinda like you can’t do Adler without hitting Freud first). And don’t be ashamed to hang a barf bag around your neck before you commence your study. It’s a perfectly appropriate accoutrement.