I Know...

All right, I know I said I was going to take a break until February, but this was just too good not to blog about! Can you ever forgive me?

Last night we were watching BBC when this documentary came on. About Reborn dolls. I'm posting a little clip from the show. We watched about forty minutes of it, all four of us. It was fascinating, it was creepy, it was a little heartbreaking. We couldn't tear our eyes away!

Here's the scoop: the documentary was about three women. The first has four children and creates the Reborn babies in her special "nursery". People (mostly women, I'm guessing) order the dolls from her. Some women just place an order, say a "caucasian newborn girl with blonde hair and green eyes".

Other women bring in pictures of their actual children or grandchildren and have replicas made. The Reborn artist can paint birthmarks, make the hair exactly the same, and even make the baby the exact length and weight it was when newborn. Real fanatics can get a baby that appears to breathe and has a "beating" heart. Shudder.

The second woman already owned three or four of the Reborn babies. She was childless but married, probably in her late 40s or early 50s. The documentary showed her and her husband with one of the babies in a carseat in the car heading over to shop at Harrod's (set in Britain, obviously). In this one shopping trip alone, the woman plunked down the equivalent of almost $600 for clothing, shoes and other accessories. For her doll.

And you should have seen her prams. She had at least four of these: http://www.kiddy-co.co.uk/acatalog/prams-for-new-born-children.html. FOUR. Now, don't get me wrong, I believe in buying nice strollers, you all know what a stroller nut I am. But for a doll? And there she was, pushing it around in Harrod's like it was just a normal sleeping newborn!

I can't imagine how much money she had probably spent outfitting her "babies". In addition to that, the documentary showed her flying from London to Washington D.C. to pick up her latest Reborn doll. Because she wouldn't let them ship it overseas. They showed her packing the doll's clothing "Oh, I think onesies are good because it's going to be warm in Washington and we don't want the baby to overheat!". Shudder again. Cut to her in her D.C. hotel room, pacing the floor and waiting for the bellhop to bring up her "special delivery". She unwraps the doll and coos over it and tells the camera that she just imagines it breathing and moving and derives pleasure from wondering "what [the doll] would do next".

OK, now obviously, this woman has a bit of an issue.

The third woman was a grandmother who cared for her daughter's son almost exclusively for three or four years while her daughter battled cancer. When the daughter recovered, she ended up moving to New Zealand and taking her son with her. The grandmother was obviously suffering from a bad case of empty nest. I felt a bit sorry for her...she was still grieving for the loss of her grandson. She mentioned something about how the world just sort of walks past you and doesn't notice you as you age, but when you have a pram and a baby, people stop and talk and want to see the baby. She was missing that connection with people. And attention, I suppose.

She went to the nursery and had the Reborn artist copy her grandson newborn from a picture. She loved the resulting doll but her husband told her it gave him the creeps, like something "on a mortuary slab". We don't actually find out if the doll fills that void in her life, but she too had a carseat and was shown pushing her doll around in a buggy. I just wonder what in the world they tell people if they do come up to ask!

Anyway. I felt for these women, I really did. It's such a special time, having a newborn in your home. It's hard knowing that those days are gone. And I understand what the grandmother said about missing the human connection. People really do stop and compliment and comment.

Watch the clip and see what you think. http://www.lemondrop.com/2008/10/01/my-fake-baby-bbc-documentary/