Referralversary

One year ago today I saw this face for the first time...

and then looked at it every hour (sometimes even more) for the next 3 months.

It was about 9:30 in the morning when I was in the wood shop teaching a class. The other tech ed teacher came into the room and told me I had a phone call. I told him to take a message to which he responded, "I think you might want to take this one. I'll watch your class." I'm sure I gave him a funny look because he then added, "the phone says, Children's Home".

I walked into the Tech Center and picked up the phone still wearing my safety glasses. I really thought that it was our agency calling to let me know that we needed to fill something else out. The previous week we had opened our age from 0-15 months to 0-21 months. When I picked up the phone the voice on the other end said, "Hi AnnMarie this is Lindsay, do you have a minute." To which I responded, "yes". I sort of thought it was weird that she asked if Nick was around too but I still wasn't prepared for what she was going to tell me next. When she said she had a referral for us for a 18 month old boy I was shocked to say the least.

I think I asked Lindsay 10 times what his name was, like I wasn't listening the first 9 times. I vividly remember thinking I was having an out of body experience. I couldn't listen to her or concentrate on what she was saying because I couldn't find a pencil or paper and that's all I could focus on. Who does that when they are learning about their new son? I told her that I should call her back because "I'm so unprepared for this phone call." Looking back I wasn't sure what I was thinking when I said this. What was I going to do after I hung up with her? Probably take my safety glasses off then call her back. She told me that she would e-mail me all the information and after I looked it over if I had any questions I should call her back.

After calling Nick at his school and listening to him scream like a girl I got a hold of my mother at school. When she picked up the phone and I said, "It's a boy" she said she already knew. What??? How do you already know when we only found out 5-minutes ago??? Upon telling her more she said, she thought I was talking about Katie. My sister had only found out like the previous week that she was going to be having a boy. I called my Dad and told my sisters but then held off on telling anyone else until 2 days later after the referral was reviewed by an International Adoption Clinic Doctor.