Referral Day

In an attempt to remember some of the details from two days ago, I will recap the events surrounding our referral phone call.

Mike had completed work for the day and so we decided to go to Costco in the afternoon. On our way home, it was close to the time that school would be getting out for Victoria so we decided to swing by and pick her up at school instead of her taking the bus home. As we sat in the parking lot waiting for her, Mike and I were playing with our cell phones – listening to the different ring options and calling each other. We decided to call home to check messages just for something to do. Mike called the business line on his cell phone and I called our home phone on my cell phone. (This is the part where you assume the agency called and there was a message on the phone and I had a major freak out right? . . . wrong!) There were absolutely no messages and I thought nothing of it. Victoria got in the van and we went on our merry way.

Austin, who wasn’t feeling well, had been lying around all day, feeling kinda sad and sick and so Mike had promised to take him to the hobby store to see the planes and trains. Samara was asleep in her car seat. When we arrived home, I went into the house with Samara, Mike started unloading the groceries from Costco, Austin stayed in the van to wait for Mike and Victoria went to play in the backyard. I went to my computer to check email and just picked up the phone to see if anyone had called. When I started pushing the buttons, I looked and saw that it said our agency’s name on there. WHAT???? It took a minute to sink in and then my heart started beating wildly. But why was there no message? What kind of cruel joke is this???? J I frantically started calling Mike but couldn’t find him for some reason. Both vehicles were still in the driveway so I knew he was around somewhere. I asked Victoria and she said he was outside by the side of the house trying to fix the gate that had decided to break at that moment. So I was calling him saying “the agency called but there’s no message”. I still couldn’t see Mike at this point but was just babbling on and on. Finally I went to the van and got Austin out (much to his dismay!). I told him to come in the house for a minute because Daddy had to make a phone call. LOL! At that point Mike came into the house too and I finally said to him, “The phone shows that the agency called but there’s no message . . . what do I do?” (As an aside, we have call display on our phone and if I’ve seen that someone has called but didn’t leave a message, I NEVER call them back. I don’t like to do that so I felt funny doing that to our agency). In my mind, I thought it was nothing because otherwise they would’ve left a message. Later on Mike told me he assumed it was our referral because if it wasn’t anything important, they would’ve left a message. Funny what goes through one’s mind eh?

Anyway, back to the story . . . When I asked Mike what I should do, I think he thought I was out of my mind and replied, “well call them!” So of course that’s what I did.

After S answered the phone at our agency, here’s how the conversation went:

Me: Hi S. This is kind of weird but I saw on the phone that someone from the agency called but there was no message.

S: Oh yes, just hang on for a second Karen, I’ll get your casework, E. (Just the ways she said it, I thought “Oh my word, this could be our referral”)

Me: Deep breath in, deep breath out, deep breath in, deep breath out.

E: Hi Karen.

Me: Hi.

E: How are you?

Me: Fine (In other words, “quit the chit chat and get to the point!)

E: Are you ready to have an awesome night?

Me: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!? (I should probably apologize to my caseworker for yelling in her ear!) :)

E: No, I’m not kidding you. We have an adorable picture of a little boy here for you . . . . . .

(There may have been a few tears at this point!)

We chatted some more and of course received a few details. I also got to speak to our social worker also who happens to work there part-time now. That was kinda nice too. It was very interesting to find out that our caseworker had no idea our referral was on its way and she was surprised when she saw it come in. I had been emailing a bit with her only a day or two before and from that conversation and a few other things, we had assumed our referral would come near the end of February or even into March sometime. So needless to say, we were quite shocked!

And then total chaos set in. We made a few phone calls, Mike still took Austin to the hobby store like he promised, I made some more phone calls, we fed the kids supper, made more phone calls, got the kids in bed, I went to get some copies of the pictures developed at an instant photo machine, bought some buns and salad dressing at the grocery store (??? totally lost my mind at this point), showed off the pictures of my son to total strangers in the grocery store, came home and confirmed what we were going to name our son, the phone was ringing, my mom came to visit and there were more phone calls. When we finally sat down after a few crazy hours, we realized that most of our groceries from Costco were still sitting at the front door and Mike and I hadn’t even had supper!

Ahhhh, the joys of referral day . . . .