Hellobee

… your phone rings.

And on the other end of the line is your social worker, telling you that she has a referral for you.

And your immediate response is:

“Shut. Up.”

{Truth}

Why-oh-why am I not more eloquent when caught off guard?!

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For those of you who don’t live and breath in “adoption speak,” the phrase “referral” means that we were matched with a 9-month-old boy over in Korea. For us, that means that we receive a phone call, followed by a packet of information that includes background information as well as some medical history. Most importantly, it includes those precious, precious photos of your child. And when you see that face… oh. my. word. It’s as though the earth stops moving for a beat while your heart leaps in your chest. And you think, “There you are! I’ve been waiting a very long time to see you.”

So, do you want to hear how it all went down?! You do?! Oh, good. Cause you know I have to share! I’ll keep  it short and sweet.

First, let me say that we were not expecting this call. A mere three weeks before I was struggling to find my faith. Less than 48 hours prior, I had told Mr. Paintbrush that we weren’t even “in the zone” yet for receiving that call. But, what a happy surprise, right?!

When the call came, I was actually at the hair salon… draped in the cape, with the hairdresser ready to cut the first snip. When I saw it was our agency, I asked my hairdresser if I could take the call quickly. I was thinking, “oh please… don’t let it be bad program news.” {There had been rumors starting up again.} I never thought it was THE call. I walked outside, and answered the phone. After a little bit of small talk with our social worker (which made me feel so sick to my stomach since I was convinced she was working up the nerve to give me bad news), she said, “Well, I have your referral.”

That’s when I started shaking so hard that I had to sit down on the sidewalk. She then said, “But why don’t you get your hair cut and call me when you are done?” And all I could think of was “There is NO FREAKING  WAY I AM GETTING THIS HAIRCUT!!!” But thankfully my internal “edit button” was back up and running, and instead I said “Why don’t I go home and call you back?!” I went back into the salon, told my hairdresser that I had another kiddo, and then asked if she minded if I bailed. She didn’t… and I’m still not sure how she got the cape off of me and my bag and keys in hand so quickly.

Then I sped, literally sped, home. On the way, I called Mr. Paintbrush (who was away on business), and when I got his voicemail I said “We haven’t died or anything, but you need to call me. It’s urgent.” Since he was in a conference room, he texted me back. Funny how all it took was saying “Our social worker called,” to get him out of the room. {wink} While it felt like hours, I was able to get home, connect with Mr. Paintbrush quickly, and then get our social worker back on the phone… all in half an hour. But holy cow… longest. half. hour. of. my. life. Especially since all I knew was it was a BOY, and that he was “so adorable.”

When I reconnected with the social worker, we went over the details of the referral, and she sent me a pdf of the referral via email as well as a handful of the photos. I’ll be honest with you — I didn’t absorb any of the information that she was telling me. I barely skimmed the report while we were on the phone.  I did, however, scroll right to the photos and just stare at that face that could be my son. Can you blame me?!

The next few hours were a blur of reading the report and looking at photos. I was also trying to connect with Mr. Paintbrush to discuss, the pediatrician’s office to set up a review, and the bank to move some money around. Somehow—I’m thinking it was referral magic—everything fell into place and later that night we were able to verbally accept the referral.

We were totally expecting the call for our first son… so this – this was literally a blindside, out of the blue, knock the breath out of you experience. In fact, I’m still not really sure this isn’t a dream…

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{We have no idea when we will travel at this point. Hopefully later this year. All we can do is be optimistic and hope for the best on that. Or try to at least!}