Sunday, August 5, 2012

The Phone Call

Dear Junebug,

You have given up crawling all together, and you walk everywhere now! We started swimming lessons and you are so brave! When it comes to the time when you sit on the ledge and jump into my arms, you jump without hesitating! It's so fun to watch you become who you are going to be!

Let's get back to our story though, because we still have some serious catching up to do...

Ring...ring...I looked at my phone and saw that it was a call from our foster agency. I wondered why they could be calling. We still had two weeks left before we were supposed to be officially "ok'd" to take in any kiddos and I wasn't expecting to hear from them. When I heard the voice of our "placement" worker on the phone (that's the person who matches kiddos with homes) my heart started to beat just a tiny bit faster. After we had chatted a little she said, "Well, I have some news..." and went on to tell me about a tiny baby boy that needed a home...that very night! My adrenaline started to go a little crazy at this point. (That's the stuff that goes through your body when you're really excited!) I forgot about all the questions I probably should've been asking her like "how old is he?", and "what is his name?" and "does he need specialized care?"  I was just so excited that my day to be a mama for someone might actually be that day! I told her I needed to call Daddy and talk with him about it. I was sure Daddy would be excited, and I was right. We called our placement worker back right away and told her we were willing to be a home for this baby, even though we weren't at all ready yet (but they knew that).  There was paperwork to finish, safety locks to install on our cabinets, and a safety inspection of the house before we could pick the little guy up that very night!

By the time daddy got home from work ten minutes after that crazy conversation, I was completely, over-the-top excited and nervous. I kept running around the house saying, "sheets, we don't even have any sheets for the baby!" Daddy tried to calm me down and have me sit down for a minute to eat the lunch I just prepared, but I couldn't eat a bite. I had to get to work!

We decided the best thing to do was divide up the work.  Daddy started to put the locks on the cabinet doors, and I went to town to get our paperwork completed. I felt like I was in a completely different world than everyone around me. I walked into our insurance office, where everyone was just going through their day like normal, in a dull grey office with dull grey office noise, and I was exploding with every color of the rainbow on the inside. I sat there in the waiting room thinking, "These people have no idea what's happening in our home today!  They have no idea that today is the day we have been waiting for, for so very long.  Today we will become parents!"

I finally completed that task and got back into the blue open air. I ran to the store to pick up things I thought we would need for the baby without a clue as to how big our little fella was (he ended up being only 5 and a half pounds!) or what kind of formula he needed. I just gathered a bunch of things and hoped for the best!

When I finally got home, daddy had just finished the locks and I had just enough time to tidy up the house a bit before our foster agency workers were there. They came through and checked all the boxes they needed to check on their lists, and we passed! It was official that we were now approved to be foster parents!  We were ready to take in a little one that very night. Next all we needed to do was wait for another call telling us where and when to go pick him up...