THE CALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5/18/04

O.K. Today was the most exciting day ever. And hectic. It started out like any old day. Get up, take a shower, go to work. All was normal. I will admit though that everytime the phone had rang in the lab for the last few weeks I jumped out of my skin. Wondering Is that Andrea??

Well, today we wonder no more. I had just gotten back from lunch when the phone ran. Ooohhh. An outside call transfered up to us. I jumped as usual but ran to answer the phone.

This is how the conversation went:

Lab this is Kim.
Kim, this is Andrea.
Me thinking, Good grief what paper has to be redone or do they need now.
Andrea: Are you ready for this?
Me: Are you kidding?
Andrea: Kim, we have a 9 month old healthy baby boy for you guys if you are interested.
Me: Are you lying?
Andrea: No, I wouldn't lie to you about something like this.
Me: Oh my God!!! (crying and sobbing) I can't believe this. What do we have to do?
(in the meantime all my crying and shrieking had Anthony and Lisa pacing the floor trying to figure out what was wrong with me.)
Andrea: Here's the thing. That's all the information we have right now, but we have to move quickly. Can you guys be in Moscow on the 28th?
Me: (counting on my fingers) 10 days?? Next Friday??? Yes, yes. OMG!! I have to get ahold of Michael!! He's home sleeping with the ringer off on the phone.
Andrea: I need to know something within a couple of hours.
Me: I will call you as soon as I talk to him, but I'm saying yes without even talking to him. I'm sure he'll feel the same. So consider it a yes.
Andrea: O.K. go tell your husband and call me back with your definite answer.
Me: I will, Thank you Thank you so much!!!!!!!

I hung up he phone and was attacked by Anthony and Lisa. I had been trying to mouth 2 weeks to them while I was on the phone but they just weren't getting it. Then I realized. OMG !! It's not 2 weeks at all. It's 10 DAYS!!!! Anthony had been pasing around the lab and Lisa was crying. We were drawing quite a crowd with all the commotion. They called Dad and told him he needed to come upstairs. I'll never forget the look on his face when I told him he was going to have a Grandson. We cried and hugged each other. I called Mom and told her. I think she was in shock. The girls in her office told me later that she just balled when we got off the phone.

O.K. Now I don't want you guys to think that I've forgotten Michael for a minute. He works night shift and turns the ringer off on the phone during the day. In all the excitement I was like "how am I going to get ahold of him??" DUH. Think McFly Think. :o) Next thing I knew I was being shooed out the door and being sent on my way home.

I was in a daze for the drive. My mind just whizzing. In 10 days we were going to be in Russia!! We were going to meet our son. I walked in the door and of course the dogs started barking excitedly. Michael raised up out of bed and asked me what I was doing home early. I started crying and asked him what he thought about going to meet his son next week. He couldn't believe it either. I mean the dossier had just gotten to Stavropol the week before. I told him that we had to call Andrea and Amanda back and let them know definitely that we were going to travel next week so that we could get the ball rolling.

Let me tell ya. It was a good thing I left work when I did. I had no idea what the rest of the day was going to be like. We made the call and told them heck yeah we were going, like there was every a doubt. :o) Amanda said to go check our email for the "travel packet" Good grief another packet. LOL She also said that with the short notice we had to get a rush on our visa's which meant our application had to be overnighted to ECVO in New York TONIGHT!!!!!!!! We didn't even know where to begin. I mean plane tickets, visa's, hotels, travel meetings. We printed out the travel packet, the applications for the visas and off we went. We went to Mom's office for some much needed help. It was now 3:00 and we had to find a FedEx or UPS place that would be open when we got there and be able to deliver the visa applications first thing in the morning. ACKKKK!!

We had a little bickering session over filling out the papers. They ask for everything but your right arm. No, really. I mean it. They wanted the last 5 places we had worked, with address, supervisors names, addresses, phone #'s. Who could remember all that at a time like this?? We finally got all the needed information and were on our way. We thought we were going to have to fly to Louisville like madmen, but luckily we found out that sending it UPS was acceptable and we headed for LaGrange to make the last pickup for the evening.

Amanda told us that ECVO could also arrange our plane tickets and hotels so I called them to see what they could come up with for us. More than likely it was going to be tomorrow before we heard anything back from them so we started looking on our own when we got home. Unfortunately for Mikey, he had to go into work that evening. It had been an exhausting afternoon, exciting and thrilling, but exhausting. He went to work and I collapsed into bed.