2 Years Ago (yesterday) - Another Retrospective - Part II

...as I was saying...

So Kelly and I are on the phone together and we decide this is the baby for us. We put together our plan. We needed to stay at work for a little while, as that is where the fax about the baby boy was coming to. We decided to call our respective parents and then call each other back and report on the reaction. End of call.

The next thing I did was open my office door and go running down the hall saying "It's a Boy! It's a Boy!" Although my office group only had about 4 employees in that building, there is another organization down the hall that had about 15 or so employees....so they got to hear me going crazy! Everyone was out in the hall by the time I was through with my Paul Revere-ish ride! It was so much fun!

Back to phone calls. Kelly was able to get ahold of his folks right away. I wish he were here right now to remind me what their reaction was. I, on the other hand, could NOT get ahold of my mom. I cannot tell you how much I wanted to talk to her. I left her a message - not wanting to let on to what was going on. It was a "hey mom, I've got something I want to talk to you about, give me a call as soon as you can". I waited and waited. At some point, Kelly called me back and reported on his parents' excitement. The fax from Abilene came and we reviewed it. It was basically everything that had been told to us on the conference call. We faxed it over to the pediatrician we had already chosen, for her review. All was good on that deal.

Called my mom. No answer.

Called her again. No answer.

(do you see a pattern developing?)

I didn't leave her a message every time I called her - didn't want her to be too suspicious!

In the meantime, Kelly and I both received the email of the baby's picture. We were on the phone and opening the email at the same time, so we could see his precious picture "together" at the same time. My co-workers were hanging all around me. One of them had a camera and kept taking pictures of me being a happy almost-mommy. We looked at the picture (this picture had been taken when the baby was just a few days old - so he was "pretty" - but you know what I mean when I say he had that very "new" look.) The first thing I thought when I looked at the picture of him is that he looked like my father-in-law! I mean that just jumped out at me! It was so funny.

I tried my mom one more time and FINALLY got her. I wanted to blurt it out...but paced myself. She had been outside trimming her hedges and was hot and tired. I listened to her hedge story for a few seconds and thought I was going to burst! She told me "I am through trimming for today, I'll just have to go back to it later." I told her "Well you can't work on it tomorrow." She asked why. I told her "because you have to go to Abilene with us tomorrow to pick up your grandson!" I have to tell you this - that was one of the greatest moments in my life - getting to tell that to my mom. This is where my mom begins to freak out. She said to me "Joanie! Joanie! Joanie! Joanie! Joanie!" I would say she said it about 8 times or so. Tears really picked up at this point - on both sides of the phone. I brought her up-to-date on what had happened and told her we had a few things to do before we could leave work and I would call her back before too long. She was in heaven! End of call. She tells me now that she was just walking around in circles - she couldn't calm down!

Called Kelly back to report on her reaction. We got together our last plans and then we were going to leave work and go home. End of call.

Then I got to make a really REALLY fun call. I called our Board President who was my boss - and I quit! It was so much fun! She sort of went into a panic...and I told her we'd work out something for the transition - but I was basically quitting. I had to remind her that I had warned her it might happen this way. She was happy for me - but she was not really a happy person when I quit!

At some point, we called Abilene back and said "yes" and they told us to be out there at 2:00 p.m. the next day. WOW! By this time, that was less than 24 hours away!

Kelly and I headed home and began to formulate our plan for telling our friends our wonderful news.

Part III later.