Tuesday July 12, 2005 – Today is a day that I will never forget. It was about 3:00 P.M. and I had returned from a meeting away from my office. Just as I sat down at my desk my phone started ringing. Stephen’s phone number come up on my caller ID. I answered and Stephen said, “Hi, how are you?”
But he sounded very strange and breathy and was kind of stuttering. I knew immediately that something was up.
I said: “I’m fine”
Stephen said: “I got a call.”
I said, “you got a call?”
Stephen: “Yes, the call”.
I said (well probably I shouted): “THE CALL!!”
Stephen: “YES!”
I was in total shock. I was not expecting the call until next week and we got it today. Stephen said that his office was empty and that I could come over right then. And he said that we had an email with pictures in our inbox. I went searching for my boss to let him know that I was going to take a late lunch, but I could not find a single person in our department, so I sent him an email and took off! 
As I was walking out to the parking lot, I was shaking and got sooooooooo thirsty, my mouth was like cotton. I jumped into my car and there was a bottle of water left over from yesterday. Sooooo, even though it was about 95 degrees in the car, I still took a sip. I drove as fast as I could to Stephen’s office and broke a few speeding laws in the process. I was going to get a picture of my little son, yippee! I finally got to the office and Stephen was waiting outside on the side-walk. As soon as he jumped into the car I started peppering him with questions.
Stephen got the call at 2:55. Our case manager had called his cell, but got a bad connection, so she called him back on the land line. She said, “I have a boy for you!” She gave Stephen the particulars, born June 20, 2005 weighing in at 5 lbs. and 15 oz, 18.8 inches long with lots of black hair.
I finally found a parking spot for the car. And kept peppering Stephen with questions and could not get him to answer them fast enough. He wanted to tell me all about how it happened, but I only wanted to hear about the baby!! We finally make it up to his office and went in and closed the door and Stephen pulled up his email.
We had planned to look at the medical info first, but we just couldn’t help ourselves, we just had to look at the pictures. We pulled up the first picture and our little guy was so cute and had so much hair! We looked at all 10 pictures and then looked over the medical report and then looked back at the pictures. It was like a dream. By the time we looked at the pictures the 3rd time it was finally starting to sink in, this is our little boy!
Our son’s birthname was Yeremi Ardami. Yeremi is the Spanish version of Jeremy. So we decided to name him Jeremiah Blake. We were sitting in Stephen’s office looking at the pictures for about the 4th time and I said rather out of the blue, “why don’t we name him Jeremiah Blake”. Stephen looked at me, repeated the name and said, “I like it”! I don’t know what made me think of Jeremiah, but it just popped into my head. We had already decided on the name Blake, but had not yet picked out a second name.
We sat in the office, just trying to take it all in that this baby was our little son and we both just kept staring at his picture and then Stephen said, “can we call and let everyone know?” So we started making phone calls.
I had this idea in my head how I wanted to tell my family, but I just could not wait, I had to tell right away! So we drove out to my parents house (it was about 5:00 P.M.) and I knew that my dad would not be home, but I just could not wait to tell my mom especially! I walked into the kitchen and said, “guess what, you’re a grandma!!” My mom at first did not understand, but I held out the picture and she just started to cry. Mom said, “Oh, he’s beautiful, but I need my glasses!” 
My sister Elizabeth and brother John were at home so they got in on the excitement too! It was so great and I just could not help but smile and stare at the picture of little Jeremiah.
I wanted to tell my dad, so after just a few minutes we jumped back into Stephen’s truck and took off to my dad’s office and started the entire thing again! I said, “congratulations, you’re a grandpa” and we told my dad all about his referral and all the info about his height and weight and stuff.
We had more people to tell and more phone calls to make when we finally got home. I never went back to work that day….but hey what could you expect…..my first son was born!!
Wow, what a day! I think my face was sore for a week from smiling so much!!
There’s so much more to tell…..this is really just the start 
House of Smooches 