1 week old

At 1 week, Anslie is:

-19 inches long
- 6 lbs. 9 oz. (a gain of 8 oz. this week!)
-content
-cute as can be
-a good sleeper
-absolutely precious
-very much loved
-an indescribable blessing

Anslie's Story

Just a day or two after I wrote my previous post on the blog, Walton and I were sitting at the dinner table with Kyle and Will discussing Peta-gay and adoption in general. We all of course were feeling a loss, and wondering what God's plans for our future held. We decided to just pray and ask Him to make it clear to us. As we were holding hands and praying (of course I had tears running down my face as I typically do when we pray over big issues!), Walton's business phone was ringing (also typical). We ignored it, and continued to pray together - asking God to either take away the desire to adopt another child into our family OR to make His plan so clear to us that we could not miss it. After we finished, we started to clean up the dinner dishes and I jokingly told Walton "see what message God left on your voice mail." He listened to his voicemail, and it was my friend April asking us if we would be interested in speaking to a young woman she knew who was 8 months pregnant and ready to place her baby in an adoptive home.


I cannot tell the rest of Anslie's story without telling you about my friend April and her husband Brad. I have known April for years - we were in a Bible study group together when we first moved to McDonough and before she was married.They have 2 biological children and 4 adoptive children - all 4 of whom have the same birthmother. They attend our church and I taught one of their precious daughters in kindergarten last year. April is a social worker, and used to work at a Teen Crisis Center. While she worked there, she was very influential in this young woman's life. When the girl was in her early 20's, she had two children and due to a series of poor choices and unfortunate events she was unable to care for them. April and Brad adopted them. The girl had two more children, more struggles, and April and Brad took in those children as well. As April and Brad were working  recently to finalize the custody arrangements for the two youngest children, April noticed that her friend was pregnant again. She told April that she knew could not parent this baby and asked for help finding a home for it. With 6 children under the age of 9 at home, they just could not consider taking on another baby. April and Brad knew about our desire to adopt and they both felt that we were the right family to call in this situation. This is where our stories come together.

We agreed to meet with April and her friend for dinner to discuss her plan to place this child for adoption and to see if we were a good match for her. Before dinner, Walton was able to meet for a very hastily arranged sonogram of the baby. (I had to finish my day at school and pick up our boys - the appointment became available on too short of notice for me to get there in time for the sonogram.) At that point, we did not know if the baby was a boy or a girl. We had decided that it did not matter to us if it was a boy or a girl - if God was making Himself so clear to us, He would give us the child who needed to be in our home. April said that Walton's eyes filled with tears when the ultrasound tech announced "it's a girl!" that afternoon. Shortly after the sonogram, I arrived at the restaurant to meet them for dinner. I took along a copy of our homestudy report. The conversation was unexpectedly comfortable and the birthmother had very few questions for us. She trusts April's judgment completely - she had no reservations about us if April told her we would be good parents. We agreed that we would speak with our attorney and begin making adoption plans for the baby, who was due on September 21st.

During that month of waiting, I had the opportunity to spend an afternoon with the birth mother driving her to an appointment with the attorney, and we had frequent phone conversations. She was very open with us and willing to let us be involved in decision making for the baby's delivery.

On the very rainy afternoon of September 21st, she called to tell me that she was at the hospital and they were inducing her labor. I quickly made arrangements for the boys for the night, called Walton, grabbed an overnight bag and headed for the hospital. Walton joined me there a while later and we spent a long night in labor and delivery. Our sweet little Anslie was born at 11:58 a.m. the next day, with both of us there to welcome her. There was nothing awkward or uncomfortable about spending time with the birth mother at the hospital - we spent lots of time talking and I am very sure of her decision to place this child in our family permanently. We are so thankful that God put her in our lives at this time and for the miracle of Anslie's life!




Here is a picture of all of the Allen children with all of April and Brad's children:




And here are the 5 adopted siblings all together. We are so thankful for their little lives!



We have decided that Walton will return to Jamaica in October to visit with Peta-gay's family and to begin to build a suitable permanent home for them. Even though she cannot be part of our family here, we can still impact her life positively. We would like to very respectfully and humbly ask that if you are thinking of sending a baby gift for Anslie, that you instead send an equivalent contribution towards the construction of Peta-gay's house. God has blessed us with the means to provide for Anslie - we hope that by joining together we can make life less difficult for a family in tremendous need.