We are Marshall

::biometrics appointment overview::

2012-02-01T18:40:00.001-06:00

Well. It has been a busy couple of days of gathering up the last of our dossier paperwork and tying up as many loose ends as possible. I've had a harried, rushed headachey feel from staring at the computer screen and mounds of paperwork for the last couple days. (Yes, I am wearing a cheesy Valentine's t-shirt that says "I Love My Hubby. You know you love it.)

(This is supposed to be a picture wherein you notice how many piles of papers are lying on the table, thus invoking your pity for me. It didn't work? Oh.)

We had our appointment at USCIS St. Louis at the Federal Building this morning at 8 a.m. Eight. A.M. Downtown St. Louis. We didn't have any control over this, so we just had to get there. Thankfully, a friend from church offered up her parents' home as a place for us to crash the night before. Another sweet family from church kept our son overnight so we could make this quick trip without having to entertain a 3 year old. How thankful we are for folks who are, in their own particular ways and giftings, helping us along this path towards Ethiopia!

We got up plenty early to make the drive in from Wildwood where we stayed into downtown, but we did have some frantic moments in St. Louis rush hour traffic. (We have lived in a small town for too long.) We were also worried about getting to our appointment late. The notice we received from the Department of Homeland Security (intimidating!!) says to show up when they tell you. If you miss it, your application for immigration (I-600A) is considered abandoned. This is a $1K application. We were a little nervous when we got stuck in traffic, but we ended up at the USCIS biometrics office about ten minutes before they even opened. We were seen quickly and treated kindly. The nice ladies even told us that had we been late, they would have gladly worked us in since we were coming from so far. :)

We were done by 8:45, and that's only because yours truly has such dry, cracked, old woman hands this time of year that my prints weren't coming up well on the scanner. Next time, I will moisturize a LOT in the days preceding my appointment. :)

Our trusty guide.

Who has an English accent.

Because who doesn't listen when a computer with an English accent tells you where to go?

The federal building was all big and scary and official with its metal detectors and armed guards. I get nervous in places like this. Like, airports. And that time I had federal court jury duty.

I'm so afraid I'm going to get into trouble.

When the guard asked me if I was wearing a belt after the detector thing screeched at me, I said, "Um, no," only after I looked down at my waist. What?!? I never wear a belt. I'm not even sure I own one. Idiot.

But...all went well. We got our form stamped and made it out quickly.

We're done! Yay!

Now. Find me some coffee. Because I am definitely as tired as I look here.

(This guy is HOT.)

We stumbled upon City Coffeehouse and Creperie. Good coffee (Green Mountain--a favorite!) and a fabulous freshly made crepe filled with...NUTELLA.
That's it.
I quit.
No more dieting.
No more exercising.
Just me and Nutella filled crepes from now on.

We made a stop for our first time to Trader Joe's. (I know. We live under a rock.) But, we made a couple of purchases including:

Seemed appropriate. :)

And then we stopped in Jackson, MO, to pick up this precious little man whom we missed very much.

Doll baby.

SO! What we do now is:

*Finish last two pieces of paperwork and get them notarized

*Have doctor's office redo our medical clearance (which expired....)

*Wait for State Certificed documents to come back from Secretary of State's Office

*Wait for USCIS to finish processing our I-600A and send us the form we need for our dossier (could

take a month)

*Copy everything twice.

*Check two dozen times to make sure we've finished it all.

*SEND OFF DOSSIER!

::faith like a little child::

2012-01-28T11:49:00.001-06:00

I've been feeling a little discouraged about this whole waiting thing.

I knew going into international adoption that we would wait a long time for our kids, but the wait time is almost double what I thought it would be. Not that this knowledge would have deterred us from choosing Ethiopia. We still would have chosen Ethiopia.
But still.

I've heard some discouraging reports of families who have inched up the list at an appallingly slow rate. And here recently I've felt that old familiar prickle in my heart when I see families around me expanding at the "regular" rate that I have long desired.

I started to feel a little sorry for myself this morning, I'll admit. I stood at the stove making pancakes like I do every Saturday morning, and I was surprised to feel the press of tears and two little rivers dripping down my cheeks. My heart ached for what is not yet to be. And as I wiped the self-pity from my face, I asked the Lord to forgive my impatience and told Him how thankful I am for my son. I was just flipping a pancake over in the pan when Isaiah waltzed into the kitchen, all smiles and excitement over "pantakes!" It was impossible not to realize how blessed I am. I remembered our conversation from yesterday, and decided to just pray with faith.

I often ask Isaiah if he remembers what our plans are for the day after I've given him a run-down of our agenda. He does well knowing what's coming, so I like to help him remember. We were walking up the stairs yesterday afternoon to get him in bed for a nap.
"Hey Buddy, do you remember what we're going to do after your nap?" I was expecting him to remember that we were going out to dinner.

"We're going to get 'Cinnamon!'" My heart sank a little, as it often does. He regularly thinks that our plans to bring Simeon home are right around the corner, possibly tomorrow.

"No, Baby, we're not going to get Simeon tonight. Actually, we're not going to get him for a long time. You'll probably be five years old by the time he gets here!"

"Nope. No, Mama. I'm going to be three."

"Well, that would be neat, but I think you're going to be much bigger when Simeon gets home."

"And 'Taris.'" (Charis, our girl name.)

By now, I'm tucking him into bed. I decided to pull up the covers and slide into bed next to him. I let him choose a book from his book shelf. Of course, he chooses When God Found Us You, a precious book about adoption from the view of a Mama Fox who waits and waits and waits for her baby, Little Fox. I read the book, choking down the knot in my throat. When I finished, I gently explained to him that he was a gift from God just like Little Fox. That our family was formed by adoption, and that his birthmommy had prayed and waited until she decided to choose Mommy and Daddy to be Isaiah's family.

"And you know, Buddy, when God sends Simeon to us, we will adopt him too, and he will be your brother. And I will be his Mommy, too. And Daddy will be his Daddy, too."

"Yeah. And what will 'Taris' be?"

"Well, if God gives us Simeon and Charis at the same time, then Charis will be my daughter and she'll be your sister."

"Yeah! Cinnamon and Taris."

I swallowed.

"You know, Baby, God might not choose to give us Simeon and Charis at the same time. He might just give us Simeon this time." How do you explain to a three year old that we haven't actually been matched with any child, won't be for quite a long time, and that we have no idea what that child will be--boy or girl? It's likely to be a boy, given statistics. It's possible we could get two children at once, but...that's something we're praying specifically for. "So, we might not get Charis this time. It might just be Simeon."

"No, Mama. It will be Cinnamon and Taris together. I want Cinnamon and Taris together."

I can't stop the tears from welling up in my eyes. I pull his warm little body closer to mine and pray for wisdom.
"So do I, Buddy. I want them both together to come be our family. But, we will just have to ask God to bring them together. We'll have to trust that He knows what's best for us and what's best for them."

"I ask God to bring them together." He is so determined. So not worried.

"You want to pray for God to bring both of them?" I ask.

"Yeah, I pay." So I tell him to go ahead and pray. You can imagine how hard I am trying not to cry.

"Dear God, please keep Cinnamon and Taris. Bring them home together. Cinnamon and Taris, bring them together. Amen!" So simple. So determined. So settled. No question.

Because my tenderhearted little guy is totally alarmed when he sees me cry, I am trying really hard not to burst into a big, old ugly cry. I dab at my eyes and put on a big smile. Please, God, answer our prayer. This prayer. Please.

"That's great, Isaiah. I like that prayer. That's what we're gonna keep on praying." I kiss his cheeks, tell him how much, how much, how much I love him. How thankful I am for him. Tucking him in, I tell him goodnight and leave his bedroom. My heart is so heavy and yet so full.

I know Isaiah is three years old. I realize he is not regenerate, that he needs a new heart, and this is what we pray daily for. But, I am reminded of Jesus' words in the Gospels about coming to the Father like a little child. And I understand a little better that finality of faith, that firm determination to believe that God will supply all our needs, that unquestioning, unwavering security in God's plan. It is settled. I am secure in His hands. Our family is secure in His hands. Simeon and Charis, whoever they are, wherever they are, whenever they are, are secure in His hands. And our coming together as family, however it looks, is secure in His sovereignty. I don't have to worry or question. I can just pray. With faith. With determination. With fierce trusting. His plans are good, whatever they might be.

How thankful I am for the reminder to have childlike faith and trust in our good God.

-glenna-

::dossier::

2012-01-15T16:23:00.003-06:00

We are working through it. It's kind of a lot of "hurry up and wait" stuff.

We are getting there!
Our biometrics appointment with the USCIS office is on February 1st, and we hope to have everything else completed by then if all the stuff we've sent in comes back in time (passports, state certification, etc.).

While I'm happy to get this dossier stuff on the way soon, I am a little discouraged with the Ethiopia timeline right now. From what we understand, the wait time between dossier submission and referral is 13-14 months right now. Then another 4 months or so until our first trip to Ethiopia for court, and then another 2 months or so before our second trip to bring our kids home. This is a much longer process than it was a year ago in Ethiopia.

Another 18 months--minimum!?!?!?? My heart is ALREADY aching for our kiddos! All throughout our Christmas travels, I felt like part of our family was missing---not yet complete. How can you miss children you do not know? How can my heart well up with both sadness and excitement when I think about the little unknown faces that may join our family?
And yeah....you read that correctly. Children. Faces. Even though our age limit is 2 and under, we are open to a sibling group/twins (either gender). We realize that with an age limit like that coupled with the fact that our agency doesn't refer children together who are not biologically related, it is unlikely that we get a referral for two children, but that is what I am praying for.

I'm also praying for this process to move a little faster. I understand and respect the new and tighter regulations that Ethiopia is enforcing. For heaven's sake, I'm GLAD they are researching and doing what they can to ensure that the children being adopted are truly orphaned or honestly voluntarily relinquished--not trafficked or relinquished as a result of coercion.
That said, while I pray for patience in my own restless heart, I'm also praying for the process to move efficiently.

Please pray for us as we finish up our dossier paperwork for submission. Pray that we don't miss anything (a real request! this stuff is confusing!), that everything is submitted and approved in a timely manner, and that we are done with our part in February.

The Lord has graciously provided all that we need for each step of this adoption so far. He has been faithful and I believe He will be faithful to provide the rest. Pray that He will do so and that He will teach us to trust Him utterly.
::::::
A little while ago I was writing our letter to the Ministry in Ethiopia telling them why we want to adopt. I wrote words like this:
love
security
family
permanence
safety
faith

Gosh, I cannot TELL you how this pierces my heart. Children languish in orphanages RIGHT NOW.
Millions of children. Millions of little bodies with little souls who need love, security, family (YOUR family!), permanence, safety, faith....JESUS.

Oh, Jesus.

All the things You have given us--times a hundred billion.
You are the Sustainer and Upholder of my life.
Sustain and uphold the lives of these children.
Of our children.

Godspeed this process.

::Merrry Christmas!::

2011-12-23T08:33:00.000-06:00

I didn't mean to quit blogging, but life has been busy, challenging, and full. Some things have had to go, and I guess I unintentionally let blogging become one of those things.

A word about what we've been up to lately and how the adoption process is going.

Two weeks ago, we filed our I-600A form, which is an advanced application for immigration. Then, my friend Shawdi who is also adopting from Ethiopia informed me that she thinks I filled out the form wrong on one question. Upon examining our agency's guidelines (which I'd been unable to access when I filled out my forms), I realized that sure enough, I had filled it out incorrectly. I had a ~~minor~~ major meltdown, called UPS (thank the LORD I had used a courier instead of the postal system!!), and intercepted my papers the day before they were to arrive at the USCIS office. What a logistical nightmare that would have been if they'd been filed with my incorrect information! UPS called me when the package was returned (no charge!) and I corrected my work and refiled the papers on Wednesday of this week. Whew! I now see why my agency strongly recommends using a courier service for sending all these important documents. Tracking is so important!

For Ethiopian adoption (from what I understand about the process at this point), you file this form, wait for approval which goes in your dossier, file the I-600 in person in Addis Ababa, and then complete the process in the US after coming home with your child.

We have done a few little parts of our dossier, but with the holidays here I've put a lot of it off until after the first of the year. I've given myself a deadline to complete it all by January 31st, and will hopefully be ready to turn in our dossier if our I-600A approval has come in by then. You can pray that that approval process will go quickly! Then we wait for approval for our dossier, and some time after that we go on the waiting list. I would LOVE to be traveling to Ethiopia this time next year!! (Or earlier, if the Ethiopian government speeds up the process this year.)
The more I pray for our next child(ren) by name, the more my heart misses them, and I feel that our family is certainly not yet complete. If he is already born, thinking about being separated from him at Christmas makes me long to know him and be with him.

When I was at the UPS store with Isaiah mailing our USCIS papers, a lady in line behind me asked Isaiah what he was getting for Christmas. Knowing that we were mailing papers to help bring Simeon home (if it's a boy), Isaiah replied, "Cinnamon," which is the best he can pronounce Simeon at this point. The lady looked super confused, but my heart had absolutely melted into one big puddle. I didn't explain to the lady, but instead just treasured it up in my heart. :)

:::::

There is a lot I could say about this year....2011 has been a hard, difficult, bruising, humbling year.

And yet--God has shown Himself to be absolutely faithful and true, steady and unchanging. We have sought refuge in the shadow of His wings, and He has loved us through a terribly difficult season. With health problems, anxiety, depression, heartbreaking turmoil within our church family, uncertainty--with all of these things, God has secured us with the love that He swore to His people. He has shown us where we have sinned (be careful when you pray for the Lord to show you your sin...it's so very humbling!), taught us to forgive, comforted us with His Word in a way we have never experienced before, and He has given us JOY that is anchored in who He is--in His character, not in our circumstances.

As it stands now, we are experiencing a time of sweet peace, and I believe that those who have walked the hard roads with us this year are being knitted more tightly together in love. Meditating these past 23 days on the Incarnation of Christ has been balm to our souls, a time of reflection to center us on the Gospel. When I focus on the incredible truth that Immanuel--GOD IS WITH US--I can only praise the Lord for His momentous, enduring work of redemption. Oh, He is to be praised for His plan to send Christ to us, to step down from His throne and to put on flesh. The One who made us came to live with us! And not only that, but to die for us, to rise from the dead for us, to REDEEM us.

One night while walking through our Advent meditations with Isaiah, our little three year old made the observation that in the stable in Bethlehem, there was "God on the hay." Out of the mouth of babes comes the truth that we celebrate at Christmas--it truly was GOD on the hay.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

A little Christmas love from Isaiah:

-glenna-

::only 8%::

2011-10-15T18:36:00.004-05:00

"The truth is that there are children...all over the world,sick, starving, dying, unloved, and uncared for.

The truth is that the 143 million orphaned children and the 11 million who starve to death or die from preventable diseases and the 8.5 million who work as child slaves, prostitutes, or under other horrific conditions and the 2.3 million who live with HIV add up to 164.8 million needy children. And though at first glance that looks like a big number, *2.1 billion people on this earth proclaim to be Christians.

The truth is that if only 8 percent of the [professing] Christians would care for one more child, there would not be any statistics left.

This is the Truth. I have the freedom to believe it. The freedom, the opportunity to do something about it. The truth is that He loves these children just as much as He loves me and now that I know, I am responsible."

-Katie Davis, Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption, pgs. 91-92.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
*We all realize "professing" Christians does not mean true, regenerate followers of Christ. But even if you cut that number in HALF, the percentage of people needed to care for one child is still a mere fraction of the total number of believers in Christ.
Now you know.
Now I know.
Now we are responsible.

::so long, september::

2011-09-30T15:27:00.000-05:00

My clock went off at 6 a.m. this morning. I dragged myself downstairs where I followed my morning routine that consists of hitting the brew button on my coffee pot and then crawling under a blanket on the couch until I hear the coffee pot beep, at which point I negotiate with myself and tell myself the coffee needs to "steep" or something for at least five more minutes, right?...which turns into exactly eight minutes when my eyes pop open and I realize I really do need to get up because Isaiah Marshall only sleeps for so long.

I had my now fully-steeped, snooze-button coffee during my Bible reading and prayer time, after which I jumped into my running clothes (and by jumped, I of course mean that I moved veerrrryyy slowly up the steps, wrapped my toe in tape, pulled on my running clothes which need to be washed, by the way, and stretched while lacing up my shoes). It was cold out this morning, but pretty.

I logged five miles, and finished up my morning routine of getting myself and my kiddo ready. We followed William to the church, where I worked on bulletins and such for a while while William worked on his sermon. I made a quick grocery stop and then packed up a picnic for my family and asked my husband to meet us at the park on his lunch break.

And this was a great way to spend our lunch time! I am reminded every fall that I really, really love this season. After months of sticky, humid, hot weather--this season comes like a breath of fresh air.
Enjoy some pics from our day.

waiting for daddy to arrive

i'm not sure what isaiah's face is communicating here....he didn't want to stop eating for the camera. :)

perhaps this picture might remind you....

...of this picture:

(August 2008)

isaiah's expression is still kind of the same three years later. :)

there's always a little wrestling that must happen.

Gorgeous day. A family I am so blessed to be a part of.

Love my boys.

Adoption update: We are done with our homestudy, and we're waiting for our social worker to write up our homestudy report for approval. Then we'll move on to the next step. :)

Happy Fall!
-glenna-

::Homestudy::

2011-09-11T15:22:00.002-05:00

We have turned in all of our homestudy paperwork and had our first home visit on Friday. We loved our new social worker and look forward to working with her throughout the rest of our adoption process. The visit was no big deal, and we weren't a bit nervous since we've done this before. I remember preparing for our first home visit for Isaiah's adoption, and I'm pretty sure I was taking cookies out of the oven right before the social worker arrived. This time, I was in the bathroom coaxing a three year old to poop on the potty. Things have most certainly (and thankfully) changed around here. :)

Isaiah was a gem while our worker was here. I truly could not have asked for a sweeter attitude from him--he was not a bit shy and charmed Ms. Joy right off the bat. I'm glad she got to see him in his element. (Sometimes he's shy in other surroundings.) I love that boy so much. He is so excited about bringing "Cinnamon" home. This process has given us several opportunities to talk about his own adoption (in simple, age-appropriate terms), and although most of it goes right over his head, we hope that he sees adoption as a very normal thing for our family. It is the way God has chosen to knit our family together.

Our homestudy wrap-up visit will be on the 23rd, so we're looking forward to completing this leg of the journey. After that meeting, we'll wait for our social worker to write up our homestudy report, wait for approval, and then we'll begin gathering our dossier paperwork. At some point after the approval, we'll file for immigration, I think. But I'll be honest...after this point, I really don't know what I'm talking about. From here on out, this part of adoption is uncharted territory for the Marshall's.

We've still got quite a ways to go, but it's exciting to think that at least one major part is nearly completed. We covet your prayers for the rest of our process, for our daily life here in ministry, and for us as we prepare to add to our family.
May Christ be glorified and may we be made more like Him.

::reflecting on forgiveness of sin::

2011-08-28T08:29:00.001-05:00

From The Valley of Vision, pg. 10:

"I deny [my sin] not, frame no excuse, but confess, 'Father, I have sinned.'
Yet still I live, and fly repenting to thy outstretched arms;
   thou wilt not cast me off, for Jesus brings me near,
   thou wilt not condemn me, for He died in my stead,
   thou wilt not mark my mountains of sin, for He levelled all,
   and His beauty covers my deformities.
O my God, I bid farewell to sin by clinging to His cross,
   hiding in His wounds, and sheltering in His side."

::part 1--nearly done::

2011-08-16T14:14:00.000-05:00

We are SO close to turning in the last of our homestudy paperwork!

We had our fingerprinting done today, which was very interesting to Mr. Isaiah. Thankfully, they don't use ink anymore, so we had digital scans done (same with Isaiah's adoption process 3 yrs ago, although the price really went up!). Isaiah kept saying "big finger, Mama!" as he watched our prints show up on the computer screen. We keep telling him this gets us one step closer to "Baby Cinnamon" from "Ep-o-pee-a" which is how Isaiah pronounces the name we've chosen for our child if it's a boy (which is very likely). ;)

All we lack for our homestudy materials is our medical screenings (scheduled for next week) and our financial and insurance forms (which I'm nearly done with).
Whoa...I thought I had more to do, but I guess not. Once everything is submitted and they receive our check, our home visits will be scheduled.

I have enjoyed working with Holt. We've been able to submit everything electronically so far, and our caseworker has been just a phone call away. They have written up every step to the homestudy and dossier processes so that we can streamline our work. When something that is part of our homestudy can double for our dossier packet, then they tell us so that we can get things done at once. They have a very detailed online guidebook that has been really helpful thus far.

Once our homestudy is approved and written up, we can file our I 600A (immigration). In the meantime, we work hard gathering documents for our dossier. Everything has to be extremely specific and requires all kinds of certification and notarization. I'm thinking about having a notary seal permanently tattooed onto the palm of my hand just so everyone knows I'm really who I say I am.

This process makes Isaiah's adoption process look like a walk in the park. It's probably triple the amount of paperwork.

BUT....we are a step closer every day that we turn something into our agency. I will breathe a sigh of relief when our dossier is complete and we can just resign ourselves to waiting and watching our name move up the lists.

In case you are wondering what our parameters are for a child, we are open to either a boy or a girl, age 2 or under. They like for you to allow for one year to separate your youngest child from the child you are adopting. Isaiah is 3, so that puts the age of our future child at 2 or under. We are open to a sibling group, but with the age limit of 2, they would almost have to be twins since we aren't allowed to adopt biologically unrelated children at the same time. Twins are unlikely, and girls are in high demand. So in all probability, we are looking at a boy aged 2 or under. We could definitely be wrong, though. :)
::::
And now, here is something else we are excited about while we wade through all the adoption paperwork.

Tune in later for more info on the forthcoming "Love & Family" CD. :)

And...just because he's cute:

::unglamorous::

2011-08-02T16:26:00.002-05:00

Paperwork.

I flew through it with Isaiah's adoption. I think I had ALL of our homestudy paperwork done in three weeks.

This time....not so much. This is not the glamorous part of adoption--not that there are many glamorous moments. Much of adoption is hard. But this part feels mundane.

I've been sitting for an hour and a half this afternoon working on my "Personal Data Information Form," and that's after already putting an hour in on it last week. I'm on page 15 of 23. And this is just a small slice of what we've got to do. William has to do his PDIF also.

Don't you just love questions like this?

Not exactly rocket science, but I do not have pat answers for questions like these. I don't think they want a paragraph on Abraham Lincoln, you know?
Pages of questions about your childhood, your marriage, your parents' marriage, your parenting abilities, your issues with cross-cultural adoption, your child's behavior, your methods for working through infertility, your complete medical history, your most fulfilling accomplishments, your finances including every penny you have ever even thought about spending, your hobbies, your personal growth practices (umm...what?), any medication you have ever taken, etc., etc., etc.

This doesn't even touch the dossier paperwork. !!

Because I've done this part before, I know the cross-eyed, glazed over feeling that comes from each hour you put into these questions....and I've kind of put it off.

I keep thinking, I'll work on that tomorrow during Isaiah's nap. And then something else comes up.
But then I get the kick in the pants I need to get this stuff completed. And there is nothing like a kick in the pants from Janine Maxwell's book It's Not Okay With Me.

I read half of it in one sitting before I jumped up from the couch and pulled my paperwork out of Big Blue (my adoption paperwork expandable file) and got to work.
This book is not for the faint of heart. I am repulsed, angered, convicted, wounded, and GRIEVED. And I'm not done with it.* Maxwell shares stories from her first trips to Africa and her first images of both depravity and poverty in their most base of forms.

William came home and saw the book on the table and said, "Hard to read?"
I answered, "Impossible to read. And I feel like I need to do something, I need to get to Africa tomorrow to get our children. But that's just one or maybe two kids. There are millions."
"But we are doing something. We will start with our kids."

Will it be enough?

____________________________________________
*I have to give one disclaimer about Maxwell's book. Her conclusions about spiritual adoption are...well, STRANGE. I am not sure how she came to her interpretation of Romans 8, but I find it to be really at odds with the rest of Scripture. While I recommend her book, I hope you'll understand that I definitely do not agree with her views on spiritual adoption. Just FYI.

::on our way::

2011-07-06T15:57:00.000-05:00

So, we're about six months behind where I thought we'd be in January, but whatever--we mailed our adoption application today!!
It's been a weird path to get us to here, but we are still adopting from Ethiopia and we are now going through Holt International.
We're excited. :)

As Isaiah and I walked into the post office this afternoon, I told him we were mailing our adoption application so we could bring him home a brother (or sister, but I'm fully expecting a boy). He said he'd like a brother and he'd like to name him "Brudder." That works for me. Well, as a nickname anyway. :)

We've got a loonnnnngggg journey ahead of us, but I'm thrilled to know we are not alone in this. Literally! Some dear, dear friends from church will be mailing their application tomorrow--also for the Ethiopia program!! Same agency, same program...how cool would it be to end up traveling together?! I love that in our small church, there are already two adopted kiddos running around, and that we will soon add MORE! I'm loving that our pale color palette at church is darkening up a bit, too. :)

Hopefully we'll have some more blog updates since the adoption plan is finally in the works.
We appreciate your prayers.

-glenna-

::family pics::

2011-06-05T16:56:00.001-05:00

It was hard to choose what to post....my sister took so many good pictures over Memorial Day weekend. Live in the Nashville area? If you're lucky she might take your pictures. ;)

Oh well...I'll just post them all. :)

::overwhelmed::

2011-06-04T08:39:00.000-05:00

God is so good.

A month ago, we were scratching our heads in confusion. Really compelled to adopt, but not sure how it was going to happen. We had jumped the gun by applying before we knew exactly what the financial side of an international adoption was going to look like. We had to let go of the plans we had barely begun and start over.

Unbeknownst to me, God had already provided for our immediate needs before I even wrote that last post. I published that post and then found out later that night that we were pretty well funded for the first leg of our adoption journey. An anonymous gift. A friend. And then another gift showed up in the mail yesterday from some generous adoption friends.

I am stunned.

But I shouldn't be.
When God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, do I really think that a $30K adoption will have Him concerned?? No.
I feel blessed and humbled--and ashamed that I ever doubted His provision. Maybe His timing is different from ours, maybe He was leading us to a different agency because the child He has for us would be referred through the new agency, or maybe He was just teaching me to trust Him. Trusting Him has never been my strong suit. And why is that when He is so completely trustworthy???

I am grateful this morning and excited to get back into the process. I cannot thank enough those of you who have blessed us with gifts for our adoption process. Thank you for being people who believe that children are a blessing from the Lord, that the Marshall's future children are a blessing from the Lord.
Thank you for serving us in a tangible and encouraging way. You have no idea what it has meant to us this week.

I know later on I will be tempted to fret about finances throughout this process, but then I can look back at the past faithfulness of the Lord and believe that He will provide for the future.
:::
I am hoping to sit down with new applications and work on initial paperwork again today.
Thank You, Father, for teaching me to trust You. Ethiopia doesn't feel quite so far away.

-glenna-

::where we are::

2011-05-31T16:48:00.001-05:00

Well...

I keep getting lots of questions about where we are in our adoption process. Understandably so since I've been so quiet here about the subject. I've been purposely vague, I guess, because I'm not sure how to explain without telling you more than you really want to know. ;) I have trouble being too wordy.

So, to put it as succinctly as possible, we got into our process and realized that our agency was going to require quite a large portion of our adoption fees up front. We were surprised by the fee schedule, among other things, and we quickly learned that international adoption is very different from domestic adoption. We waited and prayed for a few weeks, and when our deadline came and went, we felt it was time to take a step back and assess how we are going to approach the financial side of our adoption, since it seems to be very different than our process of adopting Isaiah. It's definitely doable, but it's also something we have to work out and pray through. No worries!

So....we are kind of back to square one, logistically speaking, and we are even considering another agency. Hopefully we can make some steps soon!

We are still committed to adopting from Ethiopia, though--even with the new protocol on the Ethiopian end of things. We know we may have to wait, but that's okay. :)

::::

In other news, we are enjoying our almost-3-year-old. He is growing so quickly. It's so hard to believe he used to look like this:

And now, he looks like this.

He is such a ham. :)
My talented sister took some beautiful family pics of the three of us, so I hope to get my hands on those soon.
This one is not one of her beautiful pictures, but it's still fun.

Can't wait to add another face to this picture. :)

::and the winner is...::

2011-05-01T21:32:00.000-05:00

You'll have to watch this short clip to find out! And the winner needs to email me with your mailing info so I can drop the book in the mail for you. Thanks for playing!

::orientation::

2011-04-26T08:39:00.002-05:00

Don't forget to enter our Adopted for Life giveaway!!

We'll choose a winner Sunday, May 1st!

I have a little adoption update for you this morning. We had been waiting on some financial things (mainly, waiting on the IRS to come through!) before submitting all our financial information to our agency so that our application could be approved. We realized we probably sent in our application before we were really ready, since we ended up in a time crunch to get all our supporting documents in. We had to give up on the IRS, and submitted our information as is. We got a call last week that we are officially approved! Yea!

We went to Clarksville, TN for the weekend to visit William's family, and when we came back, we found a stack of paperwork waiting for us to look through in preparation for an orientation call with our agency, which took place yesterday.

These all need to be signed and notarized....and they're just contracts!

We had a thirty minute orientation call that left our heads spinning. So much information, so much to think about, even more to pray about.

It was a little bit mentally exhausting. ;)

We have some things to pray about, and it is already apparent this early in the process that international adoption is WAY different than domestic. This whole thing is a huge leap of faith.
We did find out that a local agency can do our homestudy, so that's really good news.
:::
In other news, we are blessed to not be under water right now. The weather is top news these days, and I cannot believe our basement hasn't flooded (yet). I've spent the last week alternately worrying about tornadoes or flooding. It seems that all around us people are evacuating because of rivers that have flooded and levees that have breached. Here are some pictures of one of the many storms we've seen lately. I took these while we were on the interstate coming home from Clarksville on Saturday. There was a tornado in this storm, but it didn't appear until we had passed through it.

Growing up in Jackson, Tennessee, I take storms very seriously, so I have been glued to the weather, prepared to run to the basement (which is more like a cellar than a basement, but it is underground so it's a good spot) at a moment's notice. It's been a lot of sleepless nights for the past week, and it is far from over, but I am thankful we've had no serious issues as of yet.

::spring pics::

2011-04-13T11:46:00.001-05:00

**Don't forget to enter our Adopted for Life Giveaway!!!**

When we bought our house almost 5 years ago, it was the end of August. We loved the old charm of our house, but had no idea that the green bushes everywhere would do this in the spring:

Azaleas. Everywhere.
We absolutely can take no credit for how pretty things are around here during the spring.
But, we enjoy it.
Here are some pictures of how spring has exploded in our yard.

Happy little herb garden.

We've got thyme, Italian parsley, sage, Greek oregano, mint, chives, and maybe some basil that shriveled up soon after I planted it but might come back.

We're spending lots of time out here these days.

Hi!

We transplanted some phlox last year that we were given by our friends, the Dame's.

African daisy

Rounding the corner of the house, you begin to see what I mean about the explosion of azaleas!

I sorta wish it looked like this all year.

Really wish he didn't have a flower petal on his chin. :)

Dogwoods

Can't tell you how good the lilacs smell. Isaiah calls the m"li-yaks."


See ya!

::We're Having a Giveaway!::

2011-04-07T14:06:00.002-05:00

I really can't say enough good things about this book.

I read it last year and was moved, convicted, encouraged, excited, compelled. Just a wide range of emotions and reactions to this powerful book. I found a free download of the book last month, so I'm currently listening to it on my morning jogs through the neighborhood, so if my local friends see me sobbing while running around the block, don't assume it's because I hate running (although sometimes I sorta do). :) It's because this book is one of those books that could change your life. Really.

Maybe you're thinking, "I have no desire or conviction to ever adopt! This book isn't for me."

You know what?

It really doesn't matter whether you feel called to adopt or not.

This book is still for you.

Not everyone is called to adopt, but in regard to this particular book, that doesn't matter so much. Rather, I think each Christian should read the book to grasp how deeply their adopted family roots run as sons and daughters of God, how we have been grafted into a new family, how our Father has given us a most amazing inheritance as His children. It's on my MUST READ book list for everyone I know that is a follower of Jesus Christ. And, if after reading it your world is turned upside down in regard to physically adopting a child, then AWESOME!

So for these reasons, I am giving away a copy of Adopted for Life right here on this blog on MAY 1st!

To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment on this post.

Feel free to promote this post anywhere (Facebook, Twitter, your blog) because the more the merrier! However, to be entered, you must enter a comment on this post, not on the link on my Facebook page.

The giveaway closes Saturday, April 30 at 11:59 p.m., and I will randomly choose a winner Sunday, May 1st.

I will post announcing the winner that evening.

If you've already read Adopted for Life but want to give it to a particular friend, please by all means enter the giveaway. I'm all for passing this book on to anyone who would read it!

Thanks for playing! :)

::baby no more::

2011-04-05T11:45:00.001-05:00

I cried when we took down Isaiah's crib about six months ago. I de-babied the room and packed up crib bedding, the mobile, and lots of baby things. It is definitely a bittersweet memory--bitter because I have no idea if we'll ever use those precious baby things again, sweet because our big boy is growing and thriving. It's life, you know?

Yesterday we bumped our big guy from his toddler bed to a twin bed, which hopefully he'll be able to use for several years (until he's too tall, that is!!). He was so excited to "help" Daddy put the big bed together. I just had to share some pictures. :) Here is a post with pictures of Isaiah's room while we waited for his birth.

What every almost-three-year-old needs: TOOLS!

Look at me! I'm helping!

Sorry for the lack of pants....we're potty training. :)

Manly Marshall Men

Done!

Regardless of the face, he LOVES his big bed and slept like a champ. It's hard to catch a smile on the camera....he moves so quickly, I'm surprised he's not a blur in all the pictures.

In other growing-up news, we are in that glorious stage known as potty training. After two days of complete failure and numerous accidents, it suddenly clicked in Isaiah's little mind and he is now doing great. I had to post, however, a picture of how tired he was after the first day of training. We had allowed him to skip his nap so he could play outside while we did yardwork all afternoon. Well...playing outside, digging in the dirt, potty training, and no nap equals one very tired boy who fell asleep at 6:45 p.m. and slept until 9:00 a.m. the next morning!

Check back over the next week for a GIVEAWAY on our blog!!! :)

::thankful::

2011-03-18T09:05:00.000-05:00

Just a quick post to update on my surgery.

My doctor was able to excise the tumor without damaging the ovary, which was our biggest concern. There wasn't as much endometriosis as suspected, so surgery was much quicker than we thought it would be. We are so thankful for this outcome--everything seems to have gone very well. I had to stay at the hospital for much of the day because I don't do well under anesthesia. My blood pressure runs low, and I set off alarms all day long because we couldn't get it up. After a lot of sleep, pain, and nausea, I finally started responding to some anti-nausea meds in my IV, and was able to leave shortly after.

I am feeling okay today, just super sore and doped up, of course. The worst pain I've had has been severe shoulder pain, which is a side effect of the gas they put in my abdominal cavity so the robot can do its thing during surgery. I also feel like I've done about 2,000 sit-ups. Sore.

Overall, though, this morning I am feeling better (at least for now), and am so thankful the Lord has spared my ovary in this surgery.

I am feeling a little fuzzy around the edges...and I might look back at this post and wonder how I was able to string any words together...it's probably not a good idea to be writing while medicated. But, I wanted everyone to know we are doing well, and I so appreciate all the phone calls, texts, emails, meals, flowers, and prayers.

I feel so very blessed.

::updates on the marshall's::

2011-03-16T13:03:00.000-05:00

Well, we have made absolutely zero progress on our adoption.

But there are reasons for that. One thing--medical clearance. I'm having surgery tomorrow to remove an ovarian tumor and endometriosis. I covet your prayers for that surgery and recovery.

We are not sure what the current Ethiopian situation will mean for our adoption plans. With the MOWA in Ethiopia drastically cutting back the number of adoptions, our process could take a really, really long time. We are not even in the Ethiopia program right now as we are waiting on my medical issues and a couple of other things. I am not even sure if the agency is accepting couples into the Ethiopia program at this point. There's so much we don't know. But, for the time being, we both feel committed to this country, so we'll just keep moving one step at a time toward that end.

In the meantime, we've got some projects that will keep us busy. Our kitchen needs remodeling badly. If you've seen it in person, well....you know what I'm talking about! You really can't offend me by agreeing with me. We've put off any kind of kitchen remodel since moving into this house 4 years ago because who can afford to remodel a kitchen as ugly as ours? But, the decision was sort of made for us when a sheet of wallpaper fell from the ceiling to the floor, revealing crumbling, damp, moldy plaster that was covering an old crumbling chimney. We knew the flu ran up through our kitchen from the cellar, but the plaster job covering it is barely holding together. We are hoping for an estimate to fix the chimney (and take off all the nasty plaster), run some pipes to the roof, and hopefully be left with a really cool old brick wall in our kitchen. I love our house, and I love that it's old (no one is sure of the date--somewhere around the 1930's?), but sometimes these old houses have huge problems hiding behind layers of wallpaper and glue.

(See? I am not kidding. Hopefully the plaster can all come off and the brick can be repaired and sealed.)

At any rate, since the wall with the chimney has got to be tackled (we wouldn't pass a homestudy because the fumes coming from the furnace and hot water heater are not contained in the chimney), we decided now was a good time to do the whole thing. We'll do as much of it ourselves as possible, but we've got tentative plans that include antiqued white cabinets (hoping to salvage the ones we've got that are coated in layers of paint), warm gold walls, and dark counter tops, some open shelving, and the brick chimney being a focal point. It will take months. We'll do it on a shoe string budget. But, it will keep us busy while we work slowly through the adoption process and see what unfolds in Ethiopia.

As for Mr. Isaiah...he's growing rapidly (seriously--over an inch in two months!) and talking constantly. He's also going through a clingy-to-mommy-only stage right now, and that could prove challenging while I'm recovering from surgery. His vocabulary has pretty much exploded over the past month. He speaks in longer sentences and can communicate just about anything he wants to say, although sometimes it takes a little translation from mom, and even then...some things just get lost in the translation. Still...he's pretty chatty these days. I cannot believe he will be three years old in less than three months. For that matter, I cannot believe I'll be thirty in less than three months.
Hmm.

That's it for now. Again, we covet your prayers for our next couple of days, but especially for tomorrow morning, bright and early. God's grace is sufficient for us.

-glenna-

::poor man's choo-choo train::

2011-02-18T09:54:00.000-06:00

So after this happened:

I got an idea. :)

We've had colds around here, so after emptying some tissue boxes, I connected them with a string to make what we like to call the Tissue Express.

I'm telling you...no need for new toys all the time. Isaiah has played with this for hours.

He will put some of his little toys in the train and drive them all over the house.

One man's trash....another man's choo-choo train. ;)

::treasuring it up::

2011-02-15T11:00:00.000-06:00

A couple of nights ago, Isaiah and I sat on the couch, snuggling, reading book after book, giggling, making memories. The strangest emotions rolled over me as I held my growing boy, listening to him point out animals on the pages of the books, making his own little jokes, and listening to him tag "Mama" on to every phrase and sentence to make sure I was paying attention.

There I sat with him in my arms....missing him. Missing him. Sixteen more years, and he will be off to college, I thought. I keep telling myself to soak it up, hold on to these moments because they are passing by at a frightening speed.

Yesterday the three of us went to the park for the first time in months.

I didn't realize just how cooped up we've felt this winter until we had a beautifully warm day.

I love this picture because even though there is no physical resemblance, there are so many other things that make them father and son.

We snapped pictures, ran, played, even rolled in the grass. I sat in a swing and watched my husband and son chasing one another, and the familiar ache in my heart set in again.

This is time well spent.

We are so distracted with busyness and hardship, commitments and schedules, meetings and investment in others that sometimes it's easy to let these family moments slide because your family is always there, waiting in the wings. Or so it seems.

I keep reflecting on how our lives change and grow, and how wonderfully rich we are with the Lord's blessings of goodness. I don't want to miss anything.

I know it seems a little sappy to post on missing the moments I'm actually embracing at the moment, but sometimes it just hits me that for such a brief season we have the great privilege and responsibility to aim our arrow straight and true--toward the things of God, towards repentance and faith, towards the things that are important on an eternal level. We may have only one arrow in our quiver at the moment, but what a weighty blessedness it is to sharpen him and teach him, to pray over him and to invest in him!

Before I know it, these days will be gone.

::another adopting family you can pray for::

2011-02-10T16:52:00.000-06:00

So there's not a whole lot going on with our adoption process at the moment. Our medical clearance is our hold-up, but sometimes you just have to be okay with appointments that are weeks away. I am still waiting on a sonogram at the end of the month, but our hope is to have our final supporting documents ready to submit by the first week of March so that we can (hopefully) be officially accepted into the Ethiopia Program at AGCI. For now we're just sort of sitting on our hands doing nothing.

In the meantime, though, I'd like to draw your attention to another family at our church who as at the end of their adoption process. Jay & Camille Lancaster are heading to China in just over one short week to get their daughter Lori.

(How cute is she?!)

Jay and Camille have often impressed me by their depth of faith in the Lord's guidance and provision, and not just in their adoption process. It has been a blessing to watch them change and grow in their convictions and to become radically passionate about adoption. Now that they are finally heading to China to actually get little Lori, I know they are sweating the final details and financial expectations. I can imagine the fear and anxiety that comes in knowing you are about to leave your other children to travel to the other side of the world---understanding nothing of the language, meeting this precious little girl who can't hear you even if she did understand English, spending two weeks in an exciting but unfamiliar place while you try to bond with a child you love deeply but have never touched. Jay's most recent blog post expresses some of those fears. Knowing this family like I do, I plead with you to pray for them as they wait for the final paperwork and finances to be worked out, as they board the plane to China next weekend, and as they meet their daughter for the first time.

As a church we were able to do a little to help them prepare for Lori's homecoming. A Chinese toddler shower was so much fun!

In the words of Camille when the shower was over, "I hope we have many more toddler showers in the future!" I see the concept of adoption and orphan care growing more and more in the hearts of our church family. Who knows how many countries will be represented in future showers? :-)

Please remember to pray for the Lancaster's over the next several weeks.

::application in & thoughts on interracial adoption::

2011-01-30T15:21:00.001-06:00

Step one completed!

Our application to AGCI has been submitted and thus, our first monetary commitment to this adoption has been made. Some dear friends wrote us a check for our application fee....how blessed we are at the outset of this process already!

We have to complete some aforementioned medical forms/letters and a financial worksheet before being officially accepted into the Ethiopia program, but hopefully those will be completed over the next two weeks.

We are excited and blessed to begin praying for the little one(s) God would have us bring home!

:::::

I spent two days this weekend with my mom who is recovering from shoulder surgery, and we were talking about our process and what steps were involved in adoption from Ethiopia. My mom said on more than one occasion this weekend, "Well, I've already begun praying for my new grandbaby. I can't wait to meet him or her!"
This, I am thankful to say, is the attitude of all of our family members, and really of our church family as well. I absolutely love it. I've met and heard of a plethora of people through adoption blogs/friends of friends/etc., whose family members have a hard time accepting the idea of adoption or the possibility of having a child/granchild/niece/nephew who has a different skin color or ethnicity.

I recognize the difficulty of accepting the fact that your family portrait is going to look drastically different than you had expected, but here is how I handle that: most of the people in my life are Gentiles (non-Jew). Because of where I live in this country and because many of you are living in similar areas, chances are, you too are a Gentile. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ and fall into that category, you have been grafted in to a family line that has a solid Jewish ancestry. I don't look like that family portrait. You don't look like that family portrait, either. And yet, it is Christ who is our common bond with all other believers in Him, be they Jew, Greek, man, woman, slave, free. We have been adopted, regardless of our nationality or ethnicity.
For a believer in Christ to be bothered by the difference in skin color between family members just seems to be the height of hypocrisy. I humbly say that knowing full well the weight of that statement--that it will offend some folks. Maybe you are reading this and you're angry with me for saying it.
And yet....I can admit it offended me a long time ago, when thoughts about adoption first began taking up residence in my heart. I didn't like it. My initial reaction to any kind of interracial adoption as an option for us (or rather, as not an option) served only to show the prejudices and ugliness in my own heart. My excuses about a preference for a white child who "looked like me" were really only a mask for the troubling convictions that eventually took over, thanks be to God.

I'll admit, it's scary to adopt. It's scary to adopt a child who doesn't look like you. (But let's face it, when you adopt, that child has none of your biological make-up, so he/she isn't going to look like you anyway, even if you're of the same skin color.) It's scary to think about the reactions of others who see your family out in public.
I'll admit this, too--it's sometimes just plain annoying to walk through the grocery store and pretend like people aren't staring at the pale-skinned, blue-eyed brunette and her gorgeous mocha-skinned, brown eyed boy.

"You must be babysitting."
"That can't be your baby! Is that your baby?!"
"Isn't that a shame, that white girl with her black baby."
"He must look like his daddy."
"Why is your baby brown?" (sweetly asked by a child, I have to interject.)
"Mom, why does she have a black kid?"

All things said directly to me or about me and my son.

People will stare. People will ask questions. People will be rude. People will be nosy. Strangely, some people will even admire you (We'll talk about this in a later post. I understand the sentiment, but I'm just not worth admiring. I didn't do anything heroic here.).

BUT--perhaps you will be the first person they have ever seen who has adopted across racial boundaries. It is a moment to use wisely. When people are bold enough to comment about my son's adoption, I take it as an opportunity to share Christ with them. It's not the answer they were looking for when they asked, but it is the answer they need.

If you had told me when William and I got married in 2003, that my family picture would look like this in 2010, I would have stared at you in disbelief.

Photo courtesy of Arevalo Photography

But now that I am living this reality, it is a sweetness I wouldn't trade for a dozen blue-eyed brunette children with his nose and my smile. The hypothetical transracial adoption that you are possibly considering is so much different when there is an actual child involved. It becomes about loving and parenting a child, not a statistic or a possibility. A person who will pick up your mannerisms and mirror your desires, not some far out "idea" that scares you to death. Unless we are purposefully talking about our adoption, we never even think about our difference in skin color.
My son, Isaiah, is real. He is brown. He is all big eyes and endearing smiles. He is brown. He is hyper and yet loves to snuggle with me on the couch before bed. He is brown. He laughs and loves music. He is brown. And William and I are clearly white.
Our son is not some out of control stereotype that white people fear when they talk about interracial adoption being "something they could never do."
You could do it.

Even if your family poses as a hindrance, you could still do it. I know it's not always true, but I'm willing to bet that many of your relatives who are frowning upon the idea of your interracial adoption dreams will eventually become the biggest fans of the child that you bring home. It happens often.

The next time you think about adopting a child of different race and don't think you could do it, I want you to remember this: There are 147 million orphans worldwide.
Letting go of your insecurities about racial differences could mean the world to one of those of 147 million.
:::::::
I'm not sure why I felt so led to write about this today. In truth, I meant only to post about our application being submitted. Maybe this was for someone. Maybe it was for you. Maybe you're considering adoption but aren't sure about the difficulties of adopting across racial lines or from a different country altogether. Whether you're hoping to adopt from here in the U.S., or from somewhere far off, be it Africa, Russia, China, or a plethora of other places that are sorely in need of adoptive families for the multitudes of orphaned children--whatever your plan and whatever it is that scares you about that plan, I just want to encourage you to not be afraid. If the Lord is calling you to provide a home and family for a child, I believe He will equip you to handle the hard parts.

I don't have this whole adoption thing figured out. My son is only two-and-a-half. I'm only twenty-nine-and-a-half. :) I have a lot to learn. There will be plenty of challenges over the course of our life as a family put together through adoption.
But, I know that the Lord has charged believers to care for widows and orphans.
Adoption is a chance to take one of those commands very literally.

147 million.

Does it really matter if they don't look like you?

-glenna-

::the necklace::

2011-01-27T13:03:00.000-06:00

As mentioned in my last post, I have opened an Etsy shop--Home to Me Handmades--where the proceeds of whatever is sold goes straight into our adoption fund. We're not doing any other types of fundraising, but I thought this would be a way for me to sell some of the things I really love to make (that are currently piling up with nowhere to go!) I will add some knitted and other handmade items tonight, but for now I have listed my Ethiopia necklace.

I made one of these for myself and received several comments about it, so I thought--why not make it available for some other folks who are adopting?? :)

I don't get to boast of a growing belly like an expectant mother does during pregnancy, so this is a way to start a conversation about how we're hoping to expand our family by adding a precious child(ren) in need of family.

:::

We are still waiting on doctor's appointments so we can get our medical approval. Mine is on Wednesday. Please pray that our issues don't cause any kind of hold-up in our barely begun process. :)

-glenna-

::toddler fun::

2011-01-26T16:41:00.001-06:00

You need an Isaiah update. :)

What does he think about adopting a brother or sister? Well. He's two. His thoughts don't go far beyond Veggie Tales and playing basketball with Daddy. He's still too young to really converse about his own adoption, let alone the adoption of a sibling.
However, he has routinely made this pronouncement for the past two months: "I wan a babee." :)
We're working on it, buddy!

No adoption updates at this point, but here are some pictures of what Isaiah and Mommy have been up to today.

Yarn. Not just for kittens.

Also fun for two year olds.
I'm a knitter (check out my Etsy shop in the next couple of days--I'll have some items listed soon!) which means I often have leftovers after projects. I pulled some of those leftovers out today and tried to think of what we could do with them.
This was the plan...

...and it was eventually executed once I convinced Isaiah that eating the "nu-nu's" was not a good idea. After cleaning up and trying to get Isaiah to understand that the A was an A and not a B, but that a B was a B, not an A....I then gave him a ball of yarn to play with while I washed dishes. I could tell by his giggles and loops through the house that he was having a great time, so I followed him.

He had so much fun with a ball of yarn!

It's the simple things, really. :)

*Yes, I realize this could be a choking hazard. Don't let your kids play with yarn unless you're keeping a close eye on them! :)

::deja vu::

2011-01-22T16:11:00.000-06:00

I sat down today to begin that monumental task of filling out an adoption application.

It's only the first of many, many forms we'll fill out detailing every area of our lives and history. I immediately went to a place in my mind three years ago, sitting at the same table, filling out similar forms, answering very similar questions.
Remember this?

I had been sitting at the computer for a couple of hours answering roughly fifty very personal questions for our homestudy. I well remember the tiring yet firm drive to persevere. I had a will of steel when it came to adoption paperwork. Our social worker was a little taken aback when I fired paperwork back to her only minutes after she'd emailed it. I was on a mission.

Sitting down today, I feel different about it all.

There's not the sense of "hurry up and finish this so I can be a mom!" like there was when our home was empty of children.
There's a different kind of urgency this time. It's the sensation of feeling compelled to do something...different.
Something...hard.
Something that requires more of ourselves than we really have to give.
And I think that is why when I started filling in boxes and answering questions I got a little overwhelmed by it all.

I look at that first picture in this post and remember how different our situation was. I had a job. My house was clean. I had an entire week off to fill out homestudy paperwork. I could run here and there to complete every little thing the agency asked us to do, knowing we would pass with flying colors.

Today, I have a very active two year old (I praise God for him!). I don't have a job outside of my work as wife and mother....which means I don't get paid. My house isn't nearly as clean as it used to be. The wallpaper is literally falling off the walls in my kitchen. I feel less certain about our financial affairs than I did when we walked into our adoption process last time. While filling out the first page of questions on my application this afternoon, I paused when I heard the sound of rushing water. I ran into the laundry room to find water pouring out all over the floor from my washing machine which was just fixed a couple of months ago. (It might actually be that the pipes underground are frozen.) True story. Frustrated, I put the paperwork away. I set about folding a load of laundry (not the load that caused the flood, ha!), and my husband sensed my darkening mood. My confidence in God's provision that I poured out some emails this morning had evaporated. My faith felt weak. William, ever faithful tried to encourage me. "It's okay," he said. "We have the money we need to get started. That's a great start!" And he's right. I'm reminded of this blog post I read a few weeks ago which God has used to greatly encourage me. The Lord owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He can afford adoption.

So, for today, I will clean up the mess in the laundry room and remember that God is faithful. I was so confident in our abilities to qualify last time, but it was God who orchestrated the adoption of Isaiah into our family.
It had little to do with us.
Today, I want to cast aside my lack of faith and stand firm in His faithfulness, in His ability, in His great power. Today, I will fill out the paperwork I can and let the Lord take care of tomorrow. This may be intimidating stuff, but the call to bring a child out of poverty and orphandom and into family--that is the endgame. That is what I must keep in mind when I feel overwhelmed by it all. (Yes...I totally made up the word orphandom.)

:::

In case you missed it, here is the agency we're going with for our adoption, Lord willing.

Despite my being a little overwhelmed by it all, we truly are excited and hopeful! I can't get too far into the application process until we both get statements from our physicians on our medical issues. This is something our agency needs first off. Apparently, this is a bigger deal with international adoption now than it was with our domestic adoption three years ago. If you don't know us personally, William has type 1 diabetes, and I have an endometrioma that is being monitored closely. Neither of these things inhibit our parenting in any way, but understandably, the agency needs this information from our physicians. Actually, I have an appointment on February 2nd for another ultrasound and evaluation. I covet your prayers for that appointment--please pray with faith that this tumor would disappear completely!

Look for a post soon on why we chose AGCI!

Blessings,
-glenna-

::it's that time again::

2011-01-01T11:56:00.002-06:00

I posted this on our Wordpress blog--you know, the one I changed over to two years ago? Well, I hated it so much that I pretty much quit blogging, plus we seem to keep up with folks so much better through social networks--blogging seemed a little redundant.

Unless you have something to blog about, that is.

And we do!

After a lot of talking and praying and mulling and thinking, we believe that God is leading us to pursue Ethiopian adoption!

There is a lot I could write about regarding what went into this decision. As some of you know, I have recently come out of a very difficult season throughout which I struggled deeply with our inability to conceive. I dealt with my depression by hiding from the world, basically. And I sinfully hurled a lot of pride-filled questions towards our Lord. I lived in my sadness. I became angry. And I refused to believe that God is right in all that He does. It was a low place.

But the Lord both rebuked me and comforted me with His Word. (How like Him!)

I re-learned some truths about His character and His grace that humbled me then and humbles me still.

After coming through the worst of this season, I felt the Lord urging me to let go for now the path to pregnancy. In its place, I feel He has put a burden for children in poverty and without family. After many long conversations and a lot of praying, William and I both feel compelled to pursue Ethiopian adoption.

"Why Ethiopia?" you might ask.

The first reason may seem a little subjective and perhaps arbitrary, but the only way I can explain it is to say that we just believe God is leading us to adopt from this small African country. There are also some staggering statistics regarding the number of orphans in Ethiopia. The population of the entire country is somewhere around 74 million. Nearly 5 million are orphans. Staggering. It burdens me. Children born into poverty and dying of hunger and preventable disease, without parents to care for them.

Unfortunately, there are so many countries with the exact circumstances.

:::

So, if you're like most of us geographically illiterate Americans, you may be wondering where Ethiopia is exactly. It's pretty much in central eastern Africa. Here's a map:

We are still very much in the research stage of this adoption process. Unlike our lightening fast process with Isaiah, this will likely take closer to two years. My word of the year(s) will most definitely be patience. Never my strong suit. We are currently researching agencies and compiling a list of questions to help narrow the list down. We have a bit of start-up money from two sets of generous friends, so once we make the decision, we can send off our application, wait for approval, and then hopefully move into the homestudy phase. Having done domestic adoption, the paperwork is less intimidating than it was three years ago, but this whole thing of submitting things for the Ethiopian government is a little daunting.

Exciting, however, is the part where we get to go to Africa TWICE!

I don't have a lot more to add today. We've barely begun, but we are excited and looking forward to keeping you updated. We COVET your prayers throughout this process! Please pray that we will follow the Lord's leading, that our adoption will be ethical and will be one that truly gives an orphaned child a family, and that God would provide for our needs and for the needs of the little one in Africa that we hope will join our family.

Blessings!

-glenna-

::this blog has MOVED::

2009-01-04T23:11:00.003-06:00

Sorry to do this to you, but it was a necessary evil. This way no one gets cut from the list. :)

We moved to www.williamandglenna.wordpress.com

If you want the password to the posts, you have to send me an email.

Thanks for bearing with me!

-glenna-

::small problem::

2009-01-04T15:07:00.002-06:00

I probably should have looked into the whole "locking down the blog" thing a little more before getting it started. It turns out that through blogger, I only have a limit of 100 allowed readers to my list. But...I've received over 150 emails from you all, so that does present a problem.

I'm going to take a day or two to think about what I'm going to do. I don't want to start taking people off my reader list that I've already told can view the blog. I know that Wordpress lets you have password protected blog posts, so that may be my option.

Like I said...I'm going to think about it, and then I'll let you know what I'm going to do. It looks like a move to Wordpress may be my best option.
Still feel free to send me an email if you didn't get your name on the list yet. And keep little Isaiah in your prayers...he's had a cold and has been NOT sleeping well, which makes it hard to get over a cold. We're a little tired around here!

I'll let you know!

-glenna-

::time is running out!::

2009-01-01T11:27:00.002-06:00

Last call, folks! This will be my last post reminding you to get on our blog reader list! Simply email me at glennadmarshall@hotmail.com telling me you want to be on our allowed reader list. Next week (hopefully on Monday!) I'll be locking this site down. If you're not on the list, you won't be able to view our blog.

We're enjoying the holidays and still celebrating Christmas in stages with family. A real post with pictures will be forthcoming, but after the lock-down I'm afraid.

Happy New Year!!

-the Marshall's-

::blog changes...get on the list!!::

2008-12-01T11:15:00.008-06:00

Hey folks....our Thanksgiving pics are coming soon, but I wanted to let you know of some changes that will take place with this blog very soon.

As of January 1, 2009, this blog will be protected. What that means is that we will be screening who can and cannot view our blog. As much as we post pictures of our little family, and with as many weirdos as there are out there surfing the internet, we just thought it best to add a little protection to our blog.

"How can I still view the blog?"you ask. Good question!

It's simple, really. All you have to do is send me an email at glennadmarshall@hotmail.com letting me know you want to be added to our list of readers. I will not send a reply (unless I have time!) until I'm ready to lock down the blog. When I make the big switch, you will then receive an email from me with an invitation to view our blog. You'll be required to log in with your email address to me each time you want to view our blog (sorry about that), but then you should have no trouble from then on. If I decide to do this differently, I'll let you know in an email.

I've added a memo to the sidebar here as a reminder. You have between now and December 31st to get on that list.

Sorry to be so weird about this, but I just feel it's probably best.

Our Thanksgiving update to come....

As always, thanks for reading!

-glenna-

Edit: I've already received a plethora of emails today--thank you so much for responding so quickly! Keep 'em coming!

::out of pocket::

2008-09-24T14:42:00.001-05:00

No posts anytime soon....our hard drive crashed. :(

::best birthday present ever::

2008-06-14T09:24:00.002-05:00

BABY IS COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(for real this time!)

::One last look at the nursery::

2008-06-08T18:33:00.002-05:00

(No, the baby is not here yet. We're still waiting.)

:::

We put together the last piece of furniture for the nursery (and by "we," I of course mean William), which was a cute little chest of drawers, courtesy of William's dad and step-mom. Thanks, guys! It looks great!

We had to rearrage the furniture to get everything to fit. We're still missing curtians and a few odds and ends like that, but for now, it's pretty cute.

We're still on pins and needles, but are trying to be patient.

Keep us in your prayers!! If the baby could see this nursery, he would know it's okay to come now. ;)

XOXO
glenna

::oh, good grief::

2008-06-06T15:35:00.002-05:00

Somebody should just put me in a straight jacket.

I'm about to lose my mind waiting for this baby to decide to be born!

:::

No news yet, my friends.

It was really disappointing to have everything ready and then to call the caseworker right before walking out the door only to find out that the birth mom was NOT actually in labor. We unloaded the car and waited all night for the phone to ring. (It never did.)

So....we're back to waiting.

Don't worry, though! Even if it's the middle of the night, we WILL update before we leave so you will know if it's the REAL thing!

As always, thanks for praying.

XOXO
glenna

Baby is on his way!!!!

2008-06-05T16:10:00.004-05:00

*******A bit of a FALSE alarm*************
See update at bottom of post!!

We are heading out shortly to Illnois!!

The baby is on his way--his birthmom is having contractions and says he will be born tonight! :)

I did what the adoption books suggested: I took a picture of myself while on the phone with the social worker since this was THE CALL we've been waiting for!!!

Writing down important phone numbers

Feeling slightly ill

Heading out...do we look like proud parents yet?

We have church members who are taking care of the house, the dog, and the mail, etc., and we are SO thankful for them!

Please keep us, the birthmom, the baby, the social workers, and the hospital staff in your prayers.

We will update as soon as we are able to.

We are SO excited...AND nervous!!

-William and Glenna-

******5:23 p.m.**We had a little miscommunication between the caseworkers. The baby will be coming sometime soon, of course, but not nearly as soon as we were thinking. It's not "real labor", so we're not heading to Illinois yet. We are waiting on ONE more important phone call telling us to come. So...we're sorely disappointed, but we're handling it. We don't know if we'll get the call tonight or tomorrow or the next day. We're packed, the car is loaded down, but...for now....nothing is happening. Sorry to disappoint!! *********************************

::inching closer!::

2008-06-04T15:36:00.001-05:00

We have pre-term labor!! So...we're not to the point where we need to head to IL yet, but we're getting close! Maybe in the next day or two?!?!?

Woohoo!!

Keep praying!!

XOXO
glenna

::not yet::

2008-06-04T13:14:00.000-05:00

Still waiting. (sigh)

::Getting close!::

2008-06-02T15:41:00.004-05:00

We received a call this morning from our social worker telling us that our birthmom is in the very early stages of labor. Well, it's not really "labor", but without being specific, we have reason to believe she'll be in labor very soon!!!

We're tying up loose ends and trying to get things together. Over the past two weeks or so, I have been having a lot of problems with headaches and nausea, which I believe is all stress-related, so I ask that you guys pray for me as we enter an even more stressful time!! So, in the midst of my frenzied packing and getting things in order, I am having to take breaks to lie on the couch until I feel a little better. I *truly* think it's stress-related, but it's very annoying!

When we know something, we'll update! Although, it may be quite a bit after the fact if it happens in the middle of the night!

Keep us, birthmom, and baby boy in your prayers!!!! Pray for safe travels for us, safe delivery for birthmom and baby, and for as smooth a transition as possible as we await TPR, court, and physical custody of the baby.

Blessings,
glenna

::Preparing for the Little Man & Trying Out Our New Camera::

2008-05-26T21:49:00.005-05:00

What a busy day!!

We did some shopping today and purchased two important things for the arrival of our little guy: the carseat/stroller combo and the pack-n-play (for our extended interstate compact stay). We also purchased a few last clothing items so that we'll have enough since we're not sure how much access we'll have to a laundromat while we're gone. We also bought a new Canon Powershot, thanks to William's mom!! Our camera definitely needed to be upgraded, so the following pictures are for testing purposes also. :) If you compare them with the shower pictures from the previous post, you can definitely tell a difference!

Testing 1 2 3!

Our goal today, after purchasing the things we needed for baby boy, was to have everything packed in case we get "the call" some time soon. We decided that we're not going to bed tonight until the baby's bags are packed and ours are most-of-the-way packed (we will have to throw last minute stuff in, of course). At this point in time, the pack-n-play is in the trunk, the stroller is mostly assembled, and we're going to buckle the carseat into the car soon. Baby boy's bags are packed and his bottles are being sterilized (all three of them; yeah, I could stand a few more! Hopefully the hospital will load me down with single-serve formula/bottles.).

Daddy-to-be working on the pack-n-play.

Done!

Packing up baby's suitcase!

I know it looks like a lot, but we don't know how long we need to be prepared for.

Ultra-cool diaper bag filled to the brim.

Working on the stroller.

Sterilizing bottles.

Figuring out how to get the carseat base buckled in.

Officially ready!

Hopefully we can sleep easy tonight (finally!) knowing that should "the call" come, we'll just have to throw the bags in the car and hit the road. I certainly feel a LOT better being prepared! Even if the baby chooses not to come for another two weeks, at least we'll be ready!

If you haven't looked at the shower pictures, please see the previous post. It was a blast! Our other showers have been postponed until we come home with the baby. We decided that we didn't need to be too far from home because we'll have too far to drive and we might miss the birth.

Thanks for sharing in our excitement!! We can't wait for the baby to arrive! Please continue to pray. Of course, things are still not certain until the 72 hour revocation period after termination of parental rights (TPR) has ended. I don't think we'll breathe easy until then! We still feel like the birthparents are committed to this adoption plan, but obviously, it is well within their rights to change their minds. Please remember them, baby boy, and us in your prayers.

Thanks!!

XOXOX

glenna

::the shower of showers!!::

2008-05-24T20:26:00.009-05:00

Our church threw us an INCREDIBLE shower today!! We can't believe the work they put into this shower! It was church-wide, so the men and kids were there, too. The food was wonderful; everything was just SO great! We feel incredibly blessed by our church family. They have been so good to us. William's mom and Glenna's parents came in for the shower.

In the nursery before the shower

"Granna" & Glenna

"Nana" & Glenna

Centerpieces

The food was FANTASTIC! (The tables actually filled up a lot more after I took this picture. The food kept coming and coming and coming!!)

Opening TONS of gifts!!

Baby monitors :)

William's favorite gifts (from his mom!)

Glenna finally has a diaper bag!! And a pretty cute one at that!

William's turn to wear the diaper bag. He might as well get used to it!

One of the coolest gifts was buried in a big basket. We pulled the tag...

And out came a REEEAALLLYY long adorable clothesline with baby boy outfits from size 0 months--3T pinned to the line with clothespins!! I don't know how many outfits were on that clothesline--maybe 10 or so?? It was from 3 families--an awesome gift!!! And definitely a CUTE idea!

We ALL had fun unpacking all the baby stuff and putting it away. I can't believe this was all from ONE shower! The closet was empty and the room was pretty bare except for the furniture. That is NOT the case now!
(Sorry--I'm in my PJ's)

A bag is FINALLY packed for when we get "the call" telling us the birthmom is in labor. We still have lots to pack to really be ready for our stay in the hospital and in Illinois for the interstate compact agreement.

My first big load of baby laundry!!

We got this adorable bouncy seat in the mail yesterday from Isaac & Jenny. Thanks, you guys!!! We LOVE it!!

The changing table is getting full!

The once-empty closet is filling up! We really hope this adoption plan works out, because we are REALLY prepared for a boy!

Dad-to-be working on the monitors.

We can't say enough how wonderful this day was! We feel SO loved on by our church who is calling baby boy "the church's baby". :) They are all excited and anxiously awaiting his birth and arrival home. Can you tell we LOVE this body of believers?!?!?

Here is a short video for my sister and William's sister who I know would love to have been at the shower today. I'm pretty sure my brother and his family wanted to be there today, too, but we know Memorial Day weekend is a hard weekend to get away. We missed you all!!

We are finally feeling like we are somewhat ready for the baby's arrival. We are still needing some basic things like the carseat and pack-n-play for our interstate compact stay in Illinois. We are hoping to pick those things up on Monday. We are fully stocked with diapers, wipes, blankets, burp cloths, hooded towels, washcloths, and socks. And we have an array of clothing in varying sizes, which will be really nice when the baby gets bigger. Some of you have asked what we need the most. At this point, probably what we need now the most are newborn onesies/gowns (just plain ones) and BPA-free bottles (these are hard to find). I know--not real exciting, but those are the things we need for our hospital/Illinois stay. I can honestly say we don't need very many blankets--we are stocked up on those! :)

We are so thankful for the outpouring of gifts! We feel blessed beyond belief! We can't believe we're having THREE more showers!!!

We'll be sure to update if we have any baby news this week. The birthmom is now at 35 weeks, so we're expecting her to go a couple of more weeks (she's never made it past 37 weeks with previous children). You never know, though! It pays to be prepared! We're okay, though, if little man chooses to stay put for a few more weeks! That will give us more time to get things ready.

Well, we need to shut things down for the night. There is some teeny tiny little pieces of laundry that I need to get out of the dryer to sort and fold. :)

XOXOX,

glenna

::What a Great Day!::

2008-05-19T20:21:00.006-05:00

It was almost exactly 5 months ago that we were headed down I-55 from St. Louis after a devastating doctor's appointment with an infertility specialist. I remember that night clearly...it seemed that with every mile that passed, another tear rolled down my face. What a hard night that was. There were tearful phonecalls to friends and family members who had prayed and wanted to know how our appointment went. I'll never forget how hard that trip home was. It seemed like our dreams of a family were so far out of our reach that we would never be parents like we so wanted to be.

Tonight we road down that same interstate road. What a strikingly different trip home it was. With excitement and overwhelming joy, we realized that our dreams were unfolding right before our eyes.

Thank you to all of you (and I know there were MANY) who were praying for us today. Our meeting with the birthmother went SO well. I was immediately drawn to this woman. For privacy's sake, there is not a whole lot that I can post online here, but if you want to know more details, free to call or email. What I can tell you is that this gracious woman is unbelievably excited about giving us the gift of her son. She is so excited! Both she and the birthfather (who was unable to come) are both African-American, but they are okay with their sone being raised by a Caucasian couple, which is a relief to us. Of course, we have been open to transracial adoption from the beginning, so this is exciting for us. Having had several other children, she knows what it takes to raise a child. She said that she knew the first time she looked at our profile that WE are the couple she wants to raise her son. After meeting us, she was even more certain. She is very committed to her adoption plan thus far, and is so eager for us to become parents. She asked that we be in the delivery room with her when the baby is born!!! We are overwhelmed at her gracious attitude towards us. We could not have picked a more sincere and sweet person!

Her decision is final, at this point. So, all we do now is wait for the phone call to tell us that she is in labor. She expects for that to happen over the next two and a half weeks, she said. (!!!!) We were instructed by the social worker to keep a bag packed with several changes of clothes, and all the baby gear (um....what baby gear? We have none of that yet! Thankfully, our church shower is this Saturday!) Because the baby will actually be born in Illinois, there is something called an interstate compact agreement which kind of delays some things, but that's okay. If you have questions about what that entails, email us. Ideally, we will be able to spend the night in the hospital while he is there. It is our birthmother's desire that we are there for the whole birth--she wants me to cut the umbilical cord!!--and for us to care for the baby in the hospital. We will get to do the feedings and everything! This is just overwhelming to me...I may never get to give birth or do all of these things myself, so when she said that she wants us to have as much of the birth experience as possible, it just blessed me SO much. Again...can you tell how gracious she is?!

She brought a gift for us.
In a musical frame that played a fun song was this:

She had also enclosed a sweet little card about us becoming parents. Really...could she BE any nicer?!?! :) It was all I could do not to cry!

I can't believe that I'm looking at a picture of "our" son!!! Now, I am a horrible sonogram reader and since this was taken late in her pregnancy, he's almost too big for the picture, but that is a profile shot of his head and his hand is up by his mouth. I keep looking at it and saying, "William, I can't see it! What am I looking at?!?!" It's funny. On the computer, I can see it much more clearly when I enlarge it. ;)

Full of excitement on our way home:

We will definitely keep you all updated! We are amazed at how the Lord is working out every single detail of this process. And how FAST it is going!!! It's too much to take in right now!! We are going to go ahead and pack a few items tonight "just in case," although I hope baby boy stays put for a little while longer. ;)

We praise God for His wonderful blessings in all of this. We ask for continued prayer. Nothing is final until the 72 hour revocation period immediately following the birth is over. It won't be until then that the baby is really "ours". We feel that our birthmom is REALLY committed to this, but you never know for certain until it's all overwith. So please pray for all of this process. Pray for a safe delivery for birthmom and baby boy.

Thanks again for praying and thinking of us. We are humbled by the love, grace, and faithfulness of the Lord.
He has done great things!!!

XOXOX,
glenna

::More News::

2008-05-17T13:03:00.003-05:00

Thanks for all your prayers and comments!!

Our meeting with the birthparents is on Monday at 1:00. We covet your prayers for this important meeting. The birthparents are "excited" about meeting us, according to the social worker. That's good, right? The birthmom went to the doctor yesterday and the due date of June 24th was given. However, because of some past history, the doctor actually expects the baby to be born in about 3 weeks!!!! Holy cow!!

And yes, they are sure it's a BOY! :)

One friend from church was a little worried that the baby would come so soon that we wouldn't have what we need. She gave this to William the other day (she's our church secretary):

Thanks, Kathy!! I love that she got the BPA free bottles--I've been complaining about the bottle companies lately! :)

Of course, I had to rip open the diapers to see how tiny they were.

I have really small hands, so this puts it in perspective! I can't believe how tiny!!

I'm working like mad to get our scrapbook done for Monday. The reason we make this is to give the birthparents a better look into our life and family. I had printed 160 pictures, but I really only have room for about 50 in the scrapbook, so it's a little hard choosing exactly the right pictures that will give an accurate reflection of who we are.

We are excited, nervous, anxious, emotional.....you name it!! We are praying for this baby boy constantly...he consumes our thoughts already. He's the last thing I think of when I fall asleep and the first thought that crosses my mind when the alarm clock goes off in the morning. Since everything is happening so fast, it's hard not to think of him as "ours" already, but we know that it's certainly not a sure thing yet, so we are trying to be cautious in our emotional attachment to him.

We have been tossing around names, but we think we have finally settled on one (we recently changed our minds, so if you thought you knew the original name we had picked out, you might be surprised!). We won't be posting his name on here until we have him home and he is ours!! Sorry to make you wait! ;) It won't be that long, Lord willing.

We are frantically trying to do what we can to be ready. Lots of reading, cleaning, getting baby's room ready, etc. We have our first shower a week from today at our church on the 24th. Our dear, sweet church is throwing us a huge bash (for everyone--not just the ladies!). We are so excited and feel so very blessed. We are going to keep the "boy" items to a minimum until we know for sure that we will have him home with us. We won't be 100% certain about the baby being ours until the birthmom terminates her rights shortly after his birth. For that reason, we are still registering for "neutral" baby clothes, if that makes sense.

We will definitely let you know about Monday's meeting, so be sure to look for an update Monday night! Again, we COVET your prayers!!!

XOXOX,
glenna

::Incredible News::

2008-05-13T20:08:00.003-05:00

Today I had my last homestudy visit with our social worker (SW)--it was my individual interview. It went really well! I really think I would like seeing a therapist or something because today I got to talk about myself and my life while our SW listened and took notes!!! Ha!

Our SW said that she had shown our profile to a birthmother who really liked us (on paper)! This was great news! She is pretty far along in her pregnancy, but that was pretty much all we knew at that point.

After the SW left, I called William to update him on how things went. He was excited!! We thought our next step was to wait and see if the birthmother was further interested in our information. So...it is a waiting game.

Then.......I got a call from our SW. She had heard from the birthmother. Both the birthmother AND birthfather want to meet us NEXT WEEK!!!!!!! The birthfather terminated his rights today, which shows they are pretty serious about their adoption plan.

And now....

(the best part)

It's

a

BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So...breathe, people!!!! Take a deep breath and continue rejoicing with us!! :)

What's next?

Well, we have to get our scrapbook done so we can take it with us when we meet the birthparents on MONDAY of next week. Then we just see how it goes. And take it from there.

This is really fast. I mean, REALLY fast.

Now, none of it is set in stone, of course, but it's exciting nonetheless.

We SERIOUSLY covet your prayers in this. The Lord has answered so many prayers up to this point, so we want to cover the rest of it in prayer. Please, please, please remember these birthparents in your prayers. While this brings us incredible joy, it may bring them incredible pain. Having both of them involved is a wonderful thing on so many different levels. So again, please cover all of us: birthmother, birthfather, William, me, social worker, and BABY BOY in your prayers.

I'm off to take some Tylenol. My head is splitting from all the overwhelming emotions! I've cried buckets and laughed and screamed with joy. We are amazed at how the Lord is working this out.

With much joy,
-glenna-

::a Mother's Day to remember::

2008-05-11T16:13:00.003-05:00

For the past five years, Mother's Day has been a painful reminder to me that we do not have children. As we waited and prayed, this holiday (while I was thankful for my mom!!) always struck a painful chord in my heart.

This year...it's different. For the first time, this day did not bring any hurt with it. Instead, my heart was full of excitement about our upcoming adoption.
::
When I woke William up this morning to get ready for church, he surprised me with my first Mother's Day gift. He pulled out a Mother's Day card and a onesie that we had registered for. He wanted to acknowledge that I am a mom-to-be and to celebrate our "paper pregnancy" as many people refer to the adoption process. It will not surprise you that I was in tears in a matter of seconds!! As I clung to my dear husband's arms, tears of hope and thankfulness streamed down my face.

I am blessed beyond belief.

If you can't tell what the onesie says, it has balloons on it and says "Party at my crib 2 a.m."

And, we'll finally reveal the nursery to you!! The walls are MUCH brighter in person; I can't figure out how to make them show up in their real color in pictures.
Thanks to my mom and dad for furnishing the crib, changing table, and rocker. And thanks to my mom-in-law Janey for buying the bedding and accessories. We LOVE you guys!!

I spend a few minutes in this room nearly every day, sitting in the rocker and praying for our baby, the birth mom, and for us as future parents. It is so wonderful to have hope for our future!! God is so faithful!

Please remember me in your prayers; my interview--which is our last home study meeting--is on Tuesday at 3 p.m. We are hoping that our social worker will show our profile after Tuesday. Thanks for all your prayers and excitement for us. It means the world to us!

XOXOX,
glenna

::We owe you an update!::

2008-05-08T22:43:00.003-05:00

William had his individual interview with the social worker on Wednesday, and it went well. They simply chatted about his childhood, discipline, and things like that. She brought some sample profiles for us to follow. And, she reiterated that she wants our profile SOON! Let me remind you--our profile is like a short biography about ourselves. There are two versions. The first shorter version fits on one typed page and contains pictures--kind of like a brochure, if that makes sense. This is what is shown to birthparents. Then, when we are chosen, the birthparents are shown a more scrapbook-like version our profile. This is several pages and has lots of pictures of us, our families, our home, our dog, etc. It gives more details of hobbies and things like that.

Anyway, we were planning on working on the shortened profile version this weekend so I could have it ready when I meet with our social worker on Tuesday. She also gave us a financial worksheet for our loan which has already been applied, so we don't have to write a large check next week like we thought we would.

Well, then there's today.

I got a call from our social worker this afternoon while we were at visitation at the funeral home (an elderly member of our church passed away; funeral is tomorrow. William is performing the ceremony, and I am playing/singing two hymns. After the burial, we have a meal at the church). The SW left a message saying she needed me to call her back ASAP. So I did. She was on her way to a meeting and didn't have long to talk, but she was excited--I could tell that! She said that she DEFINITELY had someone to show our profile to and how soon could we get it done??? I told the SW that we could get our profile done tonight and she said that would be great. She said, "I don't want to rush you, but....this is happening fast. And I really, really want to show your profile to this woman. Now, technically your process is not done until Tuesday when your homestudy is complete, but we need to get this profile done to show. It's happening fast! Take a deep breath!!"

Guys!! Are you hearing me here???!?!?!?!?

Holy cow!!

Okay, okay. I know it's not set in stone by ANY stretch of the imagination. The birthmom hasn't even seen our profile. BUT--this is a HUGE step!!!!!

We excited!!

XOXOX
~glenna~

::Registry::

2008-05-03T21:25:00.006-05:00

It might be a bit premature, but we decided to go ahead and register for baby items. We want to be well-prepared for the arrival of our little one (whenever that is!), and we have had several people graciously offer to give us baby showers. We are so humbled yet excited about this! We have also had several folks ask us about our gift registries. Well, now we have the info for you! We are registered at Target and Wal*Mart.

HERE is our Target registry.

HERE is our Wal*Mart registry.

HERE is our ToysRUs registry (we just added this online because they carried a few things we wanted).

We had a lot of fun registering. A friend of mine had given me a comprehensive list from Consumer Reports that tells us all the essential items we might need to prepare for our baby's arrival. With that in hand, we hit the stores. We really enjoyed it!

William did most of the scanning.

He got a pretty big kick out of the baby's urinal in the potty-training section.

I love the stroller set we picked out!

Now, if you go to either of our registries, the arrival date says July 26. Well...we HOPE we have a baby by then, but there is NO way to know when we will have a baby. The registries required an arrival date (which is a little unfair to adoptive parents who should also get to have the fun of registering), so we just plugged in our anniversary date for kicks. And...you'll notice that everything is gender neutral....again, we have no way of knowing if we are getting a boy or girl until we are matched and the placement takes place. When we DO find that out, we'll update our registries with some gender specific items.

But...for those of you that have been asking for a registry....there you go! We had fun!!

In adoption news, we are simply waiting for our other home study interviews to take place so we can officially go on the waiting list and wait for a match. William's interiew is this coming Wednesday (7th). My interview is the following Tuesday (13th). Hopefully, shortly after that we'll go on the waiting list...which is what we hope goes by quickly. We were able to apply for our adoption loan (the agency works with a specific bank that supplies Family First Loans), and we were approved!! So, now we will readily have the large sum of money that we need when they tell us we can come get our baby.

I guess that is all for now. I still have some work to do on the nursery before I'm ready to post pictures, so I'll still make you wait a bit. ;)

You can remember us in prayer as our church hosts Church in the Park on Sunday nights throughout the month of May. We are meeting in 4 different parks and having a gospel presentation along with free hotdogs and sodas. We are hoping to reach our community in a unique way with the gospel. Pray for hungry stomachs and souls, boldness for our people who are inviting lost folks, wisdom for William who will be giving a gospel presentation, and finally--for good weather!

Have a good week!

XOXOX

::30,000::

2008-04-26T00:02:00.004-05:00

Wow--I just checked our hit counter, and we've had 30,000 hits on our blog in less than 3 years! We feel special. :) Maybe 30,000 doesn't seem like a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it does to us!

I'm totally stealing this from Susan, but if you would, tell us who you are! I know lots of folks who read but who never comment (cough, cough....MariAnn, Lisa, & Addie!!). Let us know who's reading!!

Also, a quick adoption update. As you know, we're waiting on our next homestudy visits to take place over the next couple of weeks. Yesterday our social worker called and left me a message. I called her back when I got home from work. She said that we need to start getting our profile together (the info about us with pictures--kind of like an advertisement that is shown to birthparents who are trying to choose adoptive parents for their child). She said that she had some "possibilities" that she'd like to show our profile to soon!! WOW!!! Now, technically, she can't show our profile until our homestudy is completed and approved. But, if we can get it put together and sent to her to look over during the next week or so, she can help us edit and then get a final copy ready so that as SOON as our homestudy is approved (Lord willing) she can start showing our profile. Listen up, people! This could go FAST! (Here's hoping, anyway!)

This is SO exciting! I'm glad we're getting the nursery together. The painting is done, so I'll post pictures soon.
::
While William was camping with a bunch of guys, I went to Cape with a bunch of friends from church. We ate at Belle Italia, shopped a little, listened to extremely long and drawn out stories from Shawdi, and spent way too much time at Starbucks (well, can you ever really spend too much time there?). While we were shopping, I (well, MariAnn actually) found one of the books from our required reading list for our adoption process, so that was a great find! Here are some pictures...we had a good time, although I was highly medicated on cold medicine (which just made things a lot funnier than they actually were). I hate that I felt so bad--I've been very sick--because the night was really enjoyable. I am still (as of Saturday morning) fighting fever and congestion, but I'm glad I went last night. I love my friends!
Lisa & Addie

Shawdi & MariAnn....for some reason, this picture made us laugh and laugh. Shawdi looks like our tiny little friend! She's actually just sinking down in an oversized chair.

This one's better.

Glenna & Crystal. Please excuse my tired look. My nose was SO red! I am thankful to whomever invented tissues with Vicks Vapor infused in them....that was a great idea!

The barista offered to take this one for us. It's a little blury, but you can tell we had a good time.

William is due back from his camping trip today, but I prefer to do my camping out on the couch with my tissues, hot tea, and remote control.

Keep us in your prayers about the adoption stuff!! Thanks for sharing in our excitement!
And, let us know who you are in the comment section! :) Those 30,000 hits have to come from somewhere!

XOXOX
-glenna-

::Home Visit #1::

2008-04-21T20:18:00.005-05:00

It went very well! Thanks for praying! It was uncomplicated and laid back. We simply chatted over coffee with the social worker. We ran through a lot of the questions we'd already answered on paper but needed to discuss together. We discussed some financial options, our openness questionnaire, and our infertility history. Our social worker wanted to go ahead and do the home tour (Eek!!) but the house was clean and nice, so it was fine. I'm kind of a neat freak at times (don't laugh, Addie!), so I wasn't fully prepared for her to do her walk-through today, but it was fine. I had cleaned, but those of you who know me well know that I'd have overdone it if I'd known for certain that she was doing her walk-through today! She mostly checked things like square footage, smoke alarms, exit plans in case of emergency, etc. It was no big deal. She liked the nursery, which is coming right along. My parents were here over the weekend and mom helped me pick out paint colors. We will post pictures later...we're going to make you wait until it's all done!! ;-)

Our next step involves two more home visits which are individual interviews. William's individual interview is Wednesday, May 7, and mine is Tuesday, May 13. Between now and then, we have a reading list that our social worker provided. She complimented me on my organization and the speed at which we got our paperwork completed. Keeping that in mind, she said with a smile, "You'll have no problem getting the reading done; you both seem like overachievers to me!" She has us pegged. :-)

You can keep us in your prayers for May 7 and 13. As our social worker said today, "The hard part is done! The rest is just icing on the cake!"

She says that agency policy is to prepare to for your entire process to take 24 months from start to finish. I know that seems a lot longer than what we've told many of you, but there is no guarantee with any of this. They prepare you for a long time so that when it goes fast, it really goes fast. I mean, we need to be prepared, but it doesn't mean that this is going to happen overnight. The social worker said, "You just never know when a baby is going to be born who needs a home!!" It rarely takes 24 months, but that's just a standard timeframe they give everyone.

So, all is well. We've nothing to do now but read the books from our reading list, wait for our interviews, and work on the nursery. Nice.

As I mentioned earlier, my parents came this weekend. We went to the Dogwood Azalea Festival in Charleston. It was really cold that day, but we had fun walking and driving around looking at the old houses with their trees and flowers in bloom. Here are a couple of pictures.

Mom & Dad brought ribeyes from Charlie's Meat Market in Memphis. We grilled and ate outside. Now, those are the kind of houseguests I can handle--ones that bring their own STEAK!

Our azaleas are in full bloom! More pics to come on that later.

Gunther. So hungry for some steak. (Don't worry, he got some.)

We have a lilac tree growing in the backyard--how we lucked out with that, I have no idea! It's beautiful and smells heavenly. I made a bouquet from some of the smaller branches that I could reach. It was a nice touch in the family room for our home visit.

I guess that's it for now. Thanks again for praying for us! The visit went extremely well, and we're excited about the last two visits. We're making great progress!!

XOXOX,

~glenna~

::Home Study Meeting & Guest Room Makeover::

2008-04-15T16:10:00.003-05:00

We finally have a date!

Our first home study visit is this Monday, April 21st @ 4:00 p.m.

Keep us in your prayers!

We have been working on our guest room for months. It's been a long process and a lot of work, but we are just about through with it. Our parents can testify to how bad this room looked when we moved in.

This is a picture of the room when the previous owners lived here. NOTE: That is NOT our stuff! We do NOT own any dead animals. Also, note the ratty old carpet, the wall paper, and border. Welcome to ugly-town.

Taking down the wallpaper was a little daunting.

We left it like this for several months when we were too busy to work on it. Not pretty.

So we removed all the trimwork and molding and started priming.

Priming done.

Slapping a happy green on the walls.

Painting done!

Before you look at this next picture, remember that we had some nasty old carpet in this room. The rest of the house has wood floors (except for the addition which is tiled), so we were pretty sure there was wood underneath the carpet. We figured even if the floors were in bad shape, we had to pull them up anyway because the carpet was in such bad shape. If the floors were too rough, we'd just finish the room with new carpet. To our delight, this is what was underneath:

They're shiny because I had just cleaned them, but in up close you can tell they are not sealed, so we will be buffing them out and sealing them sometime this summer. But, we were so pleased with what was underneath the carpet. You've gotta love old houses!!

The room is a little small, so it's hard to get a good angle with the bed in it, but here is how it looks now. There's now a chest of drawers in here, too, but it's still kind of bare until we can get some pictures and curtains up. It's very cozy and cottage-like. We're proud of our hard work and are looking forward to our first guests since the makeover (Glenna's parents are coming this weekend!).

I guess that's all for now. We thought you'd enjoy seeing our transformation. What's next? We're working on the nursery. We have all of our furniture and bedding, but we've not painted yet, so when that's done we'll update with pictures.

Remember to keep us in your prayers as our first home study meeting is on MONDAY!!!

XOXOX,

glenna

::You're adopting? We don't know what to do with you!!::

2008-04-07T21:01:00.004-05:00

This is how we feel of late.

If you've been keeping up with our adoption process timeline (look to the right), you're seeing all the little details of our process being updated from time to time. So many people ask us how things are going and we get questions like, "So, when will you get a baby?" or "You're adopting? Do they have a baby for you now?" and "You just started the adoption process? Is it a boy or a girl?" After being asked these types of questions about once a day (sometimes it's many more than that), I realized that people just don't know how the adoption process works. If you're reading this and thinking, "Yeah, that's me,"--you're not alone. Most people don't know how adoption works. So, I feel it is up to me to explain it to you as we go.

The problem is that just when I feel like I have a good handle on how things are going, something comes up. I think that our homestudy is going to be "this week" and then there inevitably is "one more thing" that needs to be filled out, signed, emailed, mailed, and/or faxed before we can schedule our visit. The paperwork just seems ENDLESS, but that's just the way it goes. The good news is that we really ARE close to scheduling our first visit. The odd part of this is that we are apparently some sort of anomally to the rest of the non-adoptive world.

Case in point: the never ending endeavor to get our mandatory health screenings completed. Our family doctor went out of the country for a few weeks, so we knew it was out of the question to get into see him for our screenings (which require a check up, an HIV and TB test, and a drug screening). After a few phonecalls, I found that we could get two of our tests done at the Health Department for free (the first free thing in this whole process!). We went in last week to have those tests started (each one required a waiting period for results). I then got in touch with a director at the doctor's office to ask about the rest of our screening. After 3 days of phone tag, I finally reached nursing director on Tuesday and had her set up appointments for last Thursday to get our screenings completed. She also said that our drug screenings could be done that same day. Fast forward to Thursday. We show up for our appointments only to find out that the nursing director and I had our wires crossed. She made the appointments for THIS Thursday. We quickly rescheduled for whatever was quickest, which made our appointments for today. We showed up for our new appointments, met the new doctor, and had him fill out our screenings. He wasn't real sure what all to do with us ("you guys are adopting? wow!"), but he did a quick physical for each of us. We were sent to the lower level of the building to get our drug screenings. When we got there, they weren't sure what to do with us since we weren't getting drug tests for our employers. "Yeah, we got a call that you were coming. You're adopting, right?" We were sent back up to the receptionist for paperwork and prepayment. Then we were sent back downstairs to the drug screening department. We had our drug tests done (and that's all I'm going to say about that!) and were told to come back tomorrow for our results. When we told the man running the test that we were adopting, he said, "I've known people who adopted, but I've never done a drug test for them!" Yeah, I figured that when he didn't know what to do with the papers normally meant for an employer. We were then sent back upstairs to the insurance department. The lady there just blinked when we said we were sent to her but didn't know why. She checked our account and with a blank look on her face said there was nothing for us to do. We left feeling completely confused. At every stop, we had to tell people we were adopting because no one seemed to understand why we were there. Apparently everyone had received a call that we were coming for adoption clearance appointments, but no one knew how to handle us.

It was weird.

After all of that (and it you're confused, welcome to the club), I got a call from the social worker who said we were "really close" to scheduling our homestudy visit, but she needed a few more forms from us as well as all those medical forms (which are now coming from THREE different offices instead of one), a list of all our employers for the last 5 years. More paperwork. (Sigh.) So tomorrow I get to run around picking up medical forms and hoping they are actually completed and filled out by the medical personnel. Then it's off to fax a slew of paperwork to the social worker and to find out when she and I can meet to make a document exchange (that must be done in person), and THEN maybe...just maybe...maybe....we can schedule our first homestudy visit to happen in the near future.

I guess this is what we get for cramming a year-long process into 3 months time.

To make things seem a little more worth it, the glider rocker and ottoman we ordered came today. Of course we are too busy to put it together at the moment, but at least it's here.

I am tired.

I know it's worth it, I know it. It's just.....a lot. Too much paperwork. Too many forms. Too many sign here's and fill out that. Too many little trees dying so we can prove we are not bad people in hopes that someone will think we're worthy of being parents.

So, did I make any of this any clearer to you? I think I managed to make it all a bit more muddied.

At any rate, it's helped me to share with you a bit of what's going on with us right now. It seems that every afternoon after school I'm running errands and getting forms and documents ready to go, checking things off a list that seems to be growing instead of shrinking. Every night we stand over the crib, both of us gripping the railing and each other, praying for the tiny body that will occupy this room we now refer to as "the nursery." Every night I drop into bed and think about this little person who will make it all so much MORE than worth it.

We're almost parents.

XOXOX
-glenna-

::concert::

2008-04-05T21:15:00.007-05:00

We went with a bunch of people from church to Dyersburg last night to see the Caedmon's Call concert. It was a GREAT Caedmon's concert with several solo songs sung by Derek Webb and Andy Osenga. It's been a while since we've seen any live music; we really enjoyed ourselves.

That's Cliff Young & Derek Webb.

Here's the end of "Thankful," one of our favorite old CC songs. (You'll have to go to the bottom of our page and stop the music player in order to listen to the end of this clip.)

We were buying T-shirts (like every good fan) when we saw this. It couldn't be more accurate.

We really enjoyed our night with our church friends! We also bumped into LOTS of old friends from Jackson and Cornerstone. It was a nice night out.

XOXOX,
glenna

::Congrats to the O'Neals::

2008-04-04T10:25:00.003-05:00

We are excited for our friends, Michael & Carrie, who are celebrating their adoption today! They have been in Russia for the past ten days and are finally welcoming their son into their family. We are happy for them! Carrie has been a huge encouragement to me throughout our adoption process. Check out their blog! It has been encouraging and interesting to watch their international adoption process unfold. We are happy that their empty arms are now filled with a wonderful new son!

-glenna-

::Timeline Added::

2008-03-27T14:50:00.003-05:00

Hi friends.

Just wanted to let you know that I've added a timeline to the righthand sidebar of this page (beneath the "friends" section) to keep you posted on how our adoption process is going. I know some people have no idea what all is involved in the process (we had no idea until we started it!), so this is a way to let you know all that we have to do to complete our process. My mom calls it all "labor pains." ;)

If you haven't read the previous post, please do so. :)

XOXOX,
-glenna-

::furniture & paperwork::

2008-03-24T21:10:00.005-05:00

This is me. I am on essay question number 20 of 48. My brain is fried.

I took a break so I could watch my husband do this:

Two hours later, we have this:

We are excited and proud!

Then, we worked together to put the changing table together.

**The walls will eventually be painted GREEN. We think it's best to go neutral since we won't know for a long time what we're getting. Even when we find out, things could fall through, so it's best to do the room in neutral colors.

We are tired, but happy. There is still a MOUNTAIN of paperwork to do, but we're getting there, question by question. Our criminal background checks have been sent, our fingerprinting appointment is on Thursday, and I have the rest of the week to finish my questions. William has 48 to answer, as well. :)

Sorry we look rough. We both have colds and this is at the end of long day.

Finally...something tangible to remind us that this is real.

(Can't wait to order the matching glider and ottoman!)

XOXOX,

glenna

::weird weather & an adoption post::

2008-03-13T21:39:00.006-05:00

So, this time last week it was snowing. In fact, it snowed all day on Friday of last week and we ended up with this:

Here are some picture while the beautiful snow was coming down. We LOVE to walk when it's snowing. We weren't prepared for how much it stung when you were walking against the wind and snow! The snow all over us is not from making snow angels; it's simply from walking down the street and back!!

Drifting against the back door. It was MUCH deeper by the next morning.

I think we ended up with about 5 inches. It was BEAUTIFUL!!

Today, however, it was 75 degrees. Weird, weird, weird. That's all I have to say about that.

:::

We received a VERY generous gift from my (glenna) parents. They are furnishing the future nursery with baby furniture! This makes it ALL seem really REAL and tangible! It was a blessing in many ways, but especially since I have been feeling down lately about all of this. I just give in to fear and doubt a lot and I tend to lose hope easily. Having others affirm what is going on in our life has helped me to hold on to hope and to realize that God really IS doing something here! He is opening doors right and left. My grandmother called to tell me she was sending us a generous gift for our fund so she can help get her great-grandbaby here! Some other gifts for our fund have arrived (you know who you are!) and have really encouraged us. THEN, our social worker called today to schedule our homestudy! WOW! It's now happening so fast! We're planning on our first homestudy interview (1 of 3) to take place in less than 2 weeks. We're really excited. It has been the boost I've needed to stay (cautiously) excited. We're going to Cape this weekend to order the crib, changing table, and glider rocker/ottoman.
It's weird to be doing this kind of stuff because we have nothing to show for it--no pregnant belly or newborn baby in tow. Just hope and faith.

We continue to covet your prayers in all of this. It is not without it's emotional ups and downs. Infertility is still a very real and painful part of our life. But, we are pressing on because the Lord is gracious.

Blessings, all.

XOXOX,
glenna

EDIT: Did we lose all of our readers?? Come on, people! Show us a little love! :)

::formal paperwork DONE::

2008-03-07T16:29:00.004-06:00

We have just finished and submitted our first round of formal paperwork! Now it's on to background checks and reference letters!!

There was a moment today where I was a little exasperated by the whole thing. I was laying on the floor with a tape measure trying to figure out the square footage of each bedroom for our application. I thought, "I can't believe I have to do THIS to have a baby!!" It was a slightly ridiculous feeling. Maybe it wouldn't be so odd if I laid on the floor more often. Oh well.

All of this just ups the excitement factor for us!! We're really IN this!

And yes, the snow is INSANE here!! We love it! Pictures to come (blogger is acting up).

Stay warm!

XOXOX,
glenna

::quick update::

2008-03-06T21:57:00.002-06:00

We are in the midst of our formal paperwork. Our agency has set it up in such a way that we fill out the bulk of it online which is terribly convenient since we are both on computers much of the time. I am not sure how much there is, but we're working through it.

I hope we'll get to post pictures this weekend since we're expecting a LOT of snow! We'll see.

As always, thanks for your prayers. Keep praying for us and for the little one who will be coming home with us in the future.

I'm still updating my infertility blog from time to time. Pursuing adoption has not stopped me from writing! :-)

Love to you all.

XOXOX,
glenna

first meeting

2008-03-02T16:22:00.004-06:00

We met our social worker for the first time on Friday and got our required informational meeting out of the way. Normally, our info meeting would take place at the agency or another public place with lots of other potentially adoptive parents, but since our social worker lives near us, she decided to come to our house to give us a one-on-one presentation. Let me tell you, I could not have hand-picked a better person to work with through this adoption process!! She has the perfect temperament for her job--soft spoken, organized, gentle, genuine, encouraging, straightforward...she has a de-stressing personality, which is SO great for walking with us through our adoption process. And, she's a believer (which is not a surprise since our agency is a "Christian" agency, but still it is a blessing to have a genuine believer to work with!). We walked through the process and we got to ask all of our questions. She gave us loads of info without "overloading" us, if that makes sense. Instead of feeling overwhelmed about it all, we just feel...ready! And excited!! She will be mailing our formal paperwork in the next couple of days, and then we'll begin filling it out. She said she could get our homestudy done in three visits, and she likes to do them all pretty closely together and to get them out of the way. She has a very "on top of things" demeanor about her. Nothing has lapsed in our process thus far, and I have a feeling nothing will in the future. The night before, I was cleaning the house like a fiend and baking cookies at 10pm! William laughed at me and said, "you made cookies for our meeting?!" I said, "Well, this lady is going to give us a baby!! The least I can do is serve cookies and coffee!"

Some things we found out about that we really didn't know about: tax credit. Well, we knew we'd get one next year when we file our taxes (assuming that our adoption takes place this year), but we didn't know it could be such a large number! That will go straight into the bank for our next adoption. Then our state government will give us a subsidy since we are doing the minority infant program. They'll reimburse us for a good bit of the legal fees. Craziness! Who knew the Missouri state government was so generous toward adoptive families??

There was lots of other information, but basically our next step is paperwork and then our homestudy which should happen in the foreseeable future. We were so encouraged by all of it. Several people have said to me, "Well, now you're 'paper pregnant!' " I guess in some ways it IS like waiting for our baby through pregnancy--we know we're going to end up with a child (Lord willing), but we do have to wait and prepare. I'm just hoping we don't have to wait 9 full months. :-)

Thanks to those of you who were praying for us on Friday!! We're excited about how it's all going. We'll update on our process later as we get more into our paperwork and move on towards our homestudy. We are also encouraged that the Lord is providing exactly what we need when we need it, financially speaking. His grace is truly sufficient, and has been shown to us in the most unexpected ways.

For now, we are enjoying the beautiful 65 degree weather! The nights have been cool, so we've enjoyed sitting out on our patio around our fire pit. We plan on continuing to enjoy it...that is, until we get the big snow we are expected to get on Tuesday! What crazy weather!!

Blessings, friends & family!

-glenna-

Oh, Baby!

2008-02-22T18:07:00.003-06:00

We are already in baby mode. Premature? Maybe, but keep reading!

We were supposed to have a meeting with our social worker today, but unfortunately, another ice storm (2 in 2 weeks!) prevented that meeting from happening. But, our SW interviewed me on the phone for a while. We talked about a lot of things that have influenced our desire to adopt. She was pleased that we seemed to be at peace with our infertility and were ready to push forward with adoption. We can really only give credit to the Lord for giving us such peace in this area. I asked her about a timeline. How long can we expect to wait after our homestudy (a series of interviews in our home) is completed and our profile is submitted? Of course there is no guarantee, no set time frame, but the last family she worked with began their process in October and already has their baby at home! I know each process is different, but that was all I needed to officially feel like I'm allowed to be in baby mode! This is exciting because it means we just might have a baby by summer!! I know that would be really fast, but it is a possibility. How exciting is that?!?!

We're discussing nursery themes and looking at baby furniture--it all seems so unreal! After wanting to dream about all of this for so long, I still catch myself thinking, "Can this be real? Are we really going to parents?"

As I asked in a previous post, we still ask for your prayers for the financial side of adoption (that God would supply as we need to get through the process), for the birthparents who will be sacrificially giving us their baby, and for the precious one that God has chosen for us. I get so excited that I forget at times that it will be hard for the ones who will be choosing a family for a baby they will not raise. Please pray for the birthparents whose child will become our own. In the back of my mind I worry about adoption loss; it frightens me away from hope, but I am praying that God would free me from that so that I can trust His plan for our family. I covet your prayers in that area, too.

More updates to come! Our meeting was rescheduled for next Friday, so hopefully we'll have more information to share after that. In the mean time we are giving our guest room a major facelift. I've spent the last two days painting. When we finish it, we will move upstairs to the nursery!! It thrills me to even write that! I'm sure you're having no problem picking up on my excitement. I cannot help myself! Pictures of the redecorated guest room coming soon.

We are going to be parents, Lord willing! At long last.

XOXOX,
-glenna-

Valentine's Day & Our Adoption Fund Update

2008-02-16T14:31:00.007-06:00

We celebrated Valentine's Day twice! First, I (glenna) made a Mediterranean meal on Thursday night. I've always wanted to try making more ethnic food, but the few attempts I've made have failed miserably. It's been well over two years since I've even tried! However, armed with some new recipes and two more years' experience in the kitchen than I had the last time I tried, I scored one for the team this week. I made a turkey version of the falafel that we love so much. I realize that a falafel is made of deepfried chickpeas, but that is just not easy to make nor is it good for you. So, I followed a recipe, and was ecstatic that it tasted nearly the same as the original. We also had hummus with homemade pita chips, and an aromatic basmati rice that I am proud to say turned out quite well. Some sparkling white grape juice and chocolate dipped strawberries ended our meal.

Here's a picture of our dinner:

My Valentine. :)

We also received a gift certificate to Ray's from some church members at Christmas. We've been saving it for Valentine's Day, so we used it last night.

The food was fantastic!

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We told you in our last couple of posts that our church has decided to help us fund our adoption. We were able to open an account at the bank yesterday so that we can start using the money as it is raised throughout the adoption process. We were supposed to meet with our social worker this week, but the ice storm prevented that meeting. We are hoping to meet her next week and get our preliminary paperwork to her so we can then begin and submit formal paperwork. We have to raise quite a lot of money, so we COVET your prayers that the Lord would provide the funds. I know some of you have had specific questions about our process, so please feel free to email me at glennadmarshall@hotmail.com.

We were strolling through Target last night looking for a baby gift for a friend, and for once, we let ourselves look at all the baby "stuff" with hope. Four years of infertility have taken their toll on us; it has always hurt a bit to buy baby gifts for friends. But, last night we excitedly examined clothing and furniture, bottles and carseats. I keep thinking, "Am I allowed to even be thinking about all of this? Are we allowed to look at baby things even though we're not expecting?" I think we can! It's so exciting to think that we could become parents this year, Lord willing.

Please continue praying!

And lastly, one last picture of the ice storm from last week (click to enlarge so you can get the full effect) :

XOXOXO,

-glenna-

Ice!!

2008-02-12T09:44:00.001-06:00

Classes were dismissed early at my school yesterday because sleet was coming down in sheets. It then turned to rain, but the freezing temps left us with this:

Needless to say, I'm enjoying another "snow day" at home. :) The roads seem to be okay, so we're not homebound, but with all of the trees full of ice, we have to be careful. This morning I heard what sounded like a gunshot and then a smashing sound. Part of my neighbor's tree crashed in their yard and fell partially on their house. Surprisingly, though, we have kept our electricity even though the powerlines are heavy with ice.

A few weeks ago I was mourning because we had not had any snow days, but here I am on my 4th one in three weeks!! :)

-glenna-

Union University Pictures & Adoption Update

2008-02-07T21:11:00.001-06:00

THIS is the best compilation of pictures of the damage at Union following the tornado Tuesday night.

I'm so proud of my folks who are going to be housing two students for the semester. I wish I could do something, but we live in another state, so that wouldn't work. Having my parents house students is the next best thing. :)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

On the adoption front: We have chosen our agency and are moving forward with the preliminary paperwork. Our agency has JUST opened a branch thirty minutes from our house, which we were thrilled to find! We've already spoken with our social worker and are supposed to meet with her next week.
Then, we were BLESSED beyond belief to be told by our sweet church that they wanted to pitch in together and fund our entire adoption!!!! Can you believe it?!??!?!? We are SO humbled and feel SO very loved by God's people. It seems as though the Lord is opening every door thus far! We are still awestruck about the financial provision. God has blessed us beyond our imaginations. We are SO thankful! What a wonderful God we serve!

As things get rolling more quickly, we'll give more details about how the process is going. But, I keep looking at William and saying, "We REALLY are doing this!!!" We are so very excited!
We ask for prayer now that the Lord would aid our church in funding our adoption. We also ask that you begin praying for our baby (wow, it feels strange to write that!), the little one that the Lord will place in our care. Pray, too, for the birthparents who will sacrificially place the baby in our empty arms. We pray that God will move this process swiftly and easily so that we can become the parents we long to be. But, may He be glorified in ALL things first.

More to come later...

XOXOXO,
-glenna-

(P.S. Sorry about the constantly changing layouts. I can't find anything I like.)

Pray for Union University

2008-02-06T12:00:00.000-06:00

The storms are gone, but they left so much damage in their wake.

For many more photos that show the extensive damage, please visit Jeremy's site.

Union Emergency Website

We are fine here in Missouri; thanks to those of you who have checked on us.

Newsreports can be found at http://www.wbbj.com/ and http://www.uu.edu/.

We are so thankful that not one Union student was killed in this storm, which is amazing considering that 1,300 students lived on campus and survived the tornado. Several students were trapped under collapsed buildings, but thankfully they were all rescued by midnight last night.

If anyone knows of any other places to get updates, please let me know. I have a friend who is supposed to send me some pictures of the damage at Union, so I should be able to post those later.

-glenna-

Decisions, decisions! (And a winter wonderland! edited Friday)

2008-01-31T18:22:00.000-06:00

Well, folks, we have decided to embark on our adoption journey! It has been a long time coming, but we are finally headed down that path. For a longer explanation of why we are headed that way, please read this. We are so excited to finally be on our way, but now we are overwhelmed with decisions!! Who knew there were SO many agencies out there? And who knew adoption was SO expensive?? Wow! Again, we are a bit overwhelmed!

We are going to try to make a decision this weekend about our agency, so we covet your prayers! There are pros and cons to all of the "top three finalists", so now we are just trying to weigh factors that will influence our decision.
As we begin the process of growing our family through adoption, we long for you to join us in prayer. Please begin praying NOW for the child that we adopt, Lord willing. It is overwhelming to think about WHO this little one is that will one day join our family! Isn't it amazing to consider that we could be parents THIS year???!?!!!
Also, please pray for the financial side of adoption. It can be very expensive and it's hard not to let that factor leak fear into the equation. We believe that if adoption is the way God has chosen to bless our family, then He will provide what we need to welcome our child(ren) into our family. We praise God for this opportunity to add to our family! We are just SO excited, which is a welcome change from the heartache that infertility has brought. But, we can see even now that God is using infertility for good in our life. We praise Him for His wisdom and grace, even in His "no" to our request for biological children.
We will keep you updated on our decision making process. Thank you for praying for us!!

In other news, on Thursday, schools let out early because of the snow and sleet that covered the area. We knew were supposed to get more, but nothing happened all day yesterday. I (glenna) was desperate for a snow day--we never get them here! There are no hills, so driving is not so treacherous. The schools rarely close for snow. When I woke up this (Friday) morning, I woke up to this:

(Gunther says "bark!" by the way!)
We have about 3 inches of snow with some ice mixed in which IS a cause for schools to be cancelled! I was so happy to crawl back into bed! :) William brought his books home yesterday, so even though we're only a mile from the church, he is working from home today with me!! I feel like a kid again, being so excited about a snow day!

xoxoxo,

-William & Glenna-

Keep Praying for the Mathenia & Donovan Families

2008-01-30T14:34:00.000-06:00

For an update on how Anthony Mathenia and his children are doing, visit his blog.

Please continue to keep this family in your prayers

Amber Mathenia

2008-01-24T18:48:00.000-06:00

We are so saddened to hear of the death of Amber Mathenia, a college friend. She was killed in a car accident Tuesday. Some of you knew Amber and her husband Anothony. I had received a few emails from Amber over the past year as we shared our struggles of infertility. Amber had given me much valuable insight into adoption and learning to trust the Lord in the midst of infertility. Amber and Anthony had adopted a 3 year old, Ellie, from Ethipia where they were missionaries. The recently adopted their son, Isaac.

We cannot claim to understand the Lord's ways. But, we know that He is good, even in taking Amber home to be with Him. We can rejoice knowing that Amber is with our Savior, but we grieve with Anthony, their children, and family.

You can visit the Mathenia's blog to see funeral arrangements.

Please keep this family in your prayers.

Big Day!

2008-01-22T19:59:00.001-06:00

Wednesday is a big day for us!
At long last, we have an appointment with an infertility specialist. We are hoping to come away with some options, one of which we hope to be agreeable enough for us to move forward with some treatment/procedures.

We ask that you pray for us for a couple of things:
1. Pray that we will "click" with Dr. W. With any illness, a doctor-patient relationship would be important. For a delicate issue such as infertility, compassion and knowledge need to go hand in hand.
2. Pray for our actual treatment options. We have concerns with some Advanced Reproductive Technology, so we want to make sure we're not tempted tocross any lines that we have set beforehand simply because are desperate for children.
3. Pray for MUCH wisdom! We just don't know what is best, and although we should have a better handle on things after tomorrow, we still want to make a right decision.
4. Pray for safe travels.
5. Pray that Christ would be glorified in whatever happens and that we would be content with that above all else.

Thank you for praying for us. We appreciate you all. For more updates on our status with our infertility treatments, feel free to visit Glenna's site.

Blessings,
William & Glenna

Guess who came to visit me today?

2008-01-18T16:41:00.000-06:00

Janie and Dillon came to spend the afternoon with me since I was out of school. Dillon is already 5 1/2 weeks old and I met him for the first time today. He is precious!! Such a good baby, and Janie is so good with him.

He has amazing head control to be so young! I was impressed. Ben and Janie are doing so well with him. I know they are great parents!

Dillon and Aunt G.

Janie and I have been "bestest" friends for almost eleven years now. It is so fun to see her in this new role. Still friends! :) Dillon barely made it into this picture.

Thanks for coming, Jane! It made my day! I miss you already!!

Happy New Year!

2008-01-01T20:58:00.000-06:00

We celebrated last evening by having an open house last night for our church. We had a pretty good turnout, even though there were a few families out with illnesses and a couple of families traveling for the holidays. We scrambled around all day working hard on getting the house ready and preparing food. I only took a handful of pictures, so there is not a good representation of who all was there, but we had a great time! No one lasted until midnight, though. Everyone was gone by eleven. :)

Mulled cider keeping warm on the stove. It was a cold night!

The littles kept busy playing Nintendo DS all night.

Elaina had a good time--she was geared up for midnight after a quick nap. ;)

Thanks to our family, we got a fire pit and a swing for Christmas. Our patio is now a place we really want to spend time. But, I think it's supposed to get down to 14 degrees tonight, so it won't be anytime soon!

And since we're leaving behind 2007 and moving on to the new year, it's out with the old....

....and in with the new.

We're thankful for a new, functioning laptop. The other one was definitely on its last leg. It was several years old (7 years I think?), slow, had very little memory to begin with, and the hinges were broken so it wouldn't close and had to be propped up against something to be used, which is not convenient since the whole point of a laptop is to be able to use it anywhere.

Earlier today we were talking about what we were looking forward to this year. There are a few conferences William will be attending this winter and spring that he is really looking forward to. (I'll try to get him to post his responses to those when he returns from them.) We have some home renovations we'd like to work on this year. Our 5th anniversary is in July, and we're thinking about taking a trip to celebrate. Off the top of our heads, those are some things we're looking forward to for 2008. There are lots of things we'd like to do differently, as far as "resolutions" go. I don't think we'll formally be making any resolutions, but it is nice to think that we have a fresh start on things, isn't it?

One thing we are looking forward to this month is a doctor's appointment in St. Louis at an infertility clinic. You can be praying for us over the next few weeks. As with every year, we hope this one will be the one where we become parents. It's hard to believe nearly 4 years have passed since we began trying to start a family. This is definitely not how we planned on this going, but we trust right now that God's "no" is for our best and for His glory. He has already used infertility in our ministry, and I'm sure He will continue to do so. However, we'll be happy to let it go and to welcome children with open arms, should He deem that best. As always, we covet your prayers.

We pray also that we will seek to honor Christ in our ministry at TBC and that He will continue to draw our church family closer together as He has been doing recently. We are seeing such real love for one another and joy in fellowship. It has been so refreshing. We dearly love our church family! What a blessing they have been to us this Christmas season.

Well...the hour is getting late and I have to go back to work tomorrow! Back to the daily grind, I guess. But after traveling and being so busy, we are both kind of ready for routine again. We wish you all a Happy New Year! Don't be a stranger--come see us soon! We love company! If you haven't seen our Christmas pictures, they are in the post below this one.
Have a good first week in 2008!

-glenna-

What are you doing New Year's Eve?

2007-12-29T22:15:00.000-06:00

We will be having a party, er...um, "fellowship" for the church at our house. If you happen to be in the neighborhood, feel free to stop by. Really. There is a tasty menu of hors d'oeuvres being served. (Yes, I had to look up the spelling of hors d'oeuvres. It sounds better than appetizers.)

Our Christmas travels were wonderful, but somewhat of a blur. It all happened so quickly. We spent 3 days and nights in Clarksville, TN, a quick day in Dover, TN, back to Sikeston for church on the 23rd, to Bolivar and Jackson, TN on Monday and Tuesday, and then back to Dover from Tuesday until Thursday. Is that not ridiculous? If the Lord grants us children, we will SO be using them as a reason to have people come to US!

Seriously, though, we had a good time with family.

Here is an insane number of pictures from our Christmas. Sorry for all the red-eye. We've got a new computer and I don't have any photo editing software on it yet (Any free photo editing software you'd recommend? [free being the operative word]).

While in Clarksville with Dad and Donna, we had the pleasure of spending time with Freddy T and Susan and little Jack. It's fun to spend time with blog friends in real life. :)

William and Freddy T talking "church".

Susan, Glenna, & Janya

Donna & Jack

Dad & Donna's tree

Our Christmas tradition, albeit strange, is to go to Hananoki Japanese Steakhouse for dinner. It's such a fun night of yummy food!

Aunt Charlotte & Janya

William caught me making a face while surveying Janya's sushi. One look was enough. Click to enlarge (at your own risk).

Opening gifts at Dad & Donna's

I'm very proud of my Rachael Ray anodized non-stick skillet and Starbucks French Press!

William is very excited about the fire pit. He's already burned a fire in it. We're looking forward to some cool evenings on our patio with the fire going.

We may seem like cheapo's buying Dad popcorn and sorhgum, but that is what he asked for!!

Janya got a freakishly real-looking dog. Seriously, her dog looks just like this.

And now, moving on to Christmas in Dover...

The big Marshall family Christmas...lots of extended family, lots of presents, lots of food.

Christmas with Mom..

A box of goodies for me.

Recording equipment for William. He's gonna make me a star! (ha!)

You can't really see this well, but I HAD to include this. This is stationery made out of recycled elephant poo. I'm not joking. It was given to me from my lovely sister-in-law Janya. She works at the Knoxville Zoo which makes the gift make sense. We laughed and laughed about this gift. It's odorless, of course, and you can see how it's made at http://www.poopoopaper.com/ (that's a big risk, if you ask me!). But, even after all the laughter, Janya, I just can't get over the fact that you gave me poo for Christmas!!

Christmas in Bolivar...

Grandmother always does a red tree. I think it's pretty.

Sisters.

Silly.

The littles are too cute.

My cousin Aaron giving me his serious look.

William & Josh

One of my favorite pictures ever. (my niece Avery and my Dad)

Mom & me

Lauren & Grandmother

Somebody's been good this year!!

My sister, Lauren, is an artist, so of course her gift wrapping skills exceed us all! We were impressed!

The littles got beta fish from Grandmother for Christmas. They were promptly named Max and Alexander. But Alexander's a girl. Even though beta fish are always male. Don't mix that up.

I can't stand all the cuteness!!

William and Tim drew each other's names for gifts and gave each other Tennessee sweatshirts without knowing it.

Mom & Jimmy

Christmas in Jackson...
William's floating detached head. Seriously...his head looks detached from his body. It's funny to me.

There's something very wrong with this picture, Daddy. :)

Mom always fixes a huge breakfast on Christmas morning. It's always so good!

Avery by Mom and Dad's tree

Lauren surprised Josh with an xBox for Christmas. He was really surprised and really excited!

Avery's favorite gift was an Easy Bake Oven. I had one of those when I was little. They have vastly improved since then, though. Avery made us some very tasty little cookies.

This was one gift I really liked: a complete set of Jane Austen novels. I think there are seven novels included in this 4 book set. Can't wait to get started!

Well, I wish that was all I had to say about our Christmas vacation, but alas, it's not. A particular cousin of mine, who shall remain nameless, was recuperating from a stomach bug on Christmas Eve. We sanitized everything and were really careful, but two days after Christmas while still at my mother-in-law's, I woke up SICK. A nasty stomach bug and fever hit me for two long days. I found out that it also hit my mom, my brother and sister-in-law, and my niece. We hope it ends there!!

Aside from that we really enjoyed out travels, although we admit we are glad to be home. I am enjoying a couple of days off before school starts again on Wednesday. And of course, we are planning our New Year's Eve party. Stay tuned for pictures from that night.

Have a wonderful day worshiping our Lord!

-glenna-

P.S., Truly we would be happy to see anyone who wants to crash our party (and by "anyone", we do mean people we actually know). We'll enjoy bringing in 2008, but after 12:01 a.m., we will be kicking you out. :) We plan on sleeping in.