Life can sure come at you fast sometimes. We are so thankful to God for watching over our sweet new granddaughter and her Mommy. Abijah (A-bi-jah, think Elijah with an “Ab” instead of an “El”) Linn Priest was born Thursday at 1:47 pm, weighing in at 6 lbs. 11 oz. and stretching 19 ½ “ long. Her name is found in several places in the Bible and can be a male or female name. Abijah was the daughter of Zechariah and the mother of Hezekiah. Her name means “My father is Jehovah”. She is, of course, beautiful!! Her mommy has had a really rough time the last several weeks. Two weeks before her birth, Ashlee began having contractions and continued to have them the whole time. Four different times they became so hard and so regular that the doctor had them go to the hospital to be monitored and receive medication to stop the contractions so the baby could grow and develop a little more. There has been some uncertainty about her due date, but the doctor had concluded July 8th from her ultra-sound. The contractions never stopped. By last Thursday, June 28th, there was no delaying any longer! We were all so happy for Ashlee because it had been a very rough and painful two weeks leading up to this moment. At the hospital, they gave her a spinal block and began preparing her for her C-section. After a little while they discovered the spinal had not taken so they gave her another one, waited for a few moments and then headed for the delivery room. At first, everything appeared fine so they were ready to proceed, but that is when the problems began. Ashlee felt some discomfort with the first incision but wasn’t sure what was happening. It wasn’t until they made the second deeper incision and she screamed that they realized the second spinal had not worked either and she was feeling everything!!!! At that point they put medicine into her IV to knock her out and hurried Michael out of the delivery room. During the delivery, Abijah swallowed some amniotic fluid so she has been in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit ever since. One nurse referred to Abijah’s problems as “wet lung” syndrome which is apparently a common problem for C-section babies and something I read said even more so if the mother had been in labor before the C-section. Two weeks of labor prior to the C-section probably made this unavoidable. It was a good thing that they had taken Abijah this week. She was bruised across the top of her forehead and under one eye, and all down her back from the constant contractions Ashlee had been having. I can’t imagine how much more she would have been bruised if they had waited another week. Ashlee is recovering at home now, but without her sweet baby in her arms as Abijah remains in NICU on oxygen, a feeding tube, and under the light for jaundice. Please pray for our sweet Abijah to grow stronger quickly. Please pray for our precious daughter-in-law, Ashlee, as she struggles with aching empty arms that long to snuggle and cuddle her precious daughter. Please pray for our precious son Michael as he also longs to hold and cuddle his precious daughter and watches his wife’s pain and disappointment through something he can’t fix. Please pray for big sister, Ethne, who even though she is only 17 months old, knows that something really big is going on!