Minutes to Memories

Here is the email I sent to my church family yesterday afternoon updating Danielle & Shawn's situation:

I spent a few hours with Shawn & Danielle and Angie & Carol this morning at the USA Women & Children's Hospital in Mobile. They have great facilities and GREAT doctors there, so Danielle and the baby are receiving top notch medical care.

Danielle is only at 24 weeks, so this is a challenging situation. She wasn't due until February 28. But there's reason for hope. As one of her doctors said this morning, just "keep the faith."

The baby weighs 1 pound, 7 ounces right now, so he needs to do some more growing. They have given Danielle medicines, etc. to prevent infection and to try to keep her from going into labor. It is really a waiting game on the baby according to her main doctor over there - he could decide to come any time, or he could just be content to keep on growing in his momma's tummy for a long time.

They told Danielle that they would take the baby at 32 weeks if he hasn't come by then (just after New Year's), so it could be up to eight weeks of bed rest at the hospital in Mobile.

The family was quite emotional this morning, but by the time I left Danielle was laughing and telling me stories about Ethan and their dog and just carrying on a normal conversation. It seemed to me that they were just being able to catch their first collective breath. Now they are just needing to take things one day at a time and wait on the baby to make up his mind when he's coming.

So...

Keep praying for this family. Things could be much worse, but they could have been much better, too. Let's pray that that baby takes his time and grows some more "inside" for the next several weeks, and that the talented medical staff in Mobile keeps performing the healing ministry that they've been called by God to do.

Yours to count on,
Al