What's in a name?

As some of you may know, a couple of weeks ago, Clancey's mom had a stroke. She had a mini stroke a few months earlier that she was able to recover from pretty quickly. Unfortunately, her second stroke has been a lot harder on Linda. She is still in the hospital recovering. As of now, she is paralyzed on her right side. She is still all there, but has a hard time talking or moving her body. Her mind is not able to tell her body what to do.

Clancey went to see her last weekend. Our good friend was able to drive out there with him to allow her to see him. It was good for Clancey to spend time with her and also be there for his dad.

The good thing is she is not getting any worse. Slowly improving. She only says a few words at a time. It takes a lot out of her. We are so grateful for all of your prayers. With all of that in mind, now I can tell you the name we decided to choose for our baby girl coming any day!

We had narrowed it down to a few names. Clancey and I decided on a name but were planning to keep it a secret til the baby was born. But.... we've now decided to let everyone know after hearing the following...

Clancey had spoken to a good friend out in Sacramento who had recently spent time with Linda. While they were at the hospital with a few other close friends, the topic of our blog and the results of the baby-name voting was brought up. Without her knowing what the name would be for sure, Linda, who was recovering from a recent surgery and was not very lucid at the time, uttered the name Emma.....

It was definitely an exciting thing for us to hear since that was the name we had decided on, without anyone knowing. We know now more than ever, that this baby is to be named Emma. We decided a few weeks ago to name her Emma Sue Dollard. (Sue is Linda's middle name). And how perfect to have her middle name after her grandmother who had uttered her name before even coming to the earth.