Imagine your water breaking one morning in your 20th week and going to the midwife who tells you it was only incontinence.

Imagine the moment when they finally realize that your water has broken and you are told that your baby will most certainly die.

Imagine spending 7 terrifying weeks not knowing whether you should plan for a funeral or a lengthy hospital stay.

Imagine when the contractions start at 26 weeks you scramble to find sitters for your other 4 children and kiss them goodbye, telling them you don't know when you'll see them again.

Imagine being flown 4.5 hours from your home later that night, away from your children, and everyone you know.

Imagine the joy you feel when a doctor finally tells you your child only has a 50% chance of having pulmonary hypoplasia, and you cry because that means your child has a 50% chance to fight for it's life.

Imagine your husband staying by your side for a week in the strange hospital, sleeping on the floor, and finally returning home, only to go into labor the next day and have him miss the birth.

Imagine the look of surprise on his face when he makes it to the hospital and finds you in your room, thinking they stopped the labor, when instead you say "you have a Daughter."

Imagine being the only parent in the NICU that is happy that your child is there, because you thought for so long she wouldn't get the chance.

Imagine being released from the hospital and having no place to go because you don't have money and don't know anyone.

Imagine a complete stranger giving you their condominium to stay in, strangers bringing you meals and watching your other children for you.

Imagine finally returning home, it feels like a lifetime has passed, only to get a phone call when you walk in the door that your baby is septic.

Imagine driving all those long hours back to hospital having no idea what you'll find when you get there.

Imagine your routine phone call to the hospital before you go to bed and being told all is well, only to call back in the morning and discover that they had done a spinal tap and no one bothered to call you.

Imagine traveling every week to see your baby for 4 days, and never feeling like it is enough.

Imagine sitting in the NICU into the wee hours of the morning just because you want to spend ALL your time with your precious baby.

Imagine your mother-in-law viewing your 1 pound 14 ounce baby for the first time, and when you see her face she looks like she will vomit.

Imagine that 3 years later she still treats your preemie different than your other children.

Imagine the joy you feel when after 8 weeks they finally fly your baby back to your hometown and now you can visit every day because she's only 45 minutes away.

Imagine the day when she finally comes home and you just want to dance with her in the sunshine because for the first time in her life she feels the sun's rays on her face, and you can't because of the oxygen tubing and the monitor.

Imagine it's three years later and your little fighter still has a crescent shape scar on her forehead from an IV infiltration and you think it's a fitting battle scar. Someone was watching over her.

Imagine the baby, who once swam in preemie diapers, changing her clothes 5 times a day, putting on your heels and lipstick and screaming at the top of her lungs for perfume.

Imagine the happiness because once you were told she would never draw her first breath.

Imagine.......

Colleen