Imagine…being 37 years old and finally pregnant

Imagine…minding your own business doing the ironing when your stomach falls

Imagine…being told, after the third trip to the hospital that maybe "you are worrying too much because this is your first pregnancy and you don't have enough to occupy your time"

Imagine…being laid out on your back, hooked up to a mag drip and a catheter and told that you can't be in labor because nothing is showing up on the monitor

Imagine…having only two childbirth classes and trying to remember how to breathe and being asked to quiet down because you are scaring the other patients

Imagine…being left alone in ante-partum while your husband goes downstairs to comfort your sister and something spurts out of you

Imagine…the look on the nurse trainee's face when she sees what just happened

Imagine…turning your head to look at a tiny pink bundle that 10 minutes before was inside you

Imagine…discovering that the perfectly functioning breasts you've been carrying all these years are suddenly unable to feed your baby

Imagine…your husband coming home after stopping off after work to see the baby and having to tell you that the doctor found a brain hemorrage

Imagine…30 days of lumbar punctures to reduce the swelling in your beautiful baby girl's head

Imagine…brain surgery and a morphine drip at 40 days old

Imagine…a strong, healthy, smart, funny brave little girl who isn't afraid of anybody or anything

Imagine…you and your husband possessed of a strength you didn't know you had and a love deeper than you ever thought possible

--Susan Taylor Havnaer, mother to Madeleine, born at April 26, 1997, 31 weeks, 3 lbs., 10 ounces.