I am a mom of 2, my daughter Jayna is 10 & my son Carlos is 7. My husband & I have been married for almost 10 years. Jayna was born with Spina Bifida a neural tube defect. At 1 day old she had her 1st surgery to close the hole on her back & place a VP shunt in her brain to drain the hydrocephalus. In 1999 she had surgery #2 to repair the shunt. In 2005 she had #3 to straighten her legs & in 2006 she had surgeries 4, 5 & 6. Surgery #4 removed remaining hardware from the 2005 surgery, #5 closed a badly infected pressure soar on her back and #6 was to insert a Broviac IV line to administer 6 months of IV antibiotic at home. The infection from the soar had spread to her tail bone. In 2007 she had surgery #7 to remove the Broviac & in Jan 2008 she had surgery #8, an Appendiscostomy to help improve the quality of her life. Every parent prays for a healthy baby but by the time we found out I was pregnant, her birth defect had already formed. Our family mission is to spread the word about birth defects and prematurity, & ways to possibly prevent this from happening to other families. We are involved in the March of Dimes, an organization who researches stress & other factors that cause prematurity & birth defects, programs to educate women to recognize warning signs of preterm labor, tools to help health care providers find better ways to detect women & babies who are at risk for preterm labor & birth defects and spread the word about the importance of taking folic acid daily before conception to help prevent neural tube defects. Each year the March of Dimes host it's #1 fundraising event "March for Babies" all over the U.S.. I encourage you to visit www.marchforbabies.org to learn more about the event and the March of Dimes. You can also sign up to walk on an existing team or sign up your own team. The walks for 2008 are over but you can still see if there is one in your area & plan for next year. Our family has participated in the walk as Jayna's Crusaders for 8 years. Currently I am the Publicity Chair for the March of Dimes O.C. Division Family Team Council. Our goal on the council is to spread the word about the March for Babies & encourage more people to walk! Did you know that in the U.S. every 3 ½ minutes a baby is born with a birth defect, in an average week 18,892 babies are born premature, up to 70% of birth defects of the brain & spinal cord may be prevented if woman of child bearing age consumed 400mg of folic acid daily, Spina Bifida is the 2^nd most common birth defect and in 2004, there were 508,356 preterm births in the U.S., representing 12.5% of live births. The U.S. objective for 2010 is to drop that percentage to 7.6%. I'd love to get to know you too and help educate you on how you can make a difference by just walking!!!  I look forward to meeting you and being friends.