EDITOR'S NOTE: Today, columnist Brent Cooper shares his own story, and invites other parents to participate in a new support group.

On Dec. 15, 2007 my wife, Shannon, and I had our first child, Charlie Jackson. He was six weeks premature. On top of Charlie’s dramatic entrance into this world, we learned that he had Spina Bifida; a birth defect that was undetected until that day.