It is Thursday night and Laura and I are home in Brooklyn. We left Ira looking like he had just stepped out of the ring of a heavyweight fight. The entire left side of his body is swollen from the ECMO machine. The ECMO specialist assures us that he will pee all of this fluid out. In the meantime Ira looks whipped. I guess that is what three surgeries in seven days will do to you. (The insertion of and removal of the ECMO machine are considered surgeries being that they have to open up us his neck in both instances.)

So Ira has cleared several hurdles. He was born. They finally stabilized him with the help of the ECMO machine . They were able to get him to a certain "flow" on ECMO to do the CDH repair. He made it through the 24 hours after the surgery. They were successful in weaning him from ECMO. He was taken off the ECMO machine.

The next hurdles are these: in the next 3-7 days they want to see him come off the ventilator but it could be longer. They have to keep an eye on his pulmonary hypertension as this is life threatening. (Most CDH babies deal with this issue.) And eventually we will have to teach Ira how to eat. He's been sustained through IVs in his arm and belly.

We are incredibly exhausted but so very thankful to have made it this far. Ira is one week old today. Happy birthday Ira.