Baby Silas was born on Oct. 27, 2009 (7 lbs, 9 oz, 20.5 inches) at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He is the love of our lives. Silas has a neural tube defect called "spina bifida" -- a non-lethal birth defect that involves an opening in the spine where the neural tube fails to close completely in the first month of pregnancy. Spina bifida is usually accompanied by some degree of paralysis and hydrocephalus (a swelling of cerebral-spinal fluid in the brain). His condition was discovered during a routine 18-week ultrasound back in June in San Luis Obispo. In October, he surprised us by being born 3 weeks early. He has had five surgeries (one to close his back, two for the hydrocephalus, a Chiari decompression and a tracheostomy) at Children's Hospital Boston and UCSF, and today he is doing wonderfully -- moving his hips, knees, ankles & toes and beating all the odds.