by Beth on August 10, 2011
Interesting!
A story in the UK Guardian caught my eye today. It reveals that fertility scientists are trying to increase the chance of a successful IVF procedure through more effective analysis of fertilized embryos.
Using mice in a case study, they found that “when a sperm entered an egg, the egg’s jelly-like innards would start to pulsate soon afterwards“. The team leader, Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz of Cambridge University (natch!) said:
The pattern of those movements is predictive of whether the embryo will have successful developments throughout the entire pregnancy…I believe this method has very important potential medical applications, as it provides a totally non-invasive and rapid way of making this prediction of which embryo will have successful and which will not have successful pregnancy
In other words, they are hopefully onto a more effective way to identify ‘The Egg’. The professor adds that they’ll be trialling it at IVF clinics within months.
This sounds like exciting news to me. I mean, IVF will never be foolproof, and we must always be cautious about mere ‘theories’, but this really could be a significant step in increasing the odds of conception. And via pulsations, no less – it’s almost as though the baby were knocking on the door to say “Yoo hoo, I’m the one!” 
You can read the full article here
What do you guys think?
by Beth on August 7, 2011
New job.
Not just any new job in my profession. A TOTALLY new profession with a new job in a new building in a new town in a new school system in a new precinct in a new county.
I love it. I am not very good at my new job but I love it. I don’t know anything about anything there but I am learning it all. I sort of feel like Jane Fonda in 9 to 5 because she was pretty embarrassing with the copiers and office protocol at first.
But she had the right attitude and realized she was allowed to mess up. She realized it was more about interpersonal skills than about make a great cup of joe. Although wait, wasn’t she one who accidentally poisoned her boss with the cup of joe? Or was that Lily Tomlin? Crap.
Anyway. Heh! I should erase the above analogy referring to Fonda at her new work place but I shall leave it be.
The new job is cool. Somehow they wanted me to be hired there and saw something in me. I know it had a lot to do with my being a single mom and the feelings I had inside of me. I had the fire because I knew that my daughter needed me to get this job. She needed that for me. This economy is fragile and not being able to provide for a child is the scariest thought I have had in my life. I had the fire and I was just so determined to get this job and I think they saw that determination.
Now my daughter has a fighting chance for a normal life where she won’t see me stress from freelance job to freelance job or beg her father for the support checks. She will see her mother as an independent woman who takes the time to play and feed her and nurse her boo boos. She will remember Halloween and Birthdays and time spent just doing not so much but having fun.
I have dreamed of decorating a Christmas tree with her for so long; I have dreamed of going to soccer matches with her; I have dreamed of watching her school plays or holiday performances; I have dreamed of hanging her art work up all over our little home.
Some day we will have that little home. That’s a nice dream.
This is no ordinary job for me. It’s a life changing event and I am so grateful and so relieved it happened.
My heart races as it had every day I knew the IVF worked. I was so appreciative every time I felt her kicks inside of me. Sometimes we all need a little push from an external force. Sometimes we need to go in a different direction and eschew what it is we thought we should be doing. Sometimes we need to stop and not feel sorry that things are not working out but find that push so that it COULD work out. IVF was like that for me. And this new career direction is, too.
It’s okay to change course because the dream and outcome is all the same now, isn’t it? There is nothing wrong with a new mindset as long as the goal remains solid.
Yeaaaaah.
