I went shopping again yesterday, and I got a pair of nice, black capris for $7! That's right, $7. Also, I got a pair of brown flip-flops to replace the ones the dog chewed and my first ever pair of black flip-flops. How I could have gone so long without black flip-flops is completely bewildering to me.
But, actually, this post is not about my recent need for spending all my husband's hard-earned money. It's about babies.
I have a strange fascination/obsession with pregnancy and labor. I always have. When I was a teenager I loved wasting my summer days watching TLC's A Baby Story. In my college years I've spent a fair amount of time researching the history of birth control and midwives. Pretty much any time I'm waiting for my prescription at the pharmacy or waiting to be seen by my orthodontist (usually the wait there is approximately .00001 milliseconds long) I select the magazine about babies. You know, the one that always has a baby on the cover and is full of articles about how to get, care for and raise a baby. I am fascinated with the idea that all of us lived inside our mothers, and then one day we came out of our mothers! Not only that, but one day there will be a person living inside of me! It's just mind-boggling and amazing.
With all that said, I'm not going to have a baby any time soon (at least not within the next 40 weeks, to my knowledge). I really just said all that to be a disclaimer for the forthcoming story and for all forthcoming blogs in which I may happen to mention babies. It is highly unlikely that I will announce anything exciting (such as a pregnancy) via my blog. If you are a near and dear one to me, you will receive some sort of personal notice should such a thing need to be announced. Okay, this disclaimer is finished.
My fascination as of late is in vitro fertilization. It is an incredible process. Not only can it help people who have fertility issues, it can also help people who carry terrible genetic diseases. This weekend I met a couple (actually, I met them once before at another such gathering) who used in vitro fertilization because of a genetic defect. The husband is a carrier of a genetic defect. He has three brothers, and two of them are carriers as well. One of those brothers passed the defect onto his son who lived to the age of 4.
Usually people who have the defect do not live long enough to be born or live only a short while after being born. This man's mother had numerous miscarriages. The man's father (who passed the gene to his children) was an only child because his mother also had numerous miscarriages.
The couple I met have never tried to become pregnant naturally. Instead they used the money inherited from the maternal grandmother (who specified in her will that the money was to be used specifically for in vitro fertilization) to undergo in vitro. Of the embryos created doctors were able to determine which did not have the defect and planted two into the mother. Both embryos took and the couple was blessed with two, healthy girls two months ago. Recent tests have shown that the girls are not even carriers of the defect.
Modern medicine really is a miraculous thing.
3 comments:
That is a really cool story - medicine is pretty amazing these days. How awesome to have an alternative to having your baby die at days or months old.
Sherry, when I am pregnant, I also have a huge fascination with pregnancy. This last time, I searched the internet for pictures of babies that were the size of my baby as I went along. I happened upon a horrifying website about abortion and was morbidly fascinated. I have always been anti-abortion, but now I really understand why. ALSO, in vitro is a wonderful thing that has helped several of my friends. I have a friend in my ward who did it several times. After it didn't work, they decided to adopt. And so they did, and found out a month later that an in vitro had stuck. They then had triplet girls. So they have 4 kids under the age of 2. What a handful, but if anyone can do it, she can! And another friend is just barely pregnant from in vitro, but has heard a heartbeat at 8 weeks. That's the best sign the baby has a good chance of being healthy.
Thanks for sharing, Sherry. That was a great post.
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