Tuesday 28 April 2015

#AtoZChallenge: X is for XX or XY

This is the twenty-fourth of a series of posts that I’m posting during the A to Z Challenge; that’s a blogging challenge where you aim to post a blog post for each letter of the alphabet throughout the month of April (with Sundays off for good behaviour). During my first A to Z Challenge I wrote about infertility, which I’m sort of revisiting during A to Z Challenge 2015.

My theme this year is IVF/ICSI, a process we’re starting at the moment and today it’s X for XX or XY.


X is one of my favourite days of the A to Z Challenge because I always wonder what other people will post because it’s got to be up there with Q as one of the most difficult letters to come up with a word for. So far, in three years of doing the challenge, I’ve not stumbled on X yet (Z is another matter altogether) and this was one of the very first posts I came up with!

Day 5 blastocyst, image from here.
That’s what an embryo looks like. Cute little bugger, isn’t it?

Did you know that at that stage of development they can tell the gender of the baby that it would develop into? In some cases, particularly when there are genetic conditions that a couple may be using IVF to avoid, only XX or XY embryos will be selected for transfer. That means that some couples will know that they might be expecting a baby girl, before they’re even actually pregnant.

It’s amazing how much potential there is inside that little bundle of cells, isn’t there? It’s approximately five days post-fertilisation and already there’s a hell of a lot of genetic information in there. Already it knows whether it’s going to become a little girl (an XX) or a little boy (with an XY), the colour of its hair, eyes. It might be preparing to have Mum’s eyes, Dad’s chin, and Great Uncle Frank’s knobbly knees. It’s got almost everything it needs to become a person, except somewhere to hang out for nine months.

I mentioned back in my post for L for Love, lots of women report feeling a lot of love for their baby-to-be at the stage when it’s really little more than a virtually invisible collection of cells. When you think about all the things that those cells could become it’s easy to understand why people become attached to their little embryos, even without the knowledge of what gender they’ll turn out to be.


Which brings me back to my subject for today, XX or XY? Boy or girl? If you’ve got a friend or family member going through treatment and you ask them this question, which do you want? don’t expect a definitive answer. If that person have been trying to start a family long enough to be going through IVF treatment, chances are, they don’t really mind which. Somewhere, deep down, they might prefer a girl they can dress in pretty dresses, or a boy to take over the family business, but really what they want is a child. That’s why they’re doing this after all.

12 comments:

  1. Genetics is (are?) wonderful. I thought this might be your X! I've been wrong with a few people but was quite confident with this one. On the whole, I'm enjoying the creativity out there today.
    Anabel's Travel Blog
    Adventures of a retired librarian

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    1. I like trying to guess what people will write about for their letters too. This was one of those ones which I knew I would use right from the beginning (then after I'd written it I came up with an alternative as well, at least I'm set for next year).

      And you're right, genetics can be fascinating. :-)

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  2. Love the way you came up with XX or XY. Hoping you'd one of them by the next challenge. Cheers.

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    1. Thank you. Fingers crossed next year I can do an A to Z of pregnancy. ;-)

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  3. Girl or boy? I guess the real wish is for healthy.

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  4. X is one of my favorite days to read A to Z posts, too. Only 2 days left!

    Yvonne

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    1. It is good fun to see what people come up with and how they adapt things to fit their themes. :-)

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  5. I think people like healthy babies when they have to go through so much. I do believe, though, that many will not admit to the fact that they would secretly like a certain sex more than the other

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    1. I can't honestly say which I would prefer. Some days I'll see something, like an outfit, and think, 'oh it would be lovely to to have a little girl to dress up like that' then other days I'll be talking to someone about 'boy stuff' and think 'oh a boy would be lovely.

      I'd honestly be happy with either, as long as they're happy and healthy. :-)

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  6. Great post once again, and this one really hit the mark for me, perhaps because I had a feeling this would be your X choice. A good baby is indeed a healthy baby.

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    1. Thank you. Lots of people seemed to guess this would be my direction for X. A healthy baby is definitely the best kind. ;-)

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Let me know what you think. :-)