Welcome to Day 7 of theA to Z Challenge, an April blogging challenge where you
aim post every day during the month following the letters of the alphabet (with
every Sunday bar the last one off).
In
the past I've used the challenge to blog about my infertility and the IVF
process. I'm following a similar theme this year as we wait to begin the
process for a Frozen Embryo Transfer, having completed a Freeze All IVF cycle
in February.
We
currently have nine embryos sitting on ice, my little bubbles, and this April I
am blogging to them about the process of how they came to be.
Dear Bubbles,
By the time you are old enough to read this, you will probably be well aware that I value education and learning. I'm looking forward to watching you make discoveries about the world around us, and making discoveries right alongside you too.
From the second you are born, you'll be being graded on a number of different scales. A newborn's responsiveness is checked, later you'll be graded on your height and weight, how you grow, and then you'll start school and face a whole lot more test scores and checks.
But you faced your very first grading challenge way back when you were just five days old. And I'm not talking five days post-birth here either! When I say five days old, I mean five does post-conception.
On the 18th of February you were taken out of the incubator you'd been happily growing in, the Embryologist peeped into your petri dish and she liked what she saw. You passed the test and you were declared 'top quality blastocysts'.
Her actual words were 'fabulous embryos' which I have written on my hospital paperwork from the cycle, like your first ever school report.
What's confusing when it comes to embryo grading is that different clinics do it in their own ways. Some give numbers, some give letters, some give both. And even two clinics that use the same process can differ; for some 1 is the best and 5 is poor quality, for another it's the other way round.
I'm not sure what your exact grades are. I was so happy to know you'd survived to Day 5 that I didn't think to ask. All I know is that you're better than all the ones that came before. The best we had before was 5BB, so you must be at least 5AB or 5BA.
And that's how our hospital grades you. You're given a number from 1 to 6 depending on your stage of development (a 6 means you're hatching and ready to implant). Then your 'inner cell mass' (the bit in the middle that became you) gets an A to C grade, as does the Trophectoderm (the outer bit that eventually forms the placenta which keeps you fed and oxygenated for the next nine months). A is the best too.
So I'm not too worried about whether or not you get top grades when it comes to school. I know you'll do your best.
Welcome to Day 6 of theA to Z Challenge, an April blogging challenge where you
aim post every day during the month following the letters of the alphabet (with
every Sunday bar the last one off).
In
the past I've used the challenge to blog about my infertility and the IVF
process. I'm following a similar theme this year as we wait to begin the
process for a Frozen Embryo Transfer, having completed a Freeze All IVF cycle
in February.
We
currently have nine embryos sitting on ice, my little bubbles, and this April I
am blogging to them about the process of how they came to be.
Dear Bubbles,
For most people, their first bed, the place where they rest, is a comfortable crib. It might be of the hospital variety (kind of like a fish tank with see through sides) or it might be a traditional wooden cot (with bars, like a miniature prison). By the time you're reading this, you might have had several different beds, sleeping in all sorts of interesting places, but at the time I'm writing this you've only had one.
And it's a freezer.
I'm not sure whether going through the cryopreservation process is anything like falling asleep. I like to think it is. Certainly, being thawed out seems to be like waking up an embryo; some are a little sluggish afterwards and others hop straight back to what they were doing before.
And if that is the case then your first bed is definitely a freezer.
Now before you start thinking about reporting me to Social Services, it wasn't my freezer. It's a special sort of freezer for embryos in the hospital lab, where you're allowed to stay for up to ten years at a time. It's all very carefully controlled and it probably has a special name which sounds nothing like 'a freezer' but right now, you're frozen, so the best place for you is in the freezer.
Plus, I do have to admit, it's kind of fun to see people's reactions when you tell them you keep your kids in a freezer!
All my love,
Your Mum
(who will never keep you in the freezer ever again, I promise).
Welcome to Day 5 of theA to Z Challenge, an April blogging
challenge where you aim post every day during the month following the letters
of the alphabet (with every Sunday bar the last one off).
In the past I've used the challenge to blog about my infertility
and the IVF process. I'm following a similar theme this year as we wait to
begin the process for a Frozen Embryo Transfer, having completed a Freeze All
IVF cycle in February.
We currently have nine embryos sitting on ice, my little bubbles,
and this April I am blogging to them about the process of how they came to be.
Dear Bubbles,
I don't know how true it is but apparently it's the egg that provides the energy for you to grow for the first three days of your development. After that the rest of the process is all up to you. This apparently helps to explain why some embryos go well for the first two or three days and then stall in their development, or conversely, you get some which seem to go very slowly but then suddenly start to play catch up a couple of days after conception.
Obviously, the fact that you made it to blastocyst stage shows that you had enough energy. Hopefully my eggs did their bit and then you were able to take over and keep going.
The next big test is when we take you out the freezer. You need to summon on those reawakened energy reserves and pick up where you left off. If you're reading this letter then you know that you did just that and I believe in you enough to actually write this series of letters, so I'm sure that you'll do just fine.
I hope that you never lose that momentum which carried you for those first five days of life. I hope that you'll always be active in some way, either physically or mentally. Searching for new activities, new knowledge, new horizons.
And I sincerely hope that I have enough energy to keep up with you!
So if it ever seems like your old dad and I are moving a little bit too slow, just remember, our spark of energy has been running for a lot longer than yours. We need more time to recharge our batteries!
Welcome to Day 4 of theA to Z Challenge, an April blogging
challenge where you aim post every day during the month following the letters
of the alphabet (with every Sunday bar the last one off).
In the past I've used the challenge to blog about my infertility
and the IVF process. I'm following a similar theme this year as we wait to
begin the process for a Frozen Embryo Transfer, having completed a Freeze All
IVF cycle in February.
We currently have nine embryos sitting on ice, my little bubbles,
and this April I am blogging to them about the process of how they came to be.
Dear Bubbles,
Have I ever shared my diaries with you? If I haven't by the time you're reading this, remind me and I'll dig some out for you to look at. I expect you'll have a laugh.
I've kept a diary in some form since I was about twelve (though sadly the pencil is very faded by now so by the time you're old enough to delve into my twelve year old musings, they may be indecipherable). Some of my diaries were kept online, like in the blog where these letters were originally published. Other's were kept in paper notebooks with slips of paper sandwiched between the pages from hospital appointments or parking tickets.
A diary is kind of a necessity when you've got lots of different meds to take at set times of each day. I even devised a(n admittedly complicated) chart to help me see all my medications, appointments and other important things during our treatment process.
Still tucked into that diary is the sheet from the hospital which serves as a diary, of sorts. It's got a treatment checklist where we were supposed to enter dates and times for the aforementioned appointments, pills and potions. You can see that I dutifully filled in the dates and times in the beginning, when those dates and times were given to us at the hospital appointments themselves. Later on there are scribbles all over the back of the sheet, haphazardly filled in anywhere there's space, because I was making those notes wherever I happened to be when the hospital called; on the train, on the ferry, sitting in an awkward position in the living room hoping that my phone signal wouldn't disappear.
I'll warn you though, the diaries aren't all happy reading. Yes, there's a lot of rambling about Tara and your father and random shopping trips, but our journey to you wasn't all plain sailing. You weren't the result from our first round of IVF, you weren't even from our second. So there's a lot of stuff in there about those previous attempts.
Welcome to Day 3 of theA to Z Challenge, an April blogging
challenge where you aim post every day during the month following the letters
of the alphabet (with every Sunday bar the last one off).
In the past I've used the challenge to blog about my infertility
and the IVF process. I'm following a similar theme this year as we wait to
begin the process for a Frozen Embryo Transfer, having completed a Freeze All
IVF cycle in February.
We currently have nine embryos sitting on ice, my little bubbles,
and this April I am blogging to them about the process of how they came to be.
Dear Bubbles,
I don't mind if you skip this letter. I'm sure most kids don't really care to hear about how they were conceived. Most people don't want to even think about their parents doing the nasty; I have a friend who insisted her parents only 'did it' twice, once for her and once for her brother.
So it may actually come as something of a relief to you to learn that your father and I had absolutely no physical contact in order to conceive you. In fact, we weren't even in the same room as each other when your conception was taking place. Oh no, your conception was handled by a skilled Embryologist in a Glasgow hospital.
Many people don't have any idea when they were conceived. There's usually some idea of the rough date when it probably took place. You're one of the lucky minority where we not only know the date, we know the approximate time as well!
My eggs were collected at around 10am on the 13th of February and shortly afterwards they were introduced to your father's contribution to the whole affair. So I can say with some certainty that by about 11:30am on the 13th of February you'd been conceived.
And even if the whole thought of your own conception squicks you out, my Darling Bubbles, you have to admit, it is kind of cool to know exactly when it happened.
Welcome to Day 2 of theA to Z Challenge, an April blogging
challenge where you aim post every day during the month following the letters
of the alphabet (with every Sunday bar the last one off).
In the past I've used the challenge to blog about my infertility
and the IVF process. I'm following a similar theme this year as we wait to
begin the process for a Frozen Embryo Transfer, having completed a Freeze All
IVF cycle in February.
We currently have nine embryos sitting on ice, my little bubbles,
and this April I am blogging to them about the process of how they came to be.
Dear Bubbles,
At the time of writing these letters to you, you're currently what is classed as blastocysts. That's a very important stage in your development, more important than learning to read, or write, or walk, or talk; before we could even think about you being able to do any of those things, you had to become blastocysts.
Everyone alive today, and everyone who has ever lived, was once a blastocyst. It only lasts for up to about four days at by the time it starts you're just a bundle of somewhere between 30 to 40 cells, each one of which is growing and dividing and preparing to become some important part of your growing body.
Each step of our IVF/ICSI treatment was about getting to the next step of the process, but once you'd been created, we suddenly had to put the responsibility for the next step on you. This was something you had to do on your own.
And thankfully you did. You were strong and for five days you thrived and grew.
And now we just have to hope that you carry on as you have when we're able to put back where you belong.
In a slightly break from tradition, as I'm blogging my way from A to Z this month, I'm substituting my normal Silent Sunday for a decidedly chatty film review post.
After our trip to the cinema last week to see Lion, we made a return visit to see the live action version of Beauty and the Beast. My Mum (hi Mum!) had seen it the week before and assured me that I would love it, but I was a little anxious. The animated version is without a doubt my favourite Disney film so it had a lot to live up to!
Warning! Here be spoilers!
Don't say I didn't warn you!
I need to start this by saying that Belle is my princess.
I can vividly remember watching the animated film on video tape, setting up the four pouffes we had in our living room as my props (such as the edge of the fountain where Belle sings to the sheep as she looks at her book) and pretty much acting out the film as I watched it. Belle's library is the inspiration for my happy place. She was the weird girl who walked around with her nose stuck in a book; I was the weird girl who walked to and from school (and around it) with my nose stuck in a book. I can remember feeling terribly jealous of my friend who had brown hair and brown eyes and therefore looked far more like Belle than I ever would.
And then when I was starting school in a new country, with a new curriculum and (let's face it) almost a whole new language, I discovered Harry Potter and met Hermione Granger. The bookish girl from a slightly different background to her new world who loved to study and that was okay.
This film is kind of a melding of two of Young Click's heroes.
And I was worried about that. Was it going to feel like I was watching Hermione Granger running around being my all time favourite Disney princess?
It wasn't.
I like the fact that right from the very beginning it works to close up some plot holes from the original film. I'd heard that some of the characters were getting a little more backstory (I think most of the main characters come away with a little more backstory than the original) and I was concerned it was just going to be plot for plot's sake. It wasn't.
We get to see what the Prince is like before he's cursed, we learn why everyone in the castle was cursed, we learn just why Belle and her Father moved to the 'poor provincial town', we learn why no one in the village is aware of a big castle full of enchanted furniture just on the other side of the woods from them. These are all really important things!
And do you see the colours in the picture above?
The film is so vibrant that it feels like a nod back to the original film. Belle stands out against all their earth toned clothes, just as before, but it's also really bright, like watching a cartoon. I also have to admit that I spent a fair chunk of the film studying Belle's outfits and wondering how easy it would be to put together a costume like that for Halloween. Her clothes are just beautiful!
And it's really minor, but I love that they changed the bookseller. It's always bugged me that in the animated film everyone comments on how strange it is that Belle likes to read, and yet the bookseller is still in business. In this version she's borrowing books from the parish priest who has a modest collection of books, through which Belle escapes from the mundane life of the village. It was just a really minor thing at the start of the film, but I knew at that moment that this film was just made for me!
Gaston is just the guy you want to hate, even if he does look like Luke Evans. He comes across as scary twisted because he's capable of being almost kind to Belle when the villagers are picking on her, and yet he'll also happily leave someone to be eaten by wolves.
While Le Fou is more than just the bumbling sidekick. I love that he starts off fawning all over Gaston but gradually comes to question what his hero is doing. And his version of Gaston is just brilliant. I spend most of Saturday listening to the soundtrack and that was one I had to keep playing over.
Speaking of the soundtrack, all the old favourites are here, but there's some new ones as well (and some new lyrics in the old songs). Everyone does a brilliant job of the singing. Hermione Granger and Bard the Bowman can sing, guys!
And what about the Beast?
He's more of a character in this. I mean, he's obviously a character in the animated version, but he's not got a whole lot to do other than fall for Belle and gradually become more civilised. But we don't actually know much about why he was the way he was in the animated version, he was spoiled and turned an old lady away, but that's about it.
In this version we learn why he's the way he is. And it turns out that he and Belle have some things in common, and yet it (or rather their father's) caused them to go in different directions. They both have a love of books as well which gives them something to bond over.
It's lovely to see the Beast becoming more human, it's subtle too. He starts off wearing tattered clothes and then gradually starts dressing the way he does above. He and Belle take walks in the ground, she reads to him. You're watching two people become friends and discovering that despite their differences they can get along.
'Something There' is one of my favourite sequences in the original because it shows the coming together of Belle and the Beast. In this version we get the song, but instead of a montage of them hanging out and drinking porridge, we also get to watch all the sweet little moments bonding in the library and Belle learning exactly what happened to her mother.
And what about the castle staff/objects?
I wasn't too sure about them at first. Particularly Mrs Potts, she just looks so different from the Mrs Potts I'm used to. But I soon got used to them and they became the characters for me. And let's face it, they're meant to be people who have been turned into objects. that kind of explains the creepiness of the way they look.
And I love that Belle responds to them accordingly and instead of trying to figure out how they work she smashing Lumiere over the head with a stool and is prepared to attack Cogsworth with a jug!
Even though I knew how the film was going to end, I did have a moment of doubt as the last petal fell and the inhabitants all slowly became the objects they had been turning into. For a horrible moment I thought that Disney were going to completely crush me and ruin my favourite film.
But they didn't.
I wasn't sure that the original could be improved on. It turns out it could.
