Our friend Beth from Washington D.C. left today after an all too brief weekend visit. Another new person for Gavin to meet. She bravely slept on our couch even though we warned her that Gavin gets up very early. My mom liked to say, "Children get up before God," whatever that means. But Gavin is an early riser and, from what I can tell, Beth is not. But she was a good sport about it and having her here was really nice because we don't get to see her nearly often enough and we miss her.
We took Gavin to the Detroit Zoo yesterday where he saw camel dogs, pig dogs, horse dogs, and donkey dogs. Everything is a dog to him right now. It's his favorite word. In fact, the other day when I went to get him up from his nap, Henri followed me into his room and Gavin, who is usually super happy to see one of his moms upon waking up, looked right past me and said, "Dog!" Now, when he says dog it is a very deep, throaty drawn out kind of utterance that is really not reproducible here but communicates to the world that he really, really likes dogs. It actually makes him sound a little bit insane. Adorable, but insane.
Laura and Jamie went to the zoo with us. Gavin is pretty much in love with Jamie. I don't think there's anyone else he gets so happy and excited to see besides me and Stacy. It's pretty adorable, especially since Jamie really didn't know what to make of him when he was a little baby. Not that she didn't like him or anything, just that she's not used to being around baby babies. But now that Gavin's more rough and tumble I think she's more comfortable, which is good, otherwise Gavin's affection might come across as harassment.
So Elizabeth Comeau, the very first baby born in the U.S. via in vitro fertilization, now has a baby of her own. So, like, hooray, her uterus works and stuff.
It's so weird to think that IVF used to be illegal and that the first IVF baby born in the U.S. happened in 1981. That is so not long ago. I was around three years old at the time, so the hype over "test-tube babies" was lost one me. I certainly have heard this term over the years but I never really knew what it meant. I pictured a baby being grown in a petri dish on a counter in a stark white laboratory just like cultivated bacteria samples or whatever. All I knew was that "test tube baby" was clearly a pejorative term (Comeau says she "hates" the term herself).
It wasn't until Stacy and I were staring down the very real possibility of IVF after a good number of unsuccessful IUIs that I really connected IVF with "test-tube babies." Still, I don't think of Gavin as a "test-tube baby." In fact, I vaguely remember Stacy making a comment about how we were going to have a test-tube baby and I was all, "No we're not, don't say that," no doubt trying to distance myself from the pejorative nature of the term while at the same time trying to not totally freak out about this space-age baby making journey we were about to embark on. I mean, conceiving a baby the "normal" way is mystifying enough. But when it involves surgical masks, needles, paper shoe covers, blastocysts, and out-patient surgery it certainly can feel like science fiction. Which is why the fact that the first IVF baby has had her own baby (conceived penis-vagina style) is kind of blowing people's minds. I mean, really, the "story" is that a lady had a baby. Not exactly news. It happens all of the time. But IVF was controversial in 1981 and in some circles it still is (Hi, Pope! Hi, stem-cell research). And it certainly seems like doubt persists about whether or not Comeau is actually a normal human being capable of doing normal human being things like getting knocked up and birthing babies. Of course we know now that IVF babies are real and normal but this story wouldn't be a story unless there was some lingering doubt about that.
was an article I liked. Thanks for sharing.
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