So I'm not sure how many people out there know this, but I am currently working on my masters! I have a B.S. in Biology and once I entered the job market it became very apparent that I needed a masters to really get anywhere. After hunting around I found a great online biotechnology masters program at Johns Hopkins University! Part of the reason I started working on my masters was to take my mind off of trying to get pregnant. I was focusing all my energy on that and was getting more and more frustrated and I realized I needed to do something other then focus on getting pregnant! I am finally taking some really interesting classes. This semester I am taking stem cell biology.
Each student is required to do a project on a type of stem cell. This weeks projects were on ovarian and testicular stem cells. Reading about these kinds of stem cells and the potential they have to treat infertility is just amazing. The science to help has come so far already and just reading about this groundbreaking work makes me see just how much it is going to be changing over the next decade. I know that I got off easy in the land of infertility compared to many. I look at Eirik every day and think how amazing it is he is sitting there in front of me. I think of all those who I know who went through so much or are still going through it and I wish that these advances were available now not in 10 or 20 years. But still, it makes me hope that someday so many of the infertility issues that are out there will have new amazing treatments. Just look at how far treatments like IVF have come in the past 10 years!
Someday all these "what ifs" will be reality. I'm interested to see what they come up with!
That is so cool! I plan on donating any of my leftover frozen embryos to stem cell research. We have 5 on ice right now and when we are done with family building, if there are any left, I would like to make sure they go towards advancement of education in stem cell research. I know it's a controversial decision as people would like to "adopt" our embryos, but I'm not comfortable knowing that my little girl would have a sibling somewhere out there in the world comprised of my DH and my DNA.
ReplyDeleteThats so awesome you are thinking of donating embryos! There is so much potential out there for treatments! Its so amazing what they are trying to do... the stuff that will become available in the next 10 years or so is going to just be mind boggling!
ReplyDelete