I know you, you do not know me, not by name, not by aspect, but by something even more precious. I am familiar with you as a mere tarantella of cells with unlimited possibilities that lie calmly in a dish in my microscope. I am your embryologist, and the very first one of your caretakers.
At this moment, you are not yet a grain of sand, but you bear the hopes and dreams and love of two men and women outside this lab, who are lying on the minutes until they can at last see you.
I recognize that love in each of the moments I spend with you. And though you will never know me, I will know each detail of your beginning.
Day 1: Hello, little miracle
The first time I laid my eyes on you through a microscope, you were nothing but a single cell: an ideal circle of possibilities.
I whispered a quiet “hello.” You did not hear it, but I would like to think that you could feel the warmth in the air. You were put into your incubator, first home, and we put you in there where you would be safe and sound.
It is a world of your own, no flash of light or noise, all the warmth and all the equal air. I visit you frequently, keep the surroundings stable, and ensure that you are comfortable and peaceful.
Your parents are most likely praying outside. Inside, we’re caring. We share the same hope, you and me.
Day 2: The first signs of life
You have started dividing by two, and then four, and then eight. Every single division is a silent miracle, every second a little triumph.
I follow you through the window, gauge, observe, marvel. All embryos develop in different ways. You grow wonderfully.
Science informs me I must remain objective, to measure and record without emotion. But how am I not to feel something when I behold you to be made more of you with every hour?
I speak to you lowly here and there, like you can feel the coolness. Keep on, saying, you are doing very well.
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Day 3: Strength in numbers
At this point, you are already a mass of cells, that is, a small group that works. We call you a morula. You do not have organs or limbs yet, but what a vision of potential it is.
We are crawling slowly in the lab; each movement is calculated. The atmosphere is cleansed, the temperature is constant, and nothing should interfere with your rhythm.
This could pass as a normal experiment to anybody. But to me, it feels sacred. You are not cells, you are a story that is only starting to unravel.
Day 5: Becoming a blastocyst
You are as beautiful a blastocyst as ever now, a balloon of promise. Part of your cells are beginning to develop the placenta; others will develop the baby.
You are all set to take the next step: the one that will make you see the place where you belonged: in the womb of your mother.
Now this is the moment we have been waiting for. I am simultaneously nervous and proud, as a teacher would want to see her best student graduate.
We make all the preparations. Every movement counts. And you are brought into a catheter, so it comes as easily as that, and then you are home.
Day 6: Goodbye, little guest
As I pass you to her, I stop playing, but my heart does not. I usually ask you how you are doing, and did your parents even smile when the positive outcome was presented to them?
The vast majority of the embryologists will never see the babies that we assisted in creating. Yet occasionally, several months later, a photo comes in – a tiny package with blue eyes and tiny fingers. And I think in myself, I have seen those eyes before, under the microscope.
The silent pay-off in this job is that you know that somewhere out there, a bit of the miracle that you once were is now laughing, crying, and living.
With all my heart,
Your Embryologist