theoddsock.com

So they are rebooting Star Trek, it would seem.

Now call me a militant die-hard trekkie of the first water but the news is about as palatiable to me as rebooting Tolkien. With the guts of 40 years of canon, and particularly in the case of ‘The Final Frontier’ some misfires, this just gives me the heebee-jeebees.

Not withstanding the fact that I have not, through boycotting TV alot recently, seen anything J.J. Abrams has output I am rather wary and may very well end up taking a Greedo-shot-first stance to all this.

So, will we be treated to a complete reworking of Trek, a ‘Jim Kirk’s Academy Days’ where every one turns up, only younger? I do hope not, since it will jar very much with the version of events we know and anything of that ilk would smack hugely of a Trek Muppet Babies. What would be interesting would be to fill in some of those tantalising threads that the show dangled before us. Kirk and Carol Marcus’ inital relationship - was she the blonde lab tech he almost married. It would be nice to see the well known friction between Spock and his father owing to Spock’s decision to attend the Academy rather than the Vulcan institution Sarek favoured. How about seeing Ben Finney before he got all grumpy and suicidal. Or the famous Kobyashi Maru test - how did it really go down, I’m sure some of classmates were a bit miffed. Or the events alluded to in The Concience of The King. (Yes! marvel at my trivia-fu - I own a uniform so am not one to be triffled with!)
Now, don’t get me wrong, I not against exploring things in the life of the younger Kirk and Spock, and the others if it works, because there is plenty sketched out loosely to play with, but what does worry me is that the established events will be tossed aside to create some trite akin to the current high school adventures we’ve been seeing but in the future, oh and with space ships, oh and a Gorn too. Oh don’t forget the Borg!

The Borg episode aside which was a little on the verge, I felt Enterprise managed to fit things along the established line of canon regarding first contacts with races while still getting us to see some old favourites - The episode with the Feregine stands out here as a gem of an example. And the episode with the Romulan ship was good as well.
As Spock is fond of saying, anything is possible, but I for one feel alot like Dr McCoy when told about the Genesis Device.

Establised over 40 years, now watch out here comes Abrams, we’ll do it for you in 90 minutes!

And I think we all remember what happened that time. All I can do is hope that he adds to things and doesn’t rewrite things too much.

Granted I was not at all happy with Nemesis (to be addressed in another post) anyway so I am not against XI. Just very wary.

Well, today marks the first day of treatment!

After a slight ker-fuffle with some test reseults we are now on track… well, sort of.  Day 3 of IUI marks the start of taking Gonal-F injections to help my ovaries get the idea, at least more so than normal, and release more eggs than they might otherwise do in an effort to increase chances of concieving, we are goin to pick that up from the clinic on Friday and be shown how to administer it - it sounds like its done similiarly to insulin injections. Then on Day 9, they start regular scanning to see how things are progressing. Sounds pretty straight-forward doesn’t it. Day 9 occurs after the day or days I will be interviewing people for a role as web developer so  it would appear to be all cut and dried!

Wrong!

I phoned up Jon to let him know we were all go and that my first scan would be on the 8th when he reminded me that he is in hospital that morning for a scan of another type. Unfortunately its the QE 2 in Welwyn so a far drive away and he is having a flexi-sigmoidoscopy and won’t be able to drive for a while after. However in the meantime I wondered if his mum might have some flexi-time and drive me, obviously the issue here is that I don’t drive! But alas no, I called hime back to learn that she was taking him to the hospital for his 8:30 appointment. Of course I did point out to him that since he wouldn’t be in any fit state to drive why had he suggested that I rebook for later on when he’d probably still not be able to drive!

In the end I decided to opt for taking a taxi. Unless anything else presents itself in the meantime. Hopefully though he won’t miss any of the other scans. My other hope is that with all this crazy silliness now things can only be good.

But we shall see…

Now that it’s February I’m very firmly of the opinion that I’ll never be able to keep a diary going for longer than a week, nor write posts any more often than every 6 weeks or so. The only thing I have to say in my defense is that I’ve been having a pretty rough time of it lately with a pickle of a hiccup at work (putting it very mildy indeed - I was screaming inside in sheer terror for the 11 straight hours that I was at my desk on Monday before last) and that general malaise that sets in around this time of year when it’s clear that the resolutions - diary keeping, sensible diet, exercising etc - are dead, gone and buried under a mountain of naughty treaty treat biccies and apathy induced take aways. Still our local chinese, the Jade Garden, does make the best chicken balls (stop sniggering in the back!) such that friend willingly brave the M25 and A1M to travel to visit it, and us so they claim.

Today, however, I find myself not engaged in working like a maniac, but sitting surrounded by beads yet again, wondering what to make next.  My other option is to go and do house work but I really don’t wanna!

I did call the clinic though to ask about when we’d hear back about when we’d be able to start treatment - or rather I would and Jon would have to ferry me about.  Having shelled out a grand to reserve sperm just over a month ago we are naturally keen to know if they are actually doing anything. It seems they have just received a new shipment - the mind and imagination boggles - and we might hear in a week or so if any of it matches.

Those of you who follow the state of fertility treatment in the UK will probably know that due to a change in the law so that sperm donors’ identities can be made know to their offspring when they reach a certain age, the number of donors has since dropped. This means that sperm now has to be imported - and ours could be Danish.

Since both my husband and I have no qualms in telling in our children - should we be lucky - how they came about I am hopeful that this will curb any teenage  miffs that cause them to run off to find their biological father and generally be a nuisance to them.  Not that I particularly want to wear our difficulties as a badge of honour. But I don’t think that pretending that our attempts to have children are without their difficulties and impositions. Looking back on the rather lax sex education that I got when I was 12, which was in Ireland and at a National (Catholic) School, and again by way of biology class in Secondary School I feel that an awful lot was left out. Of course no one likes the idea of teenage pregnancy - apart from those that you near about in the news who race their sisters to childbirth and council flats - but trying to tell teenages not to have sex is a sure fire way of getting their interest. Getting them to use protection is far more important but not only as a means of preventing children - because it isn’t necessarily that easy - but to prevent disease.

Looking back on things I get rather annoyed at the ‘don’t do it because you’ll get pregnant’. They never address what you should do once you are married or in a statble relationship where both partners want to have a family. You never learn how long should you try for before approaching your GP. That you should demand that the male partner is tested at the same time that you have to endure all kinds of uncomfortable proceedures. My feeling is that the male should be tested first - getting him to pop into a cup to test that there is any viable sperm in the first place is a lot easier than having to have daily scans, your tubes checked for blockages, etc. Also if you are in the UK, find out what treatment the NHS will and won’t do. For us in Befordshire, we can not be treated as the major problem is with my husband. Male infertility is harder to treat: so probably, in an effort to preserve their success rates, we’ve had no choice but to go private. The one thing to be said for this though is that it does mean that you wouldn’t have to sit in an NHS waiting room with a young woman who is clearly much younger than you and obviously ill-prepared nor as keen to have a child as you are who has just found out that she is pregnant while you are waiting to go in to be told yet again that they don’t know what the problem is and tell you rudely when you take this news tearfully but quietly that ‘Life isn’t fair and you should learn to deal with it’

And so ends a calmer rant than usual.

I’m going to sign off now and make myself another completely fake Latte but enjoy it roundly. Hopefully I’ll post again before another 6 weeks is up!