In Media Res(t)
Queridos compaƱeiros ā the first chapter of my quest towards single motherhood is officially complete!
And sure, while the final wrap-up date could technically be considered two weeks ago ā āknock-me-out, aspirate-my-follicles, retrieve-the-Mork-spaceshipsā day:
- the star of the showāmy highly-boosted hormonesāwere just at the top of their rollercoaster ride, getting their Space Mountain pre-drop photo snapped,
- a fact for which I somehow had not prepared myself at all,
- but of which, since October 30, I have become all too aware.
Fig A. Yes, officialy the most niche reference Iāve ever made. Just a big Robin Williams fan š«¶
Indeed, the aftermath of the surgery has very much been āseatbelts-on-arms-and-legs-inside-the-vehicle-the-rideās-not-over-yetāā¦. And honestly, going by the unforeseen eccentricities of my especially stimulated endocrine systemāinvolving 4am Whodunnits like ācrazy building radiator or estrogen-crash hot flash?āātoday as a wrap-up date could still be considered ambiguous. š¬
Come what may tonight, Iām still calling it now. After all, I just had my official post-op check-up at the clinic: effectively, my final visit to Fertility Madrid until this upcoming April (egg retrieval round 2).
(Also, Iāve been terribly remiss with the blogging updates, so letās just skip over that fact and focus on this pseudo-auspicious occasion instead, shall we? š )
The ultrasound showed everything to be healing just fine after the operation. My doctor took the time to answer several questions that had been bouncing around my foggy brain in the aftermathā¦like, why might I have only had a ~54% egg maturation rate? Would this inform choosing the trigger threshold next time?ā¦ She reminded me that this remains part of the gamble: a certain number of follicles giving every (currently-known) proxy sign of being ready, of having responded well to treatmentā¦but zero guarantee that there are even oocytes there, not to mention ones that are mature enough to preserve.
She did mention that instead of the Progesterona pillāwhich plays a vital role in trying to make sure the FSH (nourishing the follicle growth) is taken up equitably, versus overly concentrated with just a fewāwe could try a version administered by injection. I so appreciated her sharing this because: 1) none of my questions were meant as an attack; 2) it gave me a chance to realize that I now have zero panic at the mention of injections. Old hat ā Iām officially a fearless pro! š
As the meeting continues, my brain wanders to the ML experiments that must exist around optimizing egg retrievalāprobably focusing on trigger shot timing. I start plotting how Iād bug Perplexity about this later, maybe even explore creating synthetic datasets to run my own modeling experiments. (Note to self: revisit that Google DeepMind project on Generative Adversarial Network-generated data for wind turbinesā¦)
Apart from the medical info (and my smugness getting a cameo), the only other striking moment was when Dr. Ferrero responded to my frettingāabout being older in a few monthsāwith: āYeah, but itās good, youāve already started now.ā
A pretty generic response to an unproductive observation on my part, but somehowā¦the line hit me sideways. Not just about egg retrieval, but about everything Iāve been building with AI.
How often do we avoid starting something because we donāt have the perfect plan yet? And then, once we finally start, how often do we beat ourselves up for not being further along?
![[blog_7_puente.jpg]](/assets/img/blog_7_puente.jpg)
Fig B. Ah, crossing the in betweenā¦ (one of the bridges at Parque Madrid Rio ā a favorite Madrid spot)
Both journeys, I launched into based on intuition more than factsāa strong but unarticulable sense of purpose, but no narrative points that would strongly recommend me for either undertaking. These were always going to be long roads, multi-step processes.
And of course, I āknewā that all along, intellectuallyā¦but in that moment at the clinic, I realized Iād been carrying some irrational expectations: Egg retrieval, Check. Perfect AI support system for raising kiddos? Check.
Not: Egg retrieval? Wellā¦one roundāand there will need to be a second. Perfect AI support system? Friend, how about we figure out how to properly prompt engineer for the conjugation of an irregular Spanish verb first?
To which I respond: sureā and thanks to having gotten that wrong, Iāve got some ideas for how to get things right.
In the next few months, Iāll be bringing together everything Iāve learned from building my AI projectsāearnest little toys, all of themāto support me toward Round 2 in April. Itās the season of taking stockānow that weāve started, pausing to learn from the fruits of intuition. While Iām reflecting on the data points from this retrieval journey, Iāll be thinking about how to bring my AI teammates into the process. Agentic systems with MCP protocols! Offline models! Chain-of-reasoning! Machine Learning tool calls for collaborative pattern finding and anomaly detection!
Good things to fixate on at 4am instead of playing radiator-or-hot-flash detective. š
![[blog_7_mork_ok.png]](/assets/img/blog_7_mork_ok.png)
Side note: No, I have NOT forgotten the project of sharing my findings from the Human-Computer Interaction papers (towards the relational health dashboard), I promise! But unexpectedly, I have found them thoroughly engrossing as a means to shore up my knowledge on classical stats and experimental set-upā¦ so, the things I want to share about them are a little all over the place at the moment. š«£ Am considering a substack newsletter zooming in on one tiny mathematical piece of an AI-related research paper every 2 weeks because why not, while Iām already struggling to keep up with this space š)ā¦. But for now, just know, itās still in my context window. š«