Congratulations.

Thank you. She’s still baking in the NICU, but Kess will be home with us within a couple weeks. Bonus pic of her figuring out how to create a sleep mask out of random parts: https://imgur.com/a/luDdo6E

You're probably well aware and quickly fixed the issue after the photo was taken, but I just need to say it's a really bad idea to have ANYTHING in an infants crib that they can use to block their airways like that.

Glad to see she's doing well and hope you have good times with her once she's home!

NICU is an exception to that rule! All you need to replicate at home is vital sign alarms and 24x7 nurse care.

We had a 2 week NICU stay for our daughter earlier this year. The nurses loved putting items in the crib to make the baby happier but they always looked at me and said, “don’t do this at home!”

Congratulations on your baby!

Why is the face blacked in the picture?

Because the child can't consent to having their face permanently recorded in public social media. It's becoming a thing not to post photos of children until they can make their own decisions.

Pretty important for LGBTQ+ people, too.

No?

Difficult to discern your exact point but maybe you're suggesting that it is not important because such people can just use surrogacy?

But surrogacy causes a lot of legal issues in a lot of countries, as well as necessitating trust of the surrogate mother. Not to mention issues for the surrogate mothers themselves who, as I understand it, are often treated poorly in poorer countries.

Of course, I'm sure there will be many legal issues with this alternative as well. But I don't think people will be complaining about having another option on the table.

One example related to this and the far-right shift in many western countries, in Italy they are retroactively removing the non-birth mother from birth certificates issued to lesbian couples.

Can the non-birth mother adopt to preserve parental rights?

Huh?

talkin' about artificial wombs

The fact that this was so downvoted makes me worry. Yes, this would be massive for same-sex, trans, etc. couples. Anyone who is not able to carry a child to term. Right now having a child isn't a fundamental biological "right". We should strive to make it a human right, through technology, regardless of biology.

There is a very strong anti-LGBTQ undercurrent that runs through this site.

> The fact that this was so downvoted makes me worry.

Allowing LGBT couples to have biological children risks undercutting many common biology-based excuses for discrimination. For some, being solutions-oriented is less important than justifying existing biases and saving face.

The "overpopulation" people are essentially the most disingenuous concern trolls of the modern epoch. Since every problem can be expressed as a "per capita" value, its very easy to claim that less people would obviously fix whatever problem you're talking about (despite it not changing the facts on the ground: i.e. CO2 emitting power generation would continue to warm the planet whether it supplies 5 billion people or 10 billion - whether it happens now or in 100 years, mankind winds up just as screwed).

You then of course get the people who don't actually get that every generation is...well a new generation. For as many displaced and orphaned children as their are, there is not nearly enough for everyone who wants to raise a child to have one (nor any practical way to fix the logistics of that process, even before we get to biological imperatives).

And of course finally you have the reality that none of the people who ever bring this up seem to actually be aware of any of the statistics surrounding it: i.e. most western nations are at or below replacement level, so any population increase comes from migration. Birth rates are also falling in the 3rd world[1] - and this is principally attributed to success in fighting poverty, promoting women's rights and education, as well as family planning work. It turns out population management is easy - it's so easy that we've succeeded at it without even really trying.

Which leads to - as you note - the utterly shitty rhetoric everytime there's a breakthrough in reproductive healthcare. A whole little army of childless 20-year olds who feel entitled to pass judgement on people experiencing reproductive trouble, who want a child, and are going to have...you know, on average 2 children maybe because they're still accessing a high tech medical service.

[1] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/charted-rapid-decline-of...

> The "overpopulation" people are essentially the most disingenuous concern trolls of the modern epoch.

Ah go stuff it somewhere nobody wants to think about.

Because it's totally rational to understand that exponential population growth will end badly. And at the same time believe that the vast majority of humanity has a right to have children.

Population growth is slowing down and overpopulation isn't really a problem we should be concerned with. Look into it and you'll find we have plenty of space and resources, we just have to distribute it.

I have always found it a fun paradox that some people, you for example, claim the earth is not overpopulated.

It's really not a paradox. Its a naive claim.

The facts being that humans consume and exploit the earth to a degree which destroys it is a - like i said fact - pretty well established.

Sure the earth might hold 10 billion people. But that's not really how to look at it.

No one in the western world will retract from their consumption levels in order to save the earth. Therfore we cannot be 8 billion and say we are not too many.

The western world is doomed as you know it if we are to survive here. And tech is not saving your ass, tech fucked us all over in the first place. Think about how people really believe riding a fucking electric vehicle is good for the planet. Wtf is wrong with people?

But you will perhaps like to live in the forest, eat only local foods and stop driving cars, having no fridge, no running water and wait for the shit to cool down. Of course you won't.

So you really have to be blind not to see we are way to many people.

Call me troll all tou want.

First, congratulations! Having a child is a wonderful experience. Personally, I think it's what makes life worth living.

That said, hate to be a downer, but I do want to point out some stuff:

> And I’ve never understood this

Let's just go through a few fairly obvious scenarios that can come from this:

- Once this is commercialized we no longer need women.

- Genetic diversity, thing of the past.

- DNA sequences are patented and owned by biotech at birth, you'll have to pay your loan back for life.

- Kill switch added to every human, such that if you question your authoritarian masters, they'll kill everyone with the given switch. (i.e. cloned slaves)

- Governments can castrate the entire population and control the future (think this wouldn't happen, see how mandatory abortion laws for the genetically unfit - they have quite a few in Europe, Asia, etc).

- Genocide-made-easy, wipe any population you want out and grow a new one

Let's just consider the more mundane:

- We already have children without parents. Imagine the desire for any kind of foster situation when you can just grow your own.

- Elderly parents looking to raise children (say, as you say, in your 60's) could now do so

- Government raising & caring for children...

I'm sorry, I hear the calls for improvements in this area, but... the down side risks are enormous. I personally, think it's inevitable, but I also assume all technology will be used for maximal good and evil. Unfortunately, this technology seems like it has far more evil potential.

- Once this is commercialized we no longer need women.

We already "don't need men". Other mammals have been cloned or heterozygously created from bimaternal parents, and only females are required for either of these processes.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-45801043

Also I imagine you'll still need a womb to grow the embryo? Ovaries are not a womb, so "commercializing" this alone doesn't obviate the need for women.

We're fairly close to an artificial womb

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/health-50056405

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/17/1020969/mouse-em...

And I agree with you we "don't need men"; I'm just pointing out a litany of implications.

The first one is for a better incubator for premature babies. The second is in mice and doesnt sound particularly close, as they still required pregnant mice and the embryos die after a certain point because of lack of placenta. Neither of these seems very close to replacing the need for women, but maybe will be closer after 10 more years?

In 2017 they were growing sheep in one for 4 months

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15112

I think it’s relatively close, sure maybe 10 years, I’m not sure exactly. My point, was that this technology is going down this path and theoretically, pretty dangerous

> we no longer need women

Most of humanity is female. Women are the majority. If we’re getting rid of one of the sexes you’d better hope not everyone gets to vote.

Seriously, the idea that women are only useful to society as baby incubators is the most jaw-droppingly sexist thing I’ve seen on this site in years.

> Seriously, the idea that women are only useful to society as baby incubators is the most jaw-droppingly sexist thing I’ve seen on this site in years.

I never said anything close to this.

“Once this is commercialized we no longer need women” is a pretty clear statement that the only reason “we” need women is because we don’t have any other way to incubate babies. It’s what you said, whether or not it’s what you meant.

We no longer "need" men either, we can clone with embryos. We don't "need" either, objectively -- In the sense of reproduction (which is what we were discussing).

Further, it doesn't mean I think we should create an authoritarian dictatorship where dictators control cloned slaves. You know, something I also mentioned.

I'm stating alternatives that can occur and what others will think.

Doesn't matter. Those who already disagree with you will pretend to not understand speaking in generalities because it's convenient for them. Obviously you said what you said in the context of reproduction.

And yet I've witnessed feminists oppose effective male contraception simply because it would empower men and depower women. What do you think their opinions on artificial wombs are going to be?

Wikipedia says 101 males to 100 females.

Interesting, thanks for pointing that out. I didn’t realize the Chinese one-child policy’s effects had pushed things quite that far yet. Data here for the curious:

https://ourworldindata.org/gender-ratio#how-does-the-sex-rat...

https://ourworldindata.org/gender-ratio#how-many-women-are-m...

Makes great sci-fi, well it could, your pitches are alright but we can already do most of these with good ol' fashion forced conception and if you can't get your followers to screw for the cause then you're probably not much of a threat. Doesn't the doomer sci-fi connect this to VR somehow? Like you don't just want to make babies, you put 'em in a maturation chamber and mature them, rapidly. Better ban VR, there's no legitimate use. I for one welcome our Meta-Clone Overlords.

> Once this is commercialized we no longer need women.

Babies need to develop inside a uterus, and artificial wombs are much harder to make than artificial ovaries.

There's even plenty of reason to doubt the motivations of the very researchers involved here. George Church is known to have had extensive ties and contacts with Jeffrey Epstein. Here is some research at Harvard that Epstein sponsored (along with the Gates Foundation) singing the praises of "eusocial" forms of social organization, where reproductive ability is confined to a tiny subset of the population: "The ties that bind – Harvard Gazette" https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/08/the-ties-that...

Do these people really intend for these technologies to benefit the broad mass of people?

> I’d just like to say that this sort of tech can’t come too soon.

Not just for ovaries either. Almost all of us need some kind of cloned tissue, maybe with a slight genetic alteration.

Some papers if you're interested:

"Modeling post-implantation stages of human development into early organogenesis with stem-cell-derived peri-gastruloids" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286742...

"Pluripotent stem cell-derived model of the post-implantation human embryo" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06368-y

"Transgene-Free Ex Utero Derivation of A Human Post-Implantation Embryo Model Solely from Genetically Unmodified Naïve PSCs" https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.14.544922v1

"Post-gastrulation synthetic embryos generated ex utero from mouse naive ESCs" https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(22)00981-3.pdf

This last paper uses a very interesting "roller-culture" system where mouse embryos are removed from the uterus and grown in test tubes.

Congratulations. Wife and I are on our fourth round of IVF with only two embryos so far. Our odds don't look too promising and will probably end up going the donor's eggs path. The process of having a live, healthy birth when biology refuses to cooperate is emotionally and financially draining for millions of couples. If technology like in vitro gametogenesis becomes available in the near future it will be a real miracle of science. Nothing to be worried or scared about.

I just wanted to send you some hope, as someone who understands all too well what it feels like when it doesn’t work. I was close to giving up many times. I don’t want to send you false hope, just some real hope.

Best of luck to you and your wife, and please do reach out if you ever need someone to vent to or to chat with.

> As someone who just spent 9 weeks in the hospital with his wife in order to safely deliver his child

She didn't deliver her child?

> IVF finally worked after five years, and then we capped it off with a mega hospital stay.

Why not adopt? Aren't there millions of kids in need of adoption?

> Having babies naturally sucks.

No it doesn't. There is a reason why the vast majority of women choose to have more children after their first child. Not only that, most women with only 1 child wanted to have more but couldn't because of advanced age, finances, etc. Having babies 'unnaturally' ( with help from science ) sucks because of the extra difficulties and costs involved.

> There is a reason why the vast majority of women choose to have more children after their first child

Mate if you think it's because they loved having the baby so much, you're living on another planet or you've never talked to a mum.

> There is a reason why the vast majority of women choose to have more children after their first child.

There are many reasons, but “because childbirth was a fun time” tends not to be a prominent one.

> Having babies naturally sucks. It’s difficult, painful, and something that people do because they have to, not because it’s fun.

An unpopular fact: nobody has to reproduce. It's an optional, opt-in choice.

Most people seem to make this choice, like many other lifestyle choices, so it's easy to gloss over the fact that it's a decision that was made (and that that decision has consequences). But a decision it is, and an optional one it remains.