Today is Sunday, January 5, 2025. Today marks the first-year anniversary of Atticus’s adoption by us from the North Shore Animal League, along with our neighbor/friend “Diane,” who was with us – and even selected him for us – when we adopted the little rascal. It’s amazing to believe that Atticus is with us for a year already. He’s been a constant source of joy to the two of us over these last 12 months. He now expresses affection by jumping on the bed in the morning and nuzzling near the two of us. At first, he shied away from doing this. He was always busy with jumping from the top of my dresser to another dresser where the television set is situated. He particularly enjoyed going in back of the set for some inexplicable reason, so I would have to chase him off from there. But now he seems to be slowing down a little bit; he’s not as frenetic when we first brought him home. Well, he is close to two years old, which is approximately 24 human years, according to the notation in Google. According to what Google states, “the first year of a cat’s life is considered the equivalent of 15 human years.” So Atticus is close to being a young adult now. After the second year, each additional human year is four “cat years,” i.e., age 3 will be 28 human years, and so on. So we wish Atticus a very long and joyful life with us for many years to come.

Talking about joy, I’m now directing you to a Netflix film with that exact same title that dramatizes the heartache and strain experienced by the three British members of the scientific community who came up with the procedure known as in vitro fertilization (IVF) that culminated in the first-ever “test-tube baby” in July 1978: a little girl named Louise Brown (middle name Joy). Elliot and I scrolled down all of the choices on Netflix to watch and this film seemed the most watchable. This is why I’m late today. This is ultimately a very inspiring and heartwarming film; I recommend you see it.

There is sympathy, warmth, and directness in this intensely British true story that made headlines and changed lives around the world. The screenplay was written by Jack Thorne and Ben Taylor helmed the film in which the decades-long effort to produce success showed obvious strain on the three principals involved in the research and experimentation leading to that one glorious breakthrough in 1978. Within this triumvirate there is pioneering biologist Robert Edwards, here played by James Norton, who is seen as a bullish Cambridge scientist impatient with establishment resistance to his ideas; there is Dr. Patrick Steptoe, a seasoned obstetrician, whose revolutionary technique could make Edwards’ new ideas a reality, and he’s played by Bill Nighy, who radiates his usual reticent elegance and gentle aplomb here; and, most of all, there is embryologist nurse Jean Purdy who is played winningly by Thomasin McKenzie who is shown as the driving force of the entire project, which she carried out primarily while caring for her ailing mum.

Edwards, Steptoe, and Purdy emerge from this film as the intellectual odd-throuple of fertility science, and there is a very likable, easy onscreen rapport between Norton, Nighy, and McKenzie. Throughout the film, the trio plug doggedly through failure after failure while commuting between Cambridge – where Edwards and Purdy were based – and Oldham, where Steptoe was based.

Not only is the trio facing underfunding from the medical community, they are also facing professional scorn for their efforts from the reactionary press and the Church. The medical establishment, in the form of the Medical Research Council, shrugs at their work, wondering that there aren’t so many people affected with infertility, and that overpopulation should be a consideration that the trio should consider before trying to bring more babies into the world. At one point, Edwards demands to know if the council would be more interested if it was a “male” issue, which is a shrewd point.

It is Purdy who faces a personal crisis in pursuing the research into IVF as she is a church-going young woman who goes against her mother’s staunch religious principles by continuing her efforts with her two team members. We also learn that Purdy herself is childless because of severe endometriosis, which makes her efforts to bring “joy” to infertile couples all the more poignant.

As the film ends, we learn how many millions of babies were born as a result of the procedure and how Purdy herself died at the early age of 39 from cancer. She lived long enough to see hundreds of children born around the world via IVF, but not the many millions that followed. The audience also learns that Purdy was excluded from the official record of the lead researchers who perfected the procedure for many decades; she was only listed just recently, the end credits state, and that is an abomination. The only reason for this glaring omission can be traced to rank misogyny in my opinion.

I believe this film will resonate with all of those couples out there who have had any fertility issues in their marital history and will come to appreciate the determination of these three people to truly effect change in many people’s lives, despite the scorn heaped on them by journalists and the medical establishment alike. They were denounced as sinners by the church and were also labeled as “Frankenstein” by the press. It just shows that any kind of medical breakthrough always produces some sort of pushback from many conservative circles initially and that patience and doggedness seem to eventually pay off if you have the right formula for success.

Have a good week.

And so it went!

Here’s a great pic of the birthday boy, courtesy of our cat sitter, “Laura.”