I Can Hear You

Quest
Jack and Hannah Ormerod and Lucia, Delphine & Fin
Sun 25 Sep 2016 10:39
Position: 12:02.7N 61:45.5W

Thirteen years ago, a black-haired Scottish girl started working with me at the Hammersmith Hospital. As one of the few people who hadn’t jumped our company's IVF ship at the time along with our seniors Ben, Suzy and Karin, it was my job to help her settle in. Well, Egg Collections were one of the first procedures you learned in our lab and this meant shouting through a little hatch window which isn’t always easy when you’re busy concentrating down a microscope, trying to find the tiny egg. On our first morning coffee break, I took the Scottish kid for a coffee and we sat with the nurses. 'How was it?’ one of them asked. ‘It was ok,’ I said and turned to her, ‘You might want to talk a little louder. It was sometimes a bit hard to understand you.’ The Scottish girl raised her eyebrow, just the one mind you, and snapped, ‘Can you f****** hear me now?’ I stared quickly into my coffee. ‘Yeah, that was better.’ The only noise left in the room were the nurses’ sniggers. And you know what? That raven-haired kid hasn’t changed a jot. Thank goodness. Well, maybe the laugh’s a bit dirtier, oh sorry, I mean dirrrrrrtier…

So, as well as bringing us a suitcase of stuff, Yvonne and Steven came to Quest for the day, got swamped in Edna, played with the snorkels, stroked Jack’s feathering propellor (I know, scary!), cuddled the Minster and entered our mobile hair salon. Oh, and they brought Delphine her lilo…brilliant. Even though I don’t do it anymore, Embryology still made me a fatalist and I can’t help but think it was fate that made Yvonne and I cross paths again. Thank you, fate. I can f****** hear you! 

Love from Quest and her crew xx