In the late 1960s, in Yanguan Town, Li County, Gansu Province, 18-year-old Zheng Guizhen married her husband Zuo Changlin.
Zheng Guizhen is a rural teacher with a cheerful and vigorous personality, and Zuo Changlin is a farmer who does not speak much and has a stable personality. The two unexpectedly coincided and soon entered into marriage.
What makes them a little anxious is that they have been married for several years and have not yet had children.
I have tried folk remedies and asked for gods and Buddhas, "All kinds of tossing and turning have no effect." "Couples who married in the same period, their children have long been toddlers in the village.
Went to the county hospital to find out that Zheng Guizhen was infected with tuberculosis as a child, suffering from pelvic tuberculosis tubal obstruction, and the fallopian tubes were not passed.
That's why they haven't been pregnant.
In the blink of an eye, 20 years have passed since marriage.
One day in 1987, Zheng Guizhen heard in the "electric box" (radio): "A Beijing institution is studying the technology that can be fertilized in vitro. There is a possibility of producing a breakthrough in the treatment of infertility. ”
I don't even know what institution it is, but based on the two sentences she heard, Zheng Guizhen dragged her husband from Gansu to Beijing.
At the Beijing station, the two people asked everyone, but they didn't even know what the name of the institution was, and the effect of the questioning could be imagined. The two lay out tarpaulins for several nights until they met a Heilongjiang man named Liu Dianying.
After Liu Dianying and his wife's son died, they wanted to have another one, so they came to the Third Hospital of Peking University (The Third Hospital of Beijing Medical University) for tubal reversal surgery. The middle-aged son's pity for the same disease made him point out the direction for Zheng Guizhen and his wife, and the journey of seeking a son was finally on the right track.
So 33 years ago, on March 10, 1988, Chinese mainland gave birth to the first case of IVF - Zheng Mengzhu.
The name "Zheng Mengzhu" was raised by Zheng Guizhen from her hospital bed.
She said:
"According to our exquisiteness, the child should have two names, the big name is called Zheng Mengzhu, ask for a germination upward meaning, and the bead word is used to express gratitude to Dr. Zhang Lizhu."
And her mother's gratitude to Dr. Zhang Lizhu also ran through Zheng Mengzhu's entire growth process.
After her birth, she still maintained a close relationship with Professor Zhang Lizhu.
When she was a teenager, Professor Zhang paid attention to her studies and hoped that she would not marry and have children as quickly as the local customs, so she worked hard to study and was admitted to Xijing College.
When Professor Zhang Lizhu was seriously ill and confused, others could not recognize her, but she went to visit Professor Zhang, and from a distance, Professor Zhang recognized her at a glance.
In 2010, after graduating from university, she returned to the Reproductive Medicine Center of peking university third hospital to do archival work.
For her, the job, while basic, is also helping people like her parents.
In 2019, she gave birth to her son in the place where she was born, the Third Hospital of Beijing Medical College.
In the documentary "The Prescient", she said that returning to the Third Hospital of Beijing Medical College after graduation is a kind of return, home-like feeling.
This hospital witnessed her birth, became a social person, and became an important moment for her mother.
She also witnessed the efforts and persistence of her mother and medical workers for her birth.
She said that although she is now doing the work of "worker bee", because of her unusual birth experience, this job has more meaning than her:
"I work in the archives, mainly responsible for building cases, collating data and so on, which is also helping people who are similar to their mothers. ...... To be honest, the special thing is that my growth has let the world know that China also has first-class medical technology. ”