Exporting handles in vectors alongside a figure

Hi there

I am exporting a number of figures (.fig) using saveas in one script and opening them for further analysis in another script. I have made a series of handle vectors to control specific aspects of the figures and I'd like to be able to import those alongside the figure. However it appears that I am unable to use the handle vectors if saving and loading those (as .mat files). I.e. they are inactive upon import. The only way I have found so far to reach any of the active handles is:

mainchild=get(gcf,'Children');
subchild=cell(length(mainchild),1);
for il=1:length(mainchild)
    subchild{il}=get(mainchild(il),'Children');
end

which returns all handles in some sort of order but is far more complicated to figure out than the predefined vectors I had assigned. (there are many handles in play for these figures).

Does anyone know how to do this or will I have to look through subchild to find the right handle for each specific purpose?

Cheers

Jakob