Sperm meets egg.
Zygote is form.
Zygote attaches to uterine wall
Congratulations, you've been conceived.
I beat all those other sperm to the egg. I've been a winner from the start.
I remember (or I've been told this story enough that I have false memories of it) when I learned about conception. I was asking my mom where babies come from and she, being a nurse, decided to give me the science version. She made me a peanut butter and banana sandwich and sat me down and had be watch 'The Miracle of Life' video. I saw sperm wiggling it's way to egg right there on the TV. It was 1989. I was 5-years-old.
The story goes that, the next week, one of my kindergarten classmates was discussing his mother's pregnancy. He said, "My mommy has a BABY in her TUMMY." Kindergarten me responded, "It's in her UTERUS, stupid."
Oops.
I got sent to the principal's office. I'm still not sure if it was for using the word UTERUS or the word STUPID.
So, I've honestly never been captivated by the miracle aspect of conception. It has always been a very straightward, scientific, physical process. You don't get pregnant from prayer, you get pregnant from biology. It is a VERY clear cause and effect situation.
Or so I thought.
When you really examine the details of conception it can start to look like a miracle after all. I don't know how anyone manages to get pregnant, and certainly not on accident.
1. The woman has to be ovulating.
Do you even know what ovulating really means? About (but not exactly) once a month (usually) a fertile women's ovary releases an egg. Open season for pregnancy. This normally only happens once a cycle and you can ONLY get pregnant these two days a month. Seriously. There are only 24 days out of a year that a woman can get pregnant at max. 24 out of 365. That means women are only fertile about 6.5% percent of the time each year. Now, it is true that sperm can live for several days and so if you happen to have sex RIGHT before you ovulate and then you ovulate you could get pregnant. So, let's up the odds to 13%.
2. The sperm has to get to the egg.
Did you know that the FOOD a woman eats effects the environment she creates in her reproductive tract and can actually slow or kill off sperm? It's true. You might be chowing down on sperm-killing food right now and not even know it.
(There are even some theories, like the Shettles method that say that X chromosome sperm and Y chromosome sperm are different and there are ways to eat or have sex that will make it more likely for you to have a girl or a boy. Interesting but not proven by science, yet.)
3. The zygote (fertilized egg) has to make it to the uterine wall and attach.
50%, yes HALF, of all zygotes don't attach to the uterine wall and pass right through the woman's body. This number seriously surprised me. If 50% of the time the egg gets fertilized, then just wanders out, how does anyone get pregnant on accident????
So, to be conceived your parents had to have sex during that 13% of the time that your mother was fertile, the sperm you had to compete with millions of other sperm make it to the egg, and then there was a 50% chance your mom would pee zygote you out anyway.
It's starting to look like a miracle.
Just wait until you start tracking your basal temperature every morning. :)
ReplyDeleteMy body temperature is not consistent at all. I don't think I could reliably track it for ovulation. I used to always run at 98.7 anytime day or night unless I was ill. For the last couple months I range from 98.4 - 99.5 without any rhyme or reason. I know this because I got a new thermometer and I take my temperature all the time. :P
ReplyDeleteBasal temperature does change and you're suppose to take it every morning the first thing you do before you get out of bed. To chart the temp changes
ReplyDeleteWhat Sarah said. Body temp varies widely throughout the day with activity, environment, hormone levels, etc. Mine is like a roller coaster all day long. But I was still able to check basal temp and get an accurate chart of my ovulation. (For amusement, my ovulation date moved one day further out for every month from Jan to July, and one day back for every month from July to Dec. It's like my ovaries had a circadian rhythm all their own!) You'll read up on this, but basically - first thing in the morning, before you get out of bed, brush teeth, drink water, etc. roll right over and pop that thermometer in. Same time every day, and after at least 4 hours sleep. I was traveling at the time for work, so I had a weird time picked out so that it would work no matter what time zone I was in. You want miracle? Try doing the time-zone-math it takes to find the time of day that you will always be asleep and always have at least four hours of sleep prior. It was maddening. :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, there's a crazy hormone spike right before ovulation that makes women feel very, "Hey, Sailor!" and lowers their inhibitions and increases their attraction to rugged faces. THAT is how they manage to get pregnant. http://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/03/hormones.aspx
I also have anecdotal evidence from my short-haired butchy days and from tons of my friends that right around ovulation and menstruation we'd get a ton less "sir"-ing than during those particular times. Pheromones? Hormones? Something!
I love reading research on how hormones change during the cycle! It's so interesting because I feel like it further proves what funny little animals we humans really are, like it or not! We are definitely sneakily controlled by our chemicals!
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