Life is truly Amazing - The Miracle
Have you ever considered how amazing life really is, if it was not
“man’s” pettiness it would be a wonderful world to live in? God created everything for a purpose, a
reason, and then he created mankind, giving mankind free will, what a mess up
that was. God placed humans on this
earth to be caretakers. When God has
enough and ends this world as we know it, will he create something to replace
his failures (mankind). Or will
everything live in harmony, the animals and insects, the fish and birds? Does this earth need
“caretakers”? Its man that has destroyed
the delicate balance, that God has created.
I am fascinated how we are created, from the female egg and the male
sperm, to fertilization, to the nine months of development, till birth…. A true miracle, the creation of new life!!
The female egg (Ovum)
Did you know that you already existed before your mother was even
born? That you were in your mother,
while your mother was still in your grandmother’s womb? The production of a woman’s egg happens
entirely in-utero and stops before her birth.
The woman has about 7 million immature eggs when she is in her mother’s
womb, and this number will drop to 700,000 by the time your mother reaches
puberty.
Some eggs will lie dormant for years or even decades before they begin
to mature, while others will degenerate and never develop. For eggs to complete
their journey to ovulation, they receive a signal to begin their final
maturation process about 150 days before they would be released from the ovary.
At the beginning of any given cycle, there are generally about 12 eggs
that have started to grow, and as ovulation nears, preference is given to one
of those eggs, as it receives the final push to maturity and is then released
from the ovary. The mature egg will go
into the fallopian tube where it lives from 12 to 24 hours. The mature egg has only a lifespan of about a
day.
Once ovulation occurs, there is a big hormonal shift that takes place,
progesterone production is revved up, and the release of any future eggs is
halted. Therefore, it is not possible for a woman to ovulate on Monday, and
ovulate again on Saturday.
Multiple ovulations can happen, the release of two or more mature eggs
are released. A woman can release two or
more eggs at least once a year.
Did you know that the woman’s egg is the biggest cell in the woman
body? It’s about the size of a grain of
sand and is actually visible to the naked eye? That means the woman’s egg is
about 4 times bigger than a skin cell, 26 times bigger than a red blood cell
and 16 times bigger than a sperm!!
Scientists have discovered a new type of stem-cell in the human ovary
that may point to the possibility of new eggs continually being formed
throughout a woman’s reproductive years.
The sperm (Spermatozoon)
The sperm is necessary for creating a baby. Just because the woman carries the baby for
nine months, it does not mean that the sperm does not have an equally important
role for creating a healthy child.
Men are constantly making new sperm (about 1,500 every second). Sperm can stay alive inside a woman’s uterus
and fallopian tubes anywhere from 1 to 5 days.
The lifespan of the sperm is dependent on the sperm’s health, but also
on the woman’s cervical fluid, which can nourish the sperm during its wait.
What a man eats daily plays a very important role in the health of their
sperm.
Drinking more than 3 cups of coffee per day can reduce sperm
concentration and sperm count, and lower the quality of the sperm.
Vitamin C improves the quality of sperm, and protects the sperm from DNA
damage. Vitamin C also improves the
sperm motile but preventing the sperm from clumping together. Consumption of fresh fruit gave sperm a
boost in speed and agility.
Men need to climax regularly for healthy sperm.
Men’s sperm can be damaged by wireless devices such as laptop computers and mobile phones, especially laptop computers using Wi Fi. Men should avoid holding laptops directly on their laps, and keep cell phones away from pant pockets.
Considering the size of sperm, they have a great journey to meet up with the female egg in the fallopian tube. One can imagine the incredible energy that must be used for this journey. That is only half the battle for a sperm to create life though. Once to the egg, also known as the ova, they work to penetrate it. Whipping their tails frantically seems like it would be very tiring, but that is where progesterone comes in. Sperm gets a boost of energy from a burst of female progesterone, which encourages sperm to whip their tails more passionately. This helps a sperm to penetrate the egg.
Sperm can melt the surface of the female egg. They do this by releasing enzymes from a portion of the head known as the acrosome, to dissolve the outer membrane of the egg. This helps the sperm to burrow through the egg wall. The sperm plasma then fuses with the plasma membrane of the egg. At this time the sperm head disconnects from the tail and conception of a new life occurs.
Sperm look very different than any other cell in a man’s body. It is true they are shaped that way to help them get where they need to go, but they are also shaped that way because they only carry half as much DNA as other cells in the male body. Because of this the immune system sees them as a foreign invader. Specialized cells in the testicles protect sperm cells, creating a barrier from immune system cells which would otherwise attack and harm them. It is common for this barrier to be broken and sperm to be damaged in as many as 70% off all vasectomy patients.
The testicles are about 7 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the rest of the body. Healthier sperm need to stay cooler than the rest of the body. The testicles work much like a refrigerator, creating a heat exchange from incoming and outgoing blood vessels.
Conception
Conception is possible if sperm is already present in the fallopian
tubes when the egg is released, or if a woman has sex while the egg is alive,
causing sperm to swim up through the uterus and into the fallopian tube. Sperm
can reach the egg in as little as 30 minutes. If conception is successful, the
newly fertilized egg will travel out of the fallopian tube and implant into the
uterus 6 to 10 days later. This means that sex up to 5 days prior to ovulation
can actually result in pregnancy!
If the egg is not fertilized, it will simply dissolve and pass out with
the menstrual flow.
When 2 eggs are released and both are fertilized, this produces
fraternal twins. Identical twins are produced when a single embryo splits into
two.
When discussing fertilization, the egg is often portrayed as a passive
player in the drama of conception, waiting patiently for the first sperm to
arrive and burst in. But research has shown that the egg has a much bigger role
than previously thought, and that she is in fact quite picky!
Although we
usually think of the sperm doing all the hard work of fertilization,
penetrating the docile egg, it is now believed that the egg actually chooses
who she lets in or not.
The egg appears to give preference to sperm with intact DNA, producing a
compound that softens the outer layer of the egg to allow specific sperm to
enter. These studies also suggest that the egg may even actively bind sperm to
its surface, thereby not giving the sperm any choice in the matter, trapping
the sperm it has chosen. Once a sperm has made its way in, the outer layer of
the egg hardens, which prevents entry to any other suitors.
Fertilization results in the creation of a zygote. The zygote begins the process of cleavage or cellular replication, resulting in a morula or ball of cells. At 3 days post-conception a solid ball of 16 cells is present. This blastomere begins to separate into two parts: the trophoblast or outer layer of cells, which will form the placenta, and an inner cell mass or embryoblast, which will begin to differentiate and evolve into the embryo, and a cavity forms within the cell mass. When the cavity is recognizable, the structure of the developing embryo is called a blastocyst. The blastocyst will then implant into the endometrium lining.
Over the next few weeks up to week 10, fingers and toes form, but may still be webbed. The brain and lungs, elbows and toes, eyelids, ears, facial features and all essential bodily organs have begun to form. Around the end of the first trimester, the baby can make a fist and the head makes up about half of the baby’s size.
The embryo becomes a fetus in the 10th week
The second trimester is week 13 – 27 and the third trimester is from week 28 to birth. In the second trimester, during weeks 15 to 18, fetal movements begin. In weeks 19 – 21, the baby can hear and you may feel fluttering in your lower abdomen. At week 22, you will begin to feel the baby moving and a fetal heartbeat can be heard with a stethoscope. The baby develops a startle reflex at about week 26 and rapid brain development occurs as you move into the third trimester. In that final trimester, the nervous and respiratory systems develop, bones begin to form and fingernails and hair grow.
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