The round egg of the female. The male spermatozoon.
The round egg of the female is the largest single human cell, yet it is smaller than a dot (). The male spermatozoon, sperm for short, is similar in shape to a comma (,). It is much smaller than the egg, so much smaller that 2,500 would be needed to cover a comma—and all the sperm needed to repopulate the world could be fitted into an aspirin tablet! The egg is so much larger because it is laden with food to sustain a growing embryo in its first few days. The relatively cumbersome egg is motionless, but the sperm is agile. With the lashing of its hair-fine tail, a sperm cell can propel itself ahead about one inch in eight minutes, which, for its size, is a much better speed than an athlete can match. At that speed, a sperm may reach the egg in an hour to an hour and a half. By way of comparison, an athlete would have to run 70 miles per hour for 250 miles to approximate the speed and distance traveled by a sperm.
When the egg is thrust out of the ovary in a gently rising spring of fluids, it is swept up by the fingerlike fringes (fimbriae) of the oviduct and carried along the tube. Note that the oviduct is not attached to the ovary in any way; yet the tiny egg is miraculously carried into the place where it can meet the sperm.
Egg and sperm come together from opposite directions. At ovulation the immobile egg is thrust out of the ovary in a gently rising spring of fluids and is swept up by the fingerlike fringes (fimbriae) into the oviduct opening. It must be fertilized within twenty-four hours or it will disintegrate.
During this time, the egg will be in the midportion of the oviduct. The sperm may be waiting there or may arrive after the egg. Sperm cells have a longer life span than the egg. They stay alive and vigorous for two to three days and, according to some evidence, may survive even much longer. Sperm do not have to arrive exactly at the time of ovulation. They may arrive some hours before it, or after it, providing an approximate total of three to five days in each monthly cycle during which conception can occur.
In sexual intercourse, the sperm are ejected in a somewhat forceful fine stream that normally aims at the narrow entrance of the cervix and finds entry most readily at the time of ovulation, when the normally dense mucus at the entrance to the cervix is thinner and more fluid.
When the egg is thrust out of the ovary in a gently rising spring of fluids, it is swept up by the fingerlike fringes (fimbriae) of the oviduct and carried along the tube. Note that the oviduct is not attached to the ovary in any way; yet the tiny egg is miraculously carried into the place where it can meet the sperm.
Posted in Understanding the Basics
To Ed Wheat Sr. and Gladys Gibson Wheat, whose commitment, devotion, warmth, generosity, and integrity stood for fifty years as a beautiful picture of genuine agape love.