Today’s the big day, thought the sperm, the day I finally get out of this cramped room and I can swim free. Something in him was telling him that ejaculation was about to happen, and that it would happen in the environment he was meant for – the perfect one for fertilization. He knew he had a lot of work ahead of him, around him were about a billion of his brothers, all geared up and ready to get out there. As all of them knew, they had a mission to complete, a race to win – and only one of them would win it. He hoped he was the one. They were resting in the testes, just waiting for the right moment to shine – soon, the body they were attached to would reach orgasm, and they would be joined with seminal fluid from the seminal vesicles.
When the moment came, the sperm readied himself – the seminal fluid was rushing out of the testes, and he knew best to swim along with the rest of his brothers. He could feel the urethra around him pulsing and moving, shooting the semen containing him out of his home and into the wild unknown. It happened so fast; he could feel himself shooting out of the urethra, through the vas deferens, out of the penis, and into a dark tunnel he did not recognize – the vagina.
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Meanwhile, the egg was already ready for its big debut. Just a few hours beforehand, it was residing in the ovary, just waiting to be ovulated. However, now she had gone through the Fallopian tubes and was resting near the uterus, in the uterine tube’s ampulla. She knew something was different this time; she would not end up like her sisters, who were menstruated without fertilization. This was the big day.
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The sperm swam around in the vaginal opening for awhile, getting used to their surroundings. Just outside the vagina, the sperm knew, were the labia, the clitoris and the mons veneris. While he did not see them, he knew that they existed, and had helped him along his way to where he was now. He and his brothers were still getting his bearings somewhat when they found it – the cervix. This round form with the small opening was surely where they needed to go, so a few of his brothers and he made their way through the cervix and into the uterus. He knew that he was in the home stretch – all he needed to do was just keep going a bit longer, and he had the chance to fulfill his life’s work: the fertilization of an egg.
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Stuck against the uterine wall, the egg felt excited – sperm were coming! She just might get fertilized today! It was something that she’d been hoping for ever since she had figured out what her ultimate purpose was to be; this would start her on the long process that would turn her and the lucky sperm into a human child. She knew that, by virtue of the process, the strongest and fastest swimmer of the bunch would be the one to make it – she knew everything would turn out to be.
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Finally, he and his brothers entered the ampulla of the uterine tube, where he finally saw it – the egg. Even though he had never seen it before in his life, he knew exactly what to do, swimming for it as fast as he could. He saw many of his fellow sperm beating him to it; panicking, he swam even faster, until his head finally hit the jellylike coating of the egg. He began to dig and dig; enzymes secreted from his acrosome, making the digging a bit easier. Looking to his sides, he saw others doing the same, but not having as much success – he was doing it! He finally broke through! Around him, he saw his brothers failing to get through, because of the enzymes that prevented any other sperm but him from being given this opportunity. Connected to the egg, he felt intense relief, as he had fulfilled his purpose.
Once he was through, he felt himself fusing with the egg’s plasma membrane with his own plasma, and he felt his own flagellum snapping away from his body; his head still attached, the ovum and he started to move down the Fallopian tube, eventually hitting what he knew to be the uterus – the place where he would reside for the next nine months. As he felt himself fusing with the egg, he knew he couldn’t wait to be born. What will I be? He wondered. Will I be a boy or a girl? White or black? Tall or short? All he knew was he had a long journey ahead of him, but the first, difficult step was complete.
References
Rathus, S. A. (2007). Human sexuality in a world of diversity (6th ed.). Toronto: Pearson Allyn and Bacon.
