If you are having a problem getting pregnant, then having the full picture of what it takes to attain fertilisation is really important.
When a woman is ovulating and the egg is expelled from the ovarian wall it will be picked up by the waiting fallopian tube. Within seconds, the fimbria (the end of the fallopian tube) will snatch the egg up and draw it inside the tube. An unfertilised egg has a life-span of up to 24 hours, sometimes less and after it dies it will disintegrate, be reabsorbed or come out of the body with the blood of the menstrual period. To put it in perspective, the size of the egg is about as big as a full stop - like this one.
If on the other hand an egg does get fertilised it happens within a couple of hours after ovulation, and will happen while the egg is in the fallopian tube. This is against the popular misconception that fertilisation takes place inside the uterus. It may in fact take a number of hours for the sperm to journey to the awaiting ovum in the fallopian tubes. The egg gets to the uterus after fertilisation by the help of little vibrating cilia, kind of like tiny hairs which line the inside of the fallopian tubes. After a journey of around a week, the egg will reach the uterine lining, where it will finally begin the task of burying itself in the nutrient-rich lining.
If you are having a problem getting pregnant, it is important to remember that conception requires three things to take place: the sperm, the egg and most importantly a conduit for the egg and sperm to travel safely in the hostile vaginal environment.
This medium which affords safe passage to the sperm and egg is an eggwhite-like cervical fluid which is especially fertile. It is this cervical fluid which will allows the sperm to travel to the cervix in safety and unite with the waiting egg. This amazing fertile mucus is produced with rising levels of oestrogen in the first part of the cycle, and is at its best at the time of ovulation. This fertile fluid allows sperm to survive inside for as long as five days - so its completely possible that a naughty night out on Saturday can get you pregnant at your office desk on Wednesday!
Once pregnant, the body begins its amazing process - it would be a disaster for the lining of the uterus to start to disintegrate as it normally does in the menstrual cycle, so a pregnant body will actually start to protect itself to prevent this disintegrating from occurring as it normally would. When a fertilised egg burrows into the lining of the uterus, the body starts producing a hormone called Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) which prevents this from happening. The message this hormone sends is to the lining itself (the corpus luteum) and it simple tells it to stay alive. This will continue on for a couple of months, or until the placenta is ready to relieve the corpus luteum of its job, after which it is the placenta which keeps the lining alive, whilst also providing the nutrients and oxygen that the tiny foetus needs to grow.
False -negative pregnancy tests occur when the test is done too soon, because it can take so long for an egg to burrow into the lining and start producing HCG, which is what is measured in a pregnancy test. By charting her menstrual cycle and her cervical fluids, women can avoid these false-negatives and actually have a much clearer indication of pregnancy via the results of charting process.
If a couple is having a problem getting pregnant, knowing the intricacies of what it takes to fertilise an egg can really help, especially as contrary to what every mum tells her teenage daughter, sometimes it actually isn't that easy to get pregnant.
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