HOW ARE BABIES MADE

Motherhood is a blessing and a woman is complete after she is a mother. In order to conceive it is important that you know exactly what your body will be going through and how you will conceive and deliver your baby. In this article we will try to explain the whole procedure of conceiving and producing a baby.

Inside the woman's body
Women have two kiwi-shaped balls known as ovaries attached to either side of your uterus which are full of eggs. Every infant girl is born with more than 500,000 eggs (more than a lifetime's supply) in her ovaries. Most of these eggs begin dying off almost immediately but you are still justify with plenty for your reproductive years. Altogether you'll probably release about 400 eggs, beginning with your first period and ending when menopause arrives, usually between ages 45 and 55. Sometime during the middle of your menstrual cycle (most likely between the 12th and 16th days), an egg reaches maturity in one of the two ovaries, which releases it into the abdomen, where it's quickly sucked up by the tulip-shaped opening of the nearest Fallopian tube; these are two 4-inch canals leading from the ovaries to the uterus. This release, known as ovulation, starts the conception clock ticking. The average egg lives only 24 hours, so it has to be fertilized soon if a baby is to be conceived. If your egg meets up with a healthy sperm on its way to the uterus, the two can join and begin the process of creating a new life. If not, it ends its journey at the uterus, where it disintegrates and is expelled a couple of weeks later during your period.

Inside the man's body
While women are busy maturing a single egg at the leisurely pace of about one a month, men are almost constantly at work producing millions of microscopic sperm, whose sole purpose in life is to swim for their lives and penetrate an egg. While women come complete with all the eggs they'll ever need, men aren't born with ready-made sperm. They have to make them on a regular basis - from start to finish it takes about 64 to 72 days to create a new sperm cell. With every ejaculation a man releases around 200 to 350 million sperms and an average sperm lives only a few weeks in a man's body. Sperm production starts in the testicles, the two glands housed in the scrotal sac beneath the penis. The testicles hang outside the body because they're quite sensitive to temperature. To produce healthy sperm they have to stay at 94 degrees Fahrenheit - about four degrees cooler than normal body temperature. Once the sperm is created, it's stored in a portion of the testicle known as the epididymis until it's scooped up and mixed with semen just prior to ejaculation.

Despite the millions of sperm that are produced and released in each ejaculate, only one can fertilize an egg (this is the case even for twins). The gender of the resulting embryo depends on which type of sperm burrows into the egg first - sperm with a Y chromosome will make a boy baby, and sperm with an X chromosome will make a girl.

What happens while you're having sex
While making love your bodies build up tension that results in orgasm. In men, orgasm propels rich semen into the vagina and up against the cervix at roughly 10 miles per hour. This process, known as ejaculation, gives sperm a head start on their way to the egg. A woman's climax also aids conception. Some research shows that the wavelike contractions associated with the female O help pull the sperm farther into the cervix. Certain positions like the missionary position (man on top) or the rear-entry position (man behind woman, both facing the same direction) are best because they allow for deep penetration. It is also very important to keep tract of your ovulation period if you are planning to get pregnant. That means you should aim to make love at least every other day during the middle of your cycle.

The Final Destination
If conception is going to happen, it will be in the first few hours after sex. It is advisable for the woman to stay on her back with a pillow under her bottom for at least 20 or 30 minutes so gravity can help the sperm get to the waiting egg. What is happening inside your body is that those millions of sperm have begun their quest to find your egg, and an easy journey it's not. The first obstacle is the acid level in your vagina, which can be deadly to sperm. Then there's your cervical mucus, which can seem like an impenetrable net except on the one or two days when you're most fertile and it miraculously loosens up so a few of the strongest swimmers can get through. But that's not all; the sperm that survive still have a long road ahead. In all they need to travel about seven inches from the cervix through the uterus to the Fallopian tubes. When you consider that they travel at a rate of roughly an inch every 15 minutes, that's quite a trip. The fastest swimmers may find the egg in as little as 45 minutes, while the slowest can take up to 12 hours. If they don't find an egg in the Fallopian tubes at the time of intercourse, the sperm can wait there in a resting stage for up to 72 hours.

The attrition rate for sperm is so high that only a few dozen ever make it to the egg. The rest get trapped, lost - perhaps heading up the wrong Fallopian tube - or die along the way. For the lucky few who get near the egg, the race isn't over. They have to work frantically to penetrate the egg's outer shell and get inside before the others. When the hardiest of the bunch makes it through, the egg changes instantaneously so that no other sperm can get in. It's like a protective shield that clamps down over the egg at the exact moment that first sperm is safely inside.

Now the real miracle begins. The egg will be fertilized within about 24 hours as the genetic material from the sperm combines with the genetic material in the egg to create a new cell that will rapidly start dividing. You're not actually pregnant until that bundle of new cells, known as the embryo, travels the rest of the way down the Fallopian tube and attaches itself to the wall of your uterus. (Although you can have an ectopic pregnancy if the embryo implants somewhere other than the uterus, usually in the Fallopian tube. An ectopic pregnancy is not viable, and the embryo has to be surgically removed to prevent rupture and damage to the Fallopian tube.) That final leg of the trip can take another three days or so, but it may be a few more weeks until you miss a period and suspect that you're going to have a baby.

Once you have missed your period - or noticed one of the other signs of pregnancy - you can use verify to confirm whether you are pregnant or not.