Fertilization: The Journey of Cassandra and Euripides
David Mohr

Fertilization: The Journey of Cassandra and Euripides

One of the most awesome things that our bodies can do is produce another human being. This is a vital process in keeping our species alive. The steps to fertilization not only take place inside the body but outside the body as well. The internal and external sex organs of the male and female will be called upon to participate in the fertilization process. There are many steps in the dance of fertilization. The real hoe down begins with a lovely single gal named Cassandra who is a member of the ovum family and a little Olympic swimmer named Euripides who is part of a big band of brothers in the sperm family. Today is the one day Cassandra has been waiting for in the last 22 years. As Cassandra as been maturing in ovaries since the fetal stage the same cannot be said about Euripides, like most males he has only been mature for a few months. Cassandra starts off her day in one of the two ovaries that women have on each side of the uterus. During the” proliferative phase”, between ten and twenty of Cassandra’s friend will be with her waiting to see who gets to go on the train ride to the fertilization dance. Estrogen levels help increase the party atmosphere until it peaks and then Cassandra is released to begin her journey to the dance.
After this, the next phase occurs in which the corpus luteum produces large amounts of estrogen and progesterone this helps to build a chair in the uterus for Cassandra to rest and be nurtured in after fertilization takes place. While this is happening, Cassandra is making her short trip to the fallopian tube where the dance will take place, unlike Euripides who will be making a much longer trip. In the fallopian tube there is nourishment and signs guiding Cassandra’s way. Even though the fallopian is not very long, only about four inches, Cassandra moves slowly and must meet Euripides within a day or two of being released or she will succumb and never realize her dream of being fertilized. It is not necessary for a woman’s external sex organs to be stimulated to have ovulation occur, but if one wants fertilization to take place, it is best if the male pays a lot of attention to these places, especially the clitoris as this is what makes women orgasm the most, this in turn helps her inner sex organs be more accepting of the man’s sperm.
While all this is happening to Cassandra, across town in a hot and sweaty bus station known as the “testes” where along the seminiferous tubes, Euripides waits for the ride that will take him and his hundreds of brothers to the dance. Everybody is excited and thinking that they will be the one to dance with Cassandra. Like most men, some of these swimmers will get lost along the way because they forgot to ask for directions, or they have no clue to where they are going, but not Euripides, because he has her scent. In order for Euripides’ journey to begin, or rather to climax, the external male sex organs must be stimulated, for how he is getting to his destination, ejaculation needs to happen. Before Euripides makes it this far, he has a long journey through the epididymis where he will mature for another two to four weeks. Then he will move to the Vas Deferens club where only mature sperm can enter. Once there he will then move to one of the two private party rooms called the seminal vesicles. There, he will be nourished so he will have motility and he will be scheduled to leave through the ejaculatory ducts and be on his way to his final destination: the fertilization dance.
After being ejected close to the cervix, Euripides has another six or seven inches to go before he meets Cassandra in the fallopian tube. While Cassandra has been waiting for Euripides she has cloaked herself in nutrient cells so she will be in good shape, which Euripides will have to drill through in order to complete the dance. Along the way Euripides and some of his brothers have been going through some changes to make them strong enough to dance with Cassandra. This is called capacitation; it is the process by which sperm become competent to fertilize an egg and takes place after ejaculation. Once Euripides and his pals arrive and see Cassandra cloaked in her dress they start knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door. Since Euripides knows the secret code he is the first one in and they complete the dance of fertilization. As one journey comes to an end another one begins.
Sex is an awesome thing but being able to bring life from this joyous event surpasses anything else that we might do in life. “Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children; life is the other way around” (David Lodge 1965).

REFRENCES
Rathus, S. A., Nevid, J. S., & Fichner-Rathus, L. (2011). Human Sexuality in a World of Diversity (8th ed.). New York, NY: Allyn & Bacon.