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It was the spring of the year and of my first pregnancy. My silhouette was just beginning to round out to the point where planting was awkward but not unmanageable. I settled my knees into the soil and sowed a patch of violas. As I buried the seeds in the ground and patted the dirt over their hiding spots, I thought of my own Seedling, nestled within me for his nine-month germination. I pondered the thread of continuity running through creation: new life begins in darkness, enveloped by mystery.
For King David, the depths of the womb were known only to God:
My frame was not hidden from Thee,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth.
—Psalm 139:15
In our day, however, human reproduction no longer seems so mysterious. Science has revealed exactly what goes on inside the womb, from the meeting of sperm and egg onward. Two new books from Harvard University Press shine an academic light into the secret depths of creation.
On Fertile Ground: A Natural History of Human Reproduction is the work of Harvard anthropologist Peter Ellison. In clean, elegant prose, Ellison has crafted a synthesis of current knowledge in a range of disciplines. As a reader with little background in science beyond high school biology, I found it tough going at times, but those with previous knowledge of anatomy and reproductive physiology will have less difficulty understanding Ellison's terminology, and his exposition offers a superb overview.
A book more likely to end up in a "Reproductive Biology for English Majors" class is Making Babies: The Science of Pregnancy, by David Bainbridge. The playful title suggests the book's flavor. Bainbridge, a professor at London's Royal Veterinary College, covers his subject like an academic reporting for the National Enquirer. His eye for the sensational and amusing aspects of pregnancy, combined with his understated sense of humor, results in a more digestible—but still solidly scientific—read.
The books complement each other well. On Fertile Ground covers the whole range of human reproduction, from conception to menopause; Making Babies focuses specifically on pregnancy, telling the story of a single baby (and his mother) from conception through breastfeeding. As a nonscientist, I am not qualified to judge much of what Ellison and Bainbridge have to say. But both authors aim to reach a wide audience beyond their specialized fields, and I'm grateful for their efforts to draw the rest of us into the conversation. Science isn't done in a vacuum—it has a great effect on our lives, on our families and communities. For me as a wife and mother, the science of reproduction is not an object of abstract curiosity but rather the stuff of my daily life. I read both books with my newborn son Gideon in my arms. It was especially fascinating to learn the details of the journey we had just come through together. But I was also prompted to wonder if this knowledge will increase our awe and respect for human life.
Had he studied the human reproductive system, I believe King David would have found many wonders to sing about. I was enthralled by Bainbridge's account of conception in Making Babies, which provided me with an interesting "fact for the day" to share with my family: how a female egg is protected from penetration by multiple sperm ("polyspermy"), a threat to new life at its earliest stage. The moment a sperm enters an egg, an electrical current spreads from the sperm's entry point across the egg's surface, creating a force field against further sperm. In case that's not enough, there's also a backup system: the voltage change from the initial protection measure causes calcium atoms to leak into the egg, triggering the release of hundreds of little chemical packets. These packets fill the space between the egg and its protective shell, the zona pellucida—wonderfully described by Bainbridge as "a clear glassy sphere with a structure rather like a crystal, and clearly unlike anything else in the human body." The zona's very molecular structure is altered by the chemicals, rendering it impenetrable to sperm.
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