Sperm Wars Scene 5
Conception
From the book by Robin Baker
It is Friday night and twenty-one days have passed since the beginning of her last period — bleeding that signalled a second! month without conception. Briefly, the couple had feared: for their fertility. They were calmed, however, both by the experiences of friends and by the discovery that a couple must have unprotected sex for a whole year before they qualify for medical investigation. With these reassurances, they had put the month behind them and started afresh. Now, they have just had sex and are drifting off into post-coital sleep. Tonight, she won't wake to go to the toilet and her flowback will wet the sheet.
In the past two weeks, their sex life had more or less followed the routine they had established since giving up contraception. Sex on Saturday, Sunday and sometimes, as this week, also on Friday had become the norm. This week, though, had been slightly different. On Wednesday night, as soon as she had got into bed after returning from her weekly night out, she had stroked his body until he awoke and had played with his penis until he was erect. Then, she had sat astride him and manhandled his penis into her vagina. He had slipped in easily, because she was very wet, and from that moment she had done all the work. Slowly he had begun to enjoy himself. They weren't very practised at having sex with her on top, and a couple of times he had slipped out. She had had to work quite hard but eventually he had ejaculated. Tonight, they had tried the same position but this time, for some reason, it just hadn't worked. Eventually, they had reverted to their usual missionary routine.
As she drifted into sleep, things were happening inside her body that would change her life for ever. She had ovulated Wilier that evening and her egg was just reaching the place in her left oviduct where fertilisation would occur. As it arrived in the fertilisation zone, three fertile sperm arrived simultaneously. They began to burrow through the outer layers of the egg. Two of them were delayed for a few seconds as they bumped into each other, attempting to penetrate the same point in the egg's defences. The prize of fertilisation went to the third sperm, which had a clear run, unhindered by any others. By the time another sperm arrived only a few seconds later, the egg had put up its barriers and there was no way in. The egg had been fertilised by the first sperm to get through. Three months after giving up contraception, the woman had conceived.
In twenty days' time, an overdue period would prompt her to carry out a pregnancy test. Two hundred and fifty days after that she would give birth. The identity of the father, however, would never be known. For the sperm waiting in her oviduct that Friday night had in fact been from two different men.
