Remember back in junior high health class, when you learned all about sperm? Sperm was magical, as well as diabolical. Sperm could live for days on a toilet seat. Sperm could swim though 6 layers of clothing and impregnate you. It only takes one single sperm (ONE!) to get you pregnant. And sperm could be deposited on your clothes, and a week later, find its way inside you and burrow inside your egg. Ah, the good old days, when sperm could not be defeated. And for most of my adult life, I adhered to this guidance. Any loose sperm was a cause for alarm, much like a biohazard spill.
After a year + of subfertility, you learn a few truths about sperm:
-Sperm doesn't like things too warm
-Sperm doesn't like things too cold
-Sperm doesn't like coffee, alcohol, tobacco, or soy
-Sperm doesn't like hot tubs, hot showers, saunas, restrictive underwear, bike shorts, biking, synthetic fabrics, laptops, or scalding hot liquids
-Sperm doesn't like to be in the testicles for longer than 7 days
-Sperm doesn't like having to regenerate every day
-Sperm doesn't like it when you get old, or overweight, or stressed out
-Sperm doesn't like lube, saliva, petroleum jelly, baby oil, or any cervical fluid other than "eggwhite"
-Sperm doesn't like to be kept waiting in a cup for over an hour
-Although it only takes "one good sperm", having a sperm count of 1 will never get anyone pregnant
I remember health class. It was stupid. One semester was required in high school. I thought I had escaped, but the guidance off caught me in the last semester of my Sr. year. And they didn;t even have a computer! Wouldn't ya think they had a better use of their time? The Public Health nurses they brought in were stupid too. Oh well, if they had discovered that I had a tain ted or otherwise illegitimate high school diploma from the state of W Va, they might have thrown me out of college part way through. The repercussions might have gone on forever.
ReplyDelete