The other night we sat down and watched a National Geographic documentary called "In the Womb." I must admit, the advances in technology are amazing! I remember way back in high school when we watched "The Miracle of Birth" and let me tell you it wasn't a "miracle" to watch. I remember the bad filming and the part about delivery, but everything else I think I slept through. Science hadn't figured out as much back then, well at least in comparison with today.
As we watched the show, it blew my mind seeing all the footage of inside the womb throughout different steps of the pregnancy. The documentary essentially centered around one couple and it showed video from inside the womb throughout the various stages of pregnancy. It was amazing to watch the actual fetus grow and development over the weeks and months. I sat there in amazement of God and how He wired the body to work and function in perfect harmony. I marveled at the advances in science, such as actual video inside the womb, 4D ultrasounds, and even surgery on a fetus. It blows my mind how that a sperm and an egg can develop into a human being without any outside help or assistance. We talk about it and read it in books, we see the product of this union, but never have I ever actually seen the process take place before my eyes and it blew me away.
One of the first things to develop was the spinal column and brain. What an extraordinary organ the brain is! It controls the rest of the body. Once again, we know this and learned it in 7th grade biology, but hearing and seeing the science of it come to life amazed me. Also, the heart was fascinating to watch grow. Essentially, the stem cells can all become any type of cell in the body, thus the reason people want to study and harvest them. With the heart, one cell randomly twitches one time early on in the pregnancy, and then other cells join in the twitching and they all do so in unison. This twitching becomes the heartbeat and the cells pull together to form the heart. What? All the because one cell randomly starts to twitch. God, you are a God of wonders! Then, the heartbeat is regulated and controlled by our brain for the rest of our lives!
Another random fact is that a little girl develops ALL the eggs she is ever gonna have inside the womb! Before she is ever born, her body has created the set number of eggs that she will release throughout her life. I always thought the actual production didn't start until puberty, but low and behold it's already determined and set before she is ever born.
Then take the lungs for another example. The baby starts off breathing water in the womb. The little air sacs close off so that only air will get in them. The lungs breathe the amniotic fluid until they are fully developed. Once the lungs are mature enough (which by the way they are the last organ to develop), the baby's body releases a protein signaling the mother's body that the baby is ready to make the transition from water-breathing to air-breathing and that it can survive outside the womb. This protein initiates labor. Once the baby is delivered, in one heartbeat, the lungs change. One second the air sacs are closed and the baby breaths water and the next second the lungs expel the fluid, the air sacs open for the first time, and the baby begins breathing air! Amazing!
Granted, this may not be news to anyone else, but I was really amazed by all this stuff. God is amazing in the way He crafts a human life. He put within us the ability to create life, created our DNA to know how to develop from simple cells to the most complex creature alive, created our bodies to self-regulate, and even placed in there certain proteins and chemicals that signal labor, ease pain, etc. Oh yeah, that's the last thing I wanted to say. We discovered that also the mother's body releases a chemical that causes the mother to forget the pains of childbirth once the baby is born. Something like that and Lisa was all smiles when she heard that. Silly girl!
Man, this whole pregnancy process really is amazing and it's sooooo cool to read all about the marvels that take place inside my wife's tummy.
IN 2 DAYS WE FIND OUT THE SEX!!!!!
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