Wonder where that expression came from! You probably already know that for a woman to get pregnant, a sperm has to reach an egg and fertilize it. You may also know that happens most often during sexual intercourse. Now, it may seem silly to talk about something many of us think we know. Unfortunately, very few of us have any idea what the birds and the bees really mean to our everyday sexual lives. Basics are great when you're six, but when you're 14 going on 20, you have more questions. So, let's take a new look at the whole thing.

Reproduction involves two main players: sperm and ovum. By the way, semen and sperm is not the same thing, though many people think so! Semen is, in fact, a combination of fluids that contains sperm.

A man produces millions of tiny sperm each and every day. To give you an idea of how tiny, just one drop of semen has more than one hundred million sperm in it. Now that's a lot of zeros! An ejaculation normally has between 200 and 600 million sperm in it. Because the sperm are sensitive to the environment outside the testicles (or 'balls' as you also know them), only about 50 of those sperm will be able to reach the female egg because most of them die along the way. But it only takes one to actually fertilize the egg, with a couple hundred "helper" sperm to help get that one in. Remember, sperm can be present in the fluid that comes from a man's penis when he is aroused, before ejaculation.

Girls are quite different. Just one egg (or ovum), is released each month from the ovaries into one of the fallopian tubes. Usually, only one tube at a time has a fertile egg in it. After sperm pass through the vaginal canal and the cervix, some of them will go to each of the fallopian tubes looking for that egg. Those that went to the tube with a live egg surround it and try to enter. If the ovum is healthy and fertile, sperm will penetrate it, and develop an embryo. When that happens, no other sperm are allowed in. Bingo - the beginnings of a pregnancy! Just in case you were wondering, the ovum allows only one sperm to fertilize the egg!

Puberty & Body Changes	Enjoy the Experience	Boys become Men
Girls Blossom	Birds and the Bees...

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