Dr. Lucky Sekhon

That egg will last for only 12 to 24 hours.

And if it's not met by sperm, it's likely not going to fertilize, and it just kind of fizzles and goes away.

And the rest of those recruited eggs that were the hopefuls trying to ovulate, they go away.

They get dissolved.

They don't get recycled.

So the system is extremely wasteful.

But let's stick with the journey of the egg that made it to ovulation.

There's this narrow window of two to three days each cycle when you ovulate where it even makes sense to try because the egg only lasts for so long.

Sperm, on the other hand, will last for up to three to five days in the reproductive tract.

So this is why people are always peeing on sticks or looking at their calendar and trying to time and really get that window to be as tight as possible.

And even if you time it perfectly, not every egg is going to like every sperm, right?

It's like dating.

That's what I always say.

So there has to be like this combination that happens and that's not a given.

So it's not just you timed it and it's going to happen.

Not every egg that fertilizes is going to get past the next hurdle.

Only about half of them can turn into embryos, which means the egg grows and divides.

And after it's fertilized, now it has 100 to 200 cells.

It's gone from one to two to like 200 cells.

And at that point, it's arriving at the uterus, right?