I had an amazing realization a couple days ago. But before I tell you about it, let me set the Fertility 101 stage, as it were:

A baby girl emerges from her mother’s womb with all the eggs she will ever have, already residing in her tiny ovaries. Baby boys, on the other hand, don’t start producing sperm (the analog to the female egg) inside their testes until they reach puberty, about 12 years later.

So what does this have to do with every human walking this earth? The answer will probably challenge every notion you’ve ever had about where we all came from. In reality, every single one of us actually started out inside our maternal grandmother. In other words, we all began to develop inside our mother’s mom’s womb. If this sounds a little too abstract for you, let me make up a scenario to help you better imagine what I’m talking about.

Let’s say that Susan gave birth to a little baby girl named (oh, I don’t know), Rena. As Rena developed in her mom’s uterus from a mass of cells into a fetus, she was already growing all the eggs she will ever have inside her tiny little 6-pound body by the time she emerged from Susan. But here’s the intriguing thing. That means that if Rena then grew up and ultimately gave birth to, say, Henry, in reality, a big part of him would have started his life inside of his grandmother Susan, as well!

So what does this have to do with my epiphany? Well, one of my cherished friends on the west coast was recently lamenting the fact that her daughter on the east coast gave birth a few months ago, yet she has yet to meet her grandson because . . . well . . . Covid. As I was falling asleep that night, it suddenly dawned on me that, wait, in some cosmic way, yes she has already met him. In fact, the egg which ultimately became Henry developed inside Susan’s body before she gave birth to his mom, Rena. So in a rather convoluted way, both Susan and her daughter Rena had both given birth to little Henry!

So much for my made-up anonymous scenario!