The year is 1999 and your mother is walking
down the street with her Sony portable CD player in her hand listening to Ricky Martin’s
“Livin' la Vida Loca.” She doesn’t know it yet, but when she turns
around the next block she’s going to bump into a guy on the street. That guy is your father to be, and while he
prefers the Red Hot Chili Peppers over Ricky Martin, these two folks are going to chat
and they are going to get along. Fast forward two weeks and they are on their
first date. In approximately eight weeks the two are going
to get it on, and while they never wanted to rush things, in the heat of the event they
didn’t use contraception. Your life is a movie in the making and you
are “Coming Soon”. So, first of all, did your parents jump the
gun in making love after just eight weeks? Well, it’s hard to say because scientists
can’t tell us when the best time is to make out like that. Should people get intimate right away, or
should they wait to know each other first? It all depends on what people expect from
the relationship. Is it going to be about physical stuff only,
or are the couple going to try and be together for the long haul? In a study conducted by the Journal of Sex
Research, 11,000 American adults were interviewed about how things started out. These folks were not yet married but they
were in what is called a serious relationship. 76 percent of those people had been together
more than a year and 93 percent reported that they had already made love. 51 percent of them were like your mom and
pop, in that they waited a few weeks before they did it. 38 percent of people said they did it pretty
quickly, like in a few days or one or two weeks, so it shows people can stay together
and jump into bed early. 11 percent said they made love before they
even knew anything about each other, meaning they met in the street or some other place
and rushed straight to the bedroom. We guess after they performed the life-giving
dance they then said, “Hi, my name is…” Your parents might not have known, but they
will have had certain values about making love which psychologists call “sociosexual
orientation.” Some people might have what’s called a “restricted”
orientation., meaning they feel like they have to get to know someone before they can
be intimate. These are your 51 percent people, not the
11 percenters. Unrestricted people tend to set fewer rules
for themselves, but psychologists tell us their relationships might burn out faster. So, just remember, before you were born your
existence rested on the psychology of your parents. You are a direct result of libidinal urges
and sexual orientation. Now we must say here that some people believe
in pre-existence, meaning you were always going to be born. That the world in its mysterious ways always
had you planned. This is kind of left field thought, and we
can’t really prove if it’s true or not. What we do know, though, is that your pop’s
sperm met with your mother’s egg. We won’t spend too much time on this because
we discussed it in our “What happens when you are born” show, but when your father
got a rush of blood to his head he released millions and millions of sperm but only one
of those things managed to meet your mom’s egg. You were a result of a great gauntlet which
took place in your mother’s body. You mother’s egg left the ovary and this
is called ovulation. It went to hang out in the fallopian tubes
and went to see if there were any sperm there. It’s almost like a repeat of how your mom
and pop met on that street. In this case a sperm met the egg and voila,
now we have something called fertilization. The sperm and egg now take a trip down the
fallopian tubes and head to the uterus. Cells form into a kind of ball and this is
called a blastocyst. It’s the most basic version of you, like
you 1.0. For two or three days this thing hangs out
in the uterus, and then it attaches to the side of the uterus and this is called implantation. This is when pregnancy is made official. You are not guaranteed at all, though, because
things can go wrong in the early days. In fact, the first 0 to 13 weeks are the most
dangerous for you, and 80 percent of miscarriages happen in this timeframe. But in this case there is success. We should say that when this success occurs
hormones released in the woman’s body will prevent her uterus from shedding. In the cases when the magic didn’t happen
and the sperm and egg didn’t get it on, that lining of the uterus will leave the woman. These are what are called periods. Your mother might only know she is pregnant
when she misses her period. “Hmm,” she told your pop to be, “I think
something is happening.” Some women don’t feel any other effects,
but others might feel tired, or nauseous, or feel a bit tender around their milk-giving
glands, or perhaps not be able to take a number two. So your mom along with your nervous pop went
to the pharmacy to get a pregnancy test kit. These things are pretty accurate, and they
test the level of something called hCG in the urine. You don’t know what that is, so we’ll
tell you. It’s a hormone and its full name is “Human
chorionic gonadotropin.” Its produced by the placenta after that thing
called implantation. Now the scene is set for your mother to walk
out of the bathroom with that plastic gizmo in her hand which has a plus sign on it confirming
she is pregnant. The next three seconds and the expression
on your father’s face are perhaps some of the most important seconds that the two people
will ever share. In your case of course both your mom and pop
were over the moon. You are soon to become their little bundle
of joy. But wait a minute, what actually are you? Are you him, or her, or something in between? Well, the answer is you are a bit more her
in some respects. This is because of tiny cells called organelles. It is the organelles that are responsible
for producing energy for the cells that are called the mitochondria. Mitochondria takes food and makes you, it’s
like a little factory that produces you. You take a lot of energy to make, and so the
mitochondria gets very busy. The mitochondria is your mother’s, so you
are more her than your pop we might say. This doesn’t mean that you will be more
like your mother, and we’ll get back to this later. First we must ask why you were born male or
female. Did God choose that? Was it something to do with your mom or dad’s
genes? The evolutionary angle is that the natural
world gives you slightly more chance of being born male because the world needs around the
same number of males and females. One professor told the BBC why there are slightly
more males born than females, “At every age, in almost every time and place, a man
is more likely to die than a woman,” she said. But outside of evolution there are other factors,
and they might even include your mother’s diet or even what position they were in during
your making. It could be about the woman’s ovulation
cycle or the age of your parents. All these things matter when it comes down
to if the sperm that reaches the egg was carrying either and X or Y chromosome. Females are the X and males are the Y. It’s thought nature instills equal opportunities
in how many X and Ys are produced, although there are theories as to what to do to plan
for a male or female baby. We won’t go into those today because we
want know more about what you will be like. This is now quite exciting because a little
war takes place in the womb. We are basically a composite of our mom’s
and dad’s, like half of one and half of the other, but not all genes have equal power. Some are more dominant, so while you might
be 50/50 in terms of DNA, genes express themselves differently and this is called epigenetics. According to science, fathers pass on more
of their genes to you in their sperm. This is what we are told:
“While each parent technically contributed half of an offspring’s genome, approximately
60 percent of the dad’s genes were more expressive than the mom’s.” It gets strange, though, if you believe scientific
studies cited by The Smithsonian. Listen to this:
“As sperm traverse the male reproductive system, they jettison and acquire non-genetic
cargo that fundamentally alters sperm before ejaculation. These modifications not only communicate the
father’s current state of wellbeing, but can also have drastic consequences on the
viability of future offspring. You got that didn’t you, your father’s
state of mind plays a part on if you’ll be born and what you’ll be like. The Smithsonian explains that in your father’s
sperm there is intel, and that plays a part in the production of you. His mental and physical health at the time
of inception will partly be inherited by you. Because your father’s genes are expressed
slightly more than your mother’s, scientists tell us you have more chance of inheriting
things on his side, such as quirks, and in the negative, disease. Your father’s genes are like invaders inside
the woman, and he wants dominance. He kind of gets it, too. One scientist articulately explained it like
this: “While mom recognizes half of a baby’s
genes — those that are similar to her own — the other half, from the father, are alien. That’s why women who are pregnant are immunocompromised
and at risk of serious flus and other illnesses. In order to stop themselves from destroying
the tiny fetal invader, their bodies have to impair their own healthy immune system
responses.” In the past some studies suggested that babies
will end up looking more like their pops because in evolutionary terms the father needs to
know the baby is his and he’ll look after it. Moms of course have a much better chance of
knowing who the father is. This is called the “paternal resemblance
hypothesis.” While this seems to make sense, a lot of other
studies refute it. The Scientific American cited other research
that found the opposite was true. That babies will look more like their moms
so if the father really has been cuckolded he won’t know and will still look after
the baby. Still, the prevailing theory is that because
our father’s genes express themselves more we are slightly more likely to inherit things
from him whether it be the shape of our nose or his history of violence. That said, genetics experts can’t predict
what you’ll look like. This is no exact science and while the father’s
genes may express themselves more it’s still not certain what you will inherit. You might get your mother’s blue eyes or
you might get his brown eyes. If we are talking about something like hair
color it gets quite confusing, so we’ll let a scientist explain. She said this:
“If a father carries only a dominant gene for brown hair and the mother carries only
a recessive gene for blond, their children should all have brown hair, but some of their
grandchildren are likely to be blond. Reason: The kids inherit both sets of genes,
which can combine with blond genes from their mates to produce fair-haired offspring.” It all depends on each parent’s genetic
combinations, and we cannot be sure which genes will get passed on. When it comes to personality it’s even more
confusing, because while genes you inherit affect how you’ll turn out we can’t exactly
know what will happen. You might be more like your mom, or your dad,
or have a lot of traits neither of them have. Studies have shown that twins often have similar
personalities, but they are also original in their characters or intelligence. We can predict some things, but at the end
of the day you are unique and might be a surprise. Some things are more strongly inherited than
others. So, we can better predict your height or chance
of being overweight more than we can predict temperament or blood pressure. Make no mistake, a lot is going on before
you are born. You are history in the making and this furnace
from which you are created has many hidden depths of complexity. Can you add anything to this? Do you think you’re more like your mom or
your pop? Tell us in the comments. Also, be sure to checkout our other video
What Happens When You Are Born? Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t
forget to like, share and subscribe.
