Ovaries, Legacy, and Loaves: The Science Behind Why I Bake Her Recipes
There's awe-inspiring physiology behind why I feel connected to a grandmother I never met.
Why I feel that I'm the channel for her unfinished business.
Why I feel that baking her handwritten and magazine cutout recipes from nearly 100 years ago somehow brings us together.
I've had some great material things in my life. I have the two greatest gifts I could ever be given in my children.
The stack of recipes from her kitchen was the best birthday gift I've ever received.
What connects me to her besides lineage?
I'm referring to my maternal grandmother, the mother of my mother.
Unfortunately, she passed away when my mother was just about to turn ten years old. I'll tell that story another time.
As women, we possess the egg follicles in our ovaries that will become our children (after fertilization) when we are fetuses. The number continually declines, even before birth, and throughout our lifespan.
The highest number of oocytes, or immature egg cells, that we ever possess is when we are a 20 week fetus. At that time, we have 6-7 million of them.
By the time a female fetus is born, that number is closer to 1-2 million.
By puberty, we have about a quarter to half a million.
By our late 30s, we have about 25,000.
This means that when my grandmother was pregnant with my mother, I was also in there as an oocyte.
Sure, it wasn't me as I sit here today but it was the egg that would make me.
We are, biologically speaking, like nesting dolls in this sense.
When my mom was pregnant with me, as a fetus I had the immature egg cells that would become my kids. My kids were nesting in my mom.
This is my favorite physiologic phenomenon in obstetrics and gynecology. It's truly amazing.
And this is why it's not just nostalgia that has me baking bread and pulling recipes from her stack of notes and cut-outs. It's not just heritage that connects us across time and worlds. I lived in her body at one time. It's only fair that I let her live through me now.
Resources:
Female Age-Related Fertility Decline ( 2024 ) - https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/committee-opinion/articles/2014/03/female-age-related-fertility-decline