human egg makes accidental debut on camera
June 12, 2008 1:48 PM   Subscribe

A woman ovulates during surgery for a partial hysterectomy, and it's caught on film.
posted by streetdreams (77 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
Were her curtains open?
posted by GuyZero at 1:54 PM on June 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Should have closed the OH DAMN.
posted by mudpuppie at 1:56 PM on June 12, 2008 [3 favorites]


Wow! Amazing photos, streetd!
posted by Dizzy at 1:56 PM on June 12, 2008


Great photos. I'm never eating roe again.
posted by Justinian at 1:59 PM on June 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Why, hello there alien podthing. Please don't eat me and impregnate my chest cavity with your chestbursting larvae. My bloodstream is likely toxic to you, anyway.

Hey, science? Will you stop doing this kind of shit? You're totally going to make me gay. This is why it's called "THE MYSTERY OF LIFE" because not only was it once a mystery, it was probably supposed to stay that way!

ZOMFG MALTHUSIAN PANIC

posted by loquacious at 2:00 PM on June 12, 2008 [8 favorites]


This is wonderful. I wanted to post it, but I was kind of holding out to see if moving images were actually going to be released to the Internet.

Just beautiful.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 2:01 PM on June 12, 2008


These might be some of the funniest comments I've read in a while
posted by gagglezoomer at 2:01 PM on June 12, 2008


Can't an egg leave home without being harassed by those damn paparazzis? They're everywhere these days.
posted by Anything at 2:02 PM on June 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


It's hard to get a sense of scale next to those clamps (which keep moving around! Gah!), but in these photos it looks huge and juicy, like salmon roe. Very weird and very cool.
posted by peachfuzz at 2:02 PM on June 12, 2008


I don't know how you girls walk around with those things.
posted by spilon at 2:02 PM on June 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


Woah, that is cool! I've learned a lot about my parts this month on Mefi. First my cervix and now my ovary.
posted by lysistrata at 2:03 PM on June 12, 2008 [8 favorites]


I don't know how you girls walk around with those things.

I tuck mine into my panty pockets.
posted by lysistrata at 2:04 PM on June 12, 2008 [10 favorites]


The most horrible part is that this is now somebody's fetish.
posted by ardgedee at 2:06 PM on June 12, 2008 [10 favorites]


Metafilter: menstruation is murder!
posted by mullingitover at 2:07 PM on June 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: menstruation is murder!

Not always. It depends on the girl, what you say, what you don't say, and how good you are at footrubs after you say what you weren't supposed to say.
posted by loquacious at 2:10 PM on June 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


And nowhere on that egg does it say "Property of the Catholic Church. Here's the proof. So there! Fuck off church!
posted by Liquidwolf at 2:12 PM on June 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


Down with menstruation! Menstruation loving libtards suck!!
posted by nevercalm at 2:14 PM on June 12, 2008


The most horrible part is that this is now somebody's fetish.

Now?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:16 PM on June 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Reading the Wikipedia article on ovulation may be helpful.
posted by jedicus at 2:17 PM on June 12, 2008


INSANE.
But, not really, it's not like had any pre-conceived notions. *rim shot*
In all seriousness though, never going to eat salmon roe again, god.
posted by Stonestock Relentless at 2:17 PM on June 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Whoa. Pretty. And not at all what I would have imagined — the egg winding up on the outside of the ovary, and just sort of floating around in her abdomen for a while before settling into the fallopian tube. I'd always pictured that shit as being, like, watertight plumbing of some sort.

Hmm. Is "You've got pretty ova" a weird thing to think about a stranger?

It would be awesome if they put the video out.
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:19 PM on June 12, 2008


BLOOP!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:20 PM on June 12, 2008 [6 favorites]


GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!
posted by BobFrapples at 2:23 PM on June 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Who's up for some ikura?
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:26 PM on June 12, 2008


wow, that looks painful.
posted by sxtxixtxcxh at 2:27 PM on June 12, 2008


But will these eggs go best with truffles or just some lemon juice? This is great but I'm not satisfied until someone has done a tasting.
posted by uandt at 2:27 PM on June 12, 2008


So on the NSFW tagging front, cervixes photo'd at home aren't safe, but ovaries photo'd during surgery are? blog photos vs newscientist photos? Stupid subjective standards!
posted by garlic at 2:32 PM on June 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: making your parts feel weird and exposed.
posted by ben242 at 2:33 PM on June 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


Cool. Thanks for posting!

I have to say that's much prettier than I imagined. The doctor said that the event was a 15-minute process. I wonder how typical that is?

: It's hard to get a sense of scale next to those clamps...

A normal human ovary is roughly the size of an almond.

The spherical gold blob contains the egg surrounded by a mass of cells called the corona radiata (iirc).
posted by zennie at 2:35 PM on June 12, 2008


OMG I KNOW THAT GIRL!
posted by turgid dahlia at 2:36 PM on June 12, 2008 [4 favorites]


I can't believe I was so cute.
posted by hojoki at 2:36 PM on June 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


OK, this is cool. This plus the cervix thing have kind of given me a new understanding of how my body [presumably] actually works.
posted by limeonaire at 2:37 PM on June 12, 2008


If you look closely at the picture, you can see a patiently waiting toast point at the bottom right. mmm, oviar.
posted by stavrogin at 2:41 PM on June 12, 2008


I clickeyed the link, and clickeyed away just as fast.

*cries*
posted by The ____ of Justice at 2:41 PM on June 12, 2008


Wow. Truly incredible to see. Especially since my partner and I just attempted in vitro, and they had her on all sorts of hormones to hyper-stimulate her ovaries for eggs. I remember how creepy it was just seeing the results on the ultrasound. Now looking at this and thinking what it must have been like for her with so many follicles producing eggs at once... *shudder*.

I completely understand why she was so uncomfortable during the process and said she was able to sense her ovaries. Looking at just how much a single follicle sticks out from the ovary, and trying to imagine a dozen at once... again, *shudder*. I owe her something special now, I realize.

(and sadly, no, the in vitro didn't work out for us. :( )
posted by evilangela at 2:51 PM on June 12, 2008


Now I am even more confused about the inner workings of women than before. I was only able to identify the surgical tool.
posted by Senator at 2:51 PM on June 12, 2008


wow, that looks painful.

It's not painful, but a lot of us feel a sharp little pinch when we ovulate.

It's really cool to be able to see what's actually happening. Thanks streetdreams!
posted by amyms at 2:53 PM on June 12, 2008


sure...ikura is great...but it holds not the candle to sujiko

and srsly...u organisms are disgusting.
posted by sexyrobot at 2:55 PM on June 12, 2008


wow, that looks painful.

It's not painful, but a lot of us feel a sharp little pinch when we ovulate.


Fuck that, it is too! Or at least it is for me. And now I know why.
posted by HotToddy at 2:58 PM on June 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


Wow. That's amazing. I always wondered what it looked like inside when that was happening.
posted by beautifulcheese at 2:59 PM on June 12, 2008




My wife used to get noticeable 'mittleshmertz'. She knew which side she was ovulating on every month. It certainly made it easy to get pregnant. Although it's not a lot of pain in an absolute sense (at least for her) it's a lot of pain for such a tiny event!
posted by GuyZero at 3:22 PM on June 12, 2008


Fuck that, it is too [painfull]! Or at least it is for me. And now I know why.

That would be mittleschmerz. A word that, contrary to popular belief, does not mean that you can burrow through an elephant.
posted by The Bellman at 3:23 PM on June 12, 2008


I found the cervix photos strangely hot. This just makes me think of Giger.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:24 PM on June 12, 2008


Who would have guessed we all evolve from cod liver oil capsules? History in the making indeed.
posted by fire&wings at 3:36 PM on June 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


MetaFilter: We have cameras. Inside vaginas.

QUICK BRING ME A CAT. MAYBE SEVERAL. AND A SCANNER.
posted by loquacious at 3:42 PM on June 12, 2008


I find these photos kind of hot and the cervix ones yecchy, by association: pap smears hurt like hell, make me queasy, and I dread, dread, dread them, but when I ovulate I'm all sensual and confident.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 3:44 PM on June 12, 2008


Now looking at this and thinking what it must have been like for her with so many follicles producing eggs at once...

Giger has been referenced already. I'm totally thinking of that scene from Aliens when Ripley discovers the queen's nest. There's totally fog, weird fluids and laserbeams in there and some kind of pointy, exoskeletal alien thing tending it all. That's not a clamp in those pictures, it's the alien's pointy legs!
posted by loquacious at 3:45 PM on June 12, 2008


MetaFilter: somebody's fetish
posted by bwg at 3:47 PM on June 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


Ugh, innards. WHY DO I ALWAYS LOOK?

(Yes, obviously, this is actually very cool and good for science and all those wonderful things. But they're called innards because THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ON THE INSIDE WHERE THEY ARE TIDILY HIDDEN AWAY)
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 3:48 PM on June 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


sujiko is usually better when they um, dont wash all the blood off of it...when i found out it was the whole ovary (or whatever that 'membrane' is...i'm pretty sure it's the whole damn ovary...the eggs are all embedded/still forming in it), i was a little freaked...then i ordered more. and went back the next day.

sujiko onigiri...*drools*
posted by sexyrobot at 3:54 PM on June 12, 2008


*Proud Mom shows off baby pictures.* "And here's little Bobby when he was just an unfertilized blastocyst."

"Mom!"
posted by SPrintF at 3:56 PM on June 12, 2008 [9 favorites]


A normal human ovary is roughly the size of an almond.

Thanks for the context. I couldn't get over how big the egg looked.

Fun Fact: I used to cut frogs open, steal their oocytes, sew the frog back up, then stab the oocytes with electrodes. It sounds creepier now after seeing these pictures.
posted by artifarce at 4:01 PM on June 12, 2008


also:
god, was i ever that young?
posted by sexyrobot at 4:08 PM on June 12, 2008


So on the NSFW tagging front, cervixes photo'd at home aren't safe, but ovaries photo'd during surgery are? blog photos vs newscientist photos? Stupid subjective standards!
The deleted post with the pictures of a cervix was specifically marked SFW despite it's description sounding NSFW. This post isn't similarly confusing.
posted by Catfry at 4:09 PM on June 12, 2008 [1 favorite]


And not at all what I would have imagined — the egg winding up on the outside of the ovary, and just sort of floating around in her abdomen

When we were taught this way back in fifth grade I found it difficult to believe that eggs didn't get lost on the way - I pictured eggs flying about inside our bellies bouncing like rubber balls. And that would explain the previously mentioned mittleschmerz pain (Yeah, I got that I can tell which one I ovulate from every time - I've made bets with my gyn before ultrasounds and won.).

sorry about the ivf, evilangela.
posted by dabitch at 4:16 PM on June 12, 2008


It's kind of funny how surprised I was at how much it actually resembles the laying of an egg.
posted by lampoil at 4:41 PM on June 12, 2008


My girlfriend ululates when she ovulates.
Now I know why.
posted by Floydd at 5:02 PM on June 12, 2008


I just assumed this all took place on the microscopic level, and that eggs were like sperm, invisible to the naked eye. I had no idea that human eggs were macroscopic. I feel humbled.

I wonder if that woman felt annoyed, somehow. ("Look, I was paying you people to take the damn thing out, not stand around with cameras! Christ, I look disgusting!")
posted by Countess Elena at 5:03 PM on June 12, 2008


Oh yeah, like I'm ever gonna click that link.
posted by zardoz at 5:15 PM on June 12, 2008


In all seriousness -- I'm surprised it still happened in the middle of surgery. I know some body processes shut down during surgery (digestion, I know), I'm surprised this didn't.

And now for the wacky gross-out comment -- you think this is gross? Feh. I've seen color photos of MY OWN NECROTIC ovary, and they were shown to me when I was on a morphine drip -- and in the presence of my parents and my only-met-him-one-week-before boyfriend. This? Nothing.


(Yes, there is a logical explanation for that scenario...)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:22 PM on June 12, 2008


Awesome link, thanks!

But yes, some scale bars would really help because it looks SO HUGE!
posted by NikitaNikita at 6:36 PM on June 12, 2008


Man, this reminds me so much of Xtro it's not even funny. You know what I'm talking about, when that woman has been glued to the wall with wads of whatever alien goo, and has been transformed into some kind of egg-laying machine, just pinching these babies out.

Yup.
posted by adipocere at 6:43 PM on June 12, 2008


Very nifty, and I'll add my voice to those wanting to see the video.

Countess Elena, I'd guess that the hospital had to get her permission to release the photos, medical privacy laws being what they are and all.
posted by sotonohito at 6:48 PM on June 12, 2008


I'm never eating roe again.

roe's gonna be real disappointed.
posted by jonmc at 6:55 PM on June 12, 2008


Maybe not, sotonohito, if she's not being identified in any way. Not sure of the law on that, but I seem to recall hearing that.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:00 PM on June 12, 2008


optovox writes "This is the second time this month someone's made an FPP about a camera inside a vagina.
"MetaFilter: We have cameras. Inside vaginas."


Uh, you can't see ovaries from that angle. Looks to me like an abdominal surgery.
posted by Mitheral at 8:03 PM on June 12, 2008


Fucking awesome.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 8:41 PM on June 12, 2008


roe's gonna be real disappointed.

Wade can't do everything.
posted by bwg at 8:53 PM on June 12, 2008 [2 favorites]


I've learned a lot about my parts this month on Mefi. First my cervix and now my ovary.

Woah, that was your cervix? HOTT!
posted by crossoverman at 10:13 PM on June 12, 2008


Awesome. I never knew what a human egg looked like.
posted by rmmcclay at 11:15 PM on June 12, 2008


Okay, now someone tell me, how does it get in the fallopian tube, because ALL the diagrams I've seen show the fallopian tube as being hopeful some distance away. (I'm loving this female anatomy stuff, though, fantastic, thank you OPs!)
posted by b33j at 5:20 AM on June 13, 2008


b33j, they're mostly separate but not actually much apart. The ovary sits almost in the infundibulum (conical opening of the tube), which has fimbria (finger-like projections) over the ovary. Everything's held in place with ligaments and connective tissue and the squish of the other organs.

I know it seems precarious, but there aren't really that many places for the oocyte to go. That may be why this has survived evolution to be the elementary setup for a great many species. All vertebrates, so far as I know.
posted by zennie at 6:13 AM on June 13, 2008 [1 favorite]


I've seen color photos of MY OWN NECROTIC ovary ... in the presence of ... my only-met-him-one-week-before boyfriend.

Damn, you play hardball!
posted by five fresh fish at 3:20 PM on June 13, 2008


Wow, was that cool. Sometimes I know that I'm ovulating and it hurts, and now I know why.
posted by puddinghead at 10:29 PM on June 13, 2008


Cool; pretty too (and I'm not particulary fond of looking at innards either).

Also, put me down as one of the folks surprised by the size of the egg. I mean, I knew they were bigger than sperm, but I had no idea they're THAT much bigger than sperm. Explains Mittelschmerz alright.
posted by ZeroAmbition at 4:25 AM on June 14, 2008


Isn't that an egg plus a wrapping of extra, protective "stuff" that's shed once it get into the fallopian tube?
posted by five fresh fish at 8:40 AM on June 14, 2008


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