Page:Growing Up (1928).djvu/35

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

to be a mouse or an elephant or a dog or whatever other animal the mother happens to be.

This, also, is the way in which human babies grow. The eggs from which they come stay in Ovaries just as the eggs of the plants and of the fish and the birds and the four-legged animals do. Every baby's mother has two ovaries inside her body. They are very small, not much thicker than her thumbs.

When the egg leaves its ovary it goes into the bag or nest, called the uterus. Sometimes the uterus is called the womb. It is near the ovaries, and is in the very middle of the body of the baby's mother but quite low down, even below where the stomach is. It is here that the egg grows to be a baby.

What better place could there be in which to growe. The seeds in the ground can be disturbed by anybody who digs into the flower beds. The eggs in the water can be washed ashore and hurt in storms, and you have often seen birds' eggs that have been broken by being blown out of the nest. But nothing like this can happen to the egg that is growing to be a baby.