Prolong Fertility

A question that occurs to me regarding Prolong and having children at ages where without Prolong you would be dead or at least way too old to have children.

Allison and Alfred have Honor's twin brother and sister when Allison is, if I recall correctly into her 90s. Were they naturally conceived or were her ovum stored?

Going back to grade 10 biology we learned that women are born with all the eggs she is going to have and after puberty the ovum are released to hopefully be fertilized. As she gets older her ovum are getting older as well, which is why women who have children at a later age are more likely to have children with various birth defects.

Does the prolong process slowdown a woman's menstrual cycle and does it also slowdown the aging process of her ovum as well?

frasernator wrote:A question that occurs to me regarding Prolong and having children at ages where without Prolong you would be dead or at least way too old to have children.

Allison and Alfred have Honor's twin brother and sister when Allison is, if I recall correctly into her 90s. Were they naturally conceived or were her ovum stored?

Going back to grade 10 biology we learned that women are born with all the eggs she is going to have and after puberty the ovum are released to hopefully be fertilized. As she gets older her ovum are getting older as well, which is why women who have children at a later age are more likely to have children with various birth defects.

Does the prolong process slowdown a woman's menstrual cycle and does it also slowdown the aging process of her ovum as well?

Subject to confirmation by the author. . .

Intuitively, I would say yes, since it is my understanding that prolong delays all normal developmental processes to fit on the longer lifeline.

Which certainly is a good thing from at least one particular perspective. Or undeveloped women aboard ship with the bodies of preteens might find it very uncomfortable to employ tampons.

A greatly dedellerated ovulation frequency would make it more effective to rely on the rythem method for birth control. You would need to abstain only a few days each year.

frasernator wrote:A question that occurs to me regarding Prolong and having children at ages where without Prolong you would be dead or at least way too old to have children.

Allison and Alfred have Honor's twin brother and sister when Allison is, if I recall correctly into her 90s. Were they naturally conceived or were her ovum stored?

Going back to grade 10 biology we learned that women are born with all the eggs she is going to have and after puberty the ovum are released to hopefully be fertilized. As she gets older her ovum are getting older as well, which is why women who have children at a later age are more likely to have children with various birth defects.

Does the prolong process slowdown a woman's menstrual cycle and does it also slowdown the aging process of her ovum as well?

I seem to recall a story of a grayson midshipwoman in one of the anthlogies, number 6 beginnings i think, as I recall she has a mantie roommate aboard ship and the roommate asked the corpsman for painkillers due to pain every month, presumably connected to this.

frasernator wrote:Allison and Alfred have Honor's twin brother and sister when Allison is, if I recall correctly into her 90s. Were they naturally conceived or were her ovum stored?

Naturally conceived--lacking any textev to the contrary.

There is textev regarding Alison's feelings about "natural childbirth" and, iirc, textev regarding the differing effect of Prolong by generation of Prolong--First Gen Prolong extended pregnancy to some ridiculous extent. Third Gen Prolong doesn't extend pregnancy at all.

Weird Harold wrote:

frasernator wrote:Allison and Alfred have Honor's twin brother and sister when Allison is, if I recall correctly into her 90s. Were they naturally conceived or were her ovum stored?

Naturally conceived--lacking any textev to the contrary.

There is textev regarding Alison's feelings about "natural childbirth" and, iirc, textev regarding the differing effect of Prolong by generation of Prolong--First Gen Prolong extended pregnancy to some ridiculous extent. Third Gen Prolong doesn't extend pregnancy at all.

One of the side affects of First and Second Generation prolong is it extends pregnancy by 2-3 months.

saber964 wrote:

frasernator wrote:Allison and Alfred have Honor's twin brother and sister when Allison is, if I recall correctly into her 90s. Were they naturally conceived or were her ovum stored?

Weird Harold wrote:Naturally conceived--lacking any textev to the contrary.

There is textev regarding Alison's feelings about "natural childbirth" and, iirc, textev regarding the differing effect of Prolong by generation of Prolong--First Gen Prolong extended pregnancy to some ridiculous extent. Third Gen Prolong doesn't extend pregnancy at all.

One of the side affects of First and Second Generation prolong is it extends pregnancy by 2-3 months.

And that's with medications which temporarily knock back some of the aspects of prolong. Another little problem that doesn't get mentioned a lot is the reason they have "quick heal" in what you might think of as "first-world" star systems; without it, recovering from wounds or broken bones with orolong would take a long time. Societies which don't have quick heal usually don't have prolong, either, so its absence someplace like Cherubim isn't usually the problem it would be somewhere like Sphinx.

runsforcelery wrote:

And that's with medications which temporarily knock back some of the aspects of prolong. Another little problem that doesn't get mentioned a lot is the reason they have "quick heal" in what you might think of as "first-world" star systems; without it, recovering from wounds or broken bones with orolong would take a long time. Societies which don't have quick heal usually don't have prolong, either, so its absence someplace like Cherubim isn't usually the problem it would be somewhere like Sphinx.

....REALLY, RFC? You can wave a magic biological wand to extend the human lifespan (and fertility) by 300%, but we women still have to put up with hormone swings and inconvenient bleeding every single month??

NEVER has it been more obvious that this series was written by a man.

roseandheather wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:

And that's with medications which temporarily knock back some of the aspects of prolong. Another little problem that doesn't get mentioned a lot is the reason they have "quick heal" in what you might think of as "first-world" star systems; without it, recovering from wounds or broken bones with orolong would take a long time. Societies which don't have quick heal usually don't have prolong, either, so its absence someplace like Cherubim isn't usually the problem it would be somewhere like Sphinx.

....REALLY, RFC? You can wave a magic biological wand to extend the human lifespan (and fertility) by 300%, but we women still have to put up with hormone swings and inconvenient bleeding every single month??

NEVER has it been more obvious that this series was written by a man.

It's us men who have to endure the mood swings.
If you're a Grayson with multiple wives, then you have three or four women with their cycles synchronized.

This is why you can find Protector Benjamin and Admiral Yanakov cowering, I mean relaxing, together at the local tavern a few nights a month.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

It's us men who have to endure the mood swings.
If you're a Grayson with multiple wives, then you have three or four women with their cycles synchronized.

This is why you can find Protector Benjamin and Admiral Yanakov cowering, I mean relaxing, together at the local tavern a few nights a month.

I'll be sure to feel sorry for the men next time I wind up in hospital because I can't actually be sure that the searing pain in my abdomen isn't appendicitis instead of just menstrual cramps.