SLIDE 16
(Nancy Pratt)

Now, once we started getting close, and all this time we're also doing hormone analysis, Janine Brown out at CRC was doing that for us, and monitoring progesterone, so we also were getting some indications from that about what was going on, but as we were getting close, you'll see that we could see the follicles developing in her ovaries. First we see what's called an antral follicle, this is about a week before ovulation, just a follicle getting much bigger than the rest of the follicles in the ovary.

Next we see what's called a Graafian follicle. This is a huge follicle, it's just pre-ovulatory. And inside here this dense mass here you can see is the developing oocyte.

The next thing we saw was the corpus hemorrhagicum, which means ovulation has already occurred. And this Graafian follicle is now filling in with blood. After ovulation occurs, a few days later, we see the formation of the corpus luteum, the corpus luteum, like Thomas said, is the structure that produces progesterone. It produces progesterone throughout the luteal stage of the cycle, but also will continue to do so if indeed she is pregnant to maintain pregnancy.

So, another important thing that we had to do with Shanthi was to get her used to all the people and equipment that would be around her and under her during the procedure. This is very important. And we also needed to actually place some of the equipment inside of her reproductive tract to see how she would respond. But we had to wait until she was well into this follicular phase of the cycle because an animal's response to these kinds of procedures may change over the course of the cycle. We needed to know what she was going to do around the time of ovulation.