Now I'm wishing I'd cared to learn more about python reproduction. Are we sure what we call "ovulation" and "follicles" are really correctly labeled?

For one I've heard that it's no use breeding any more after "ovulation". Could that few hour window when your ball python looks like she swallowed a football be more to do with producing the big white egg than releasing the egg cells? Also, I just assumed that the "follicles" that some breeders palpitate grew into the actual egg masses, eventually getting shelled somewhere along the way (maybe at "ovulation"?). I always hear the sizes of follicles in metric and never tried to feel them myself so maybe I'm overestimating how big "follicles" get but seems like a terrible waste to produce a large object just for each egg cell and then to start over producing an even larger object to put the fertilized egg cell into to become the actual egg.

Basically I’m wondering if the follicles that can be counted are actually egg starts that get matched up with fertilized egg cells at some later point giving the homozygous spiders the chance to die before consuming a follicle.