Checking out of the Fairfield Inn

Since I work in the hotel industry I thought that the easiest way to describe what will be happening to my embryos would be to describe it like a hotel. You see right now 12 of my eggs are living in a test tube at the Center for Assisted Reproduction. The Test tube is nice and clean, it provides all the basic amenities that they need to survive and is comfortable for just a few days. However tomorrow two of the very best embryos will check out of the Fairfield Inn and check into thier new home for the next 9 months at the Residence Inn also known as my uterus. You see the Residence Inn will provide all that my embryos need for such a long stay like complimentary food, a nice cozy room with comfortable furniture and space to spread out. I hope they enjoy their new digs and don't decide to check out early (miscarriage). Because after 9 months Mommy will introduce them to the Ritz Carlton (also known as our world). So here we go.....embryos....fasten your seat belts and have a safe trip to your next destination. Your room is ready.

12 is our lucky number

I went for my egg retreival yesterday and everything went great. We were able to retreive 14 eggs. That is just an amazing number. Spent yesterday resting and watching football with Chris. GO RED RAIDERS! This morning the embryologist called to let me know that 12 of our 14 eggs fertilized!!! Average is about 50% so we are well above average. I am so excited to hear that we have such great numbers. So our 12 little embryos will just keep growing for the next few days and then on Thursday we will go back to the doctor for our transfer. Things are still looking really good!

Your ovaries are like a.....

Fright Train. They take a while to get going but once they start they can really do some work.

That is what Dr. Kevin said to me this afternoon at my appointment. That was his way of making a little funny. Dr. Kevin is such a nerd, but for some reason I really LOVE him and trust him. Over the last 18 months we have really come to understand each other. Yes just like any relationship we have had our ups and downs. Like the third time I went to see him and I left the office only to get in the car to call Chris and cry. I thought he had the worst bedside manner of any doctor I had ever met. I just couldn't believe that his staff wasn't all warm and fuzzy when I walked in the door. But over time I have learned to love the staff at the Center for Assisted Reproduction or CAR as I call it. We have laughed when it took 7 tries to do a blood draw. We have cried together when we found out that I wasn't prego for the 4,5,6,7th time. Thanks to CAR I now know that I am highly allergic to hydo-codone, my blood type is O negative, I don't have HIV and neither does Chris. You know the important information. So on Saturday I will go back to CAR and have my Egg retrieval. I have 22 of these little babies ready to make great little embryos. Dr. Kevin is going to come in on Saturday just to do my egg retrieval. The nurses today told me that I am one of their favorite patients and they are all praying for me and Chris. So on Saturday Dr. Kevin , me, and bunch of nurses, and I guess Chris will hopefully make babies together. I guess Hillary Clinton was right when she said it takes Village!

473

That is my Estrogen level for the day! Woo Hoo! Wow that Follistim really does work. It went from 163 on Saturday to 473 today. We have 22 eggs that are all just growing slow, but that is a good thing. We go back to the doctor on Wednesday and reterival will now be on Friday or Saturday. Which means we will have to miss the Zen Wedding were invited to in Houston this weekend. More on that later.

Things are Looking Good

Results from the doctors appointment on Saturday.

I have just over 20 follicles (eggs) developing. They are all a good size and are growing well. My estrogen level dropped to below 200 so the doctor is raising my medication to get it back up. No worries just need to get it over 200 again. We will most likely do an egg retrieval on Thursday or Friday of this week. This is the process where the Dr. will go in an remove the eggs from my ovaries and then combine them with Chris's swimmers to make embryos. We head back to the Dr. on Monday morning so I will have more information then.

I look like a mess from all the needle sticks. You can't get blood from my arms so I have to have my blood drawn from my hands and they look terrible. They are so bruised and sore. My stomach looks even worse. For some reason I keep hitting blood vessel when I do my injections so there are at least 35 bruises all over my tummy. The good news is that they don't hurt. Just look yucky.

I rewarded myself with a pair or new shoes for being a good patient! Way better than the sucker my Dr. gave me when I was a kid.

The Egg Hunt

I went to the doctor on Thursday and here is the latest information:

I Have 14 eggs developing right now! There are apx 7 on each ovary and they are all growing at the close to the same rate. This is a great sign of good egg quality as we don't want some to be really big and some to be small. Consistency is the key.

My estrogen level is at 268. Another great sign that I am responding well to the fertility drugs.

So far we are on the right track.

I go back to the doctor on Saturday morning where we will do a little more intensive sonogram (or as I like to say egg hunt). We will count every egg and measure every egg.

That's all I have for now. I will try to blog about something more interesting over the weekend!

$200 per day

So I have a drug addiction..... To fertility drugs that is. This drug habit is costing me about $200 per day. Yes you read correctly $200 for 3 shots per day. How crazy is it that. So I thought to myself what do other drug addictions cost. Does anyone know what the going rate is for Crack,Cocaine, Heroine, or Pot? The only difference is that these drugs make their user fell good for a little while. I only get hot flashes, sweating, bursts of erratic behavior, nausea, pimples, bruising all over my stomach, and mood swings. Oh yea but in the end they end up dead, in jail or in rehab. I'll end up with a beautiful baby, or two, or three. Yep. I have a better addiction than any crack-head out there.

Many of you have asked us how things are going and I just wanted to give you the latest from our doctor. My estrogen level on Tuesday was at 126 (The doctor likes for it to be over 100 at this stage). So things look great right now. I go back to the doctor on Thursday and we will go on an "egg hunt". This will be my first opportunity to actually see how many eggs are starting to mature. We hope for lots of big juicy ones! Thank you for all you great thoughts you have shared with us. We are blessed with some of the greatest friends in the world! I will update more on Thursday.

PS.... To all you crack-heads out there reading my blog. Please leave a comment on the "market rate" for street drugs..... I am just curious.

30 days

So I hate doing laundry more than anything in the world. Don't get me wrong I love the smell of clean laundry fresh out of the dryer. However I dislike laundry so much that I only do it once a month. No Chris and I don't walk around in dirty clothes all the time. The reason that I only do laundry once amonth is that I have purchased enough clothes (including underwear) to ensure that Miazga household can go a at least 4 weeks without having to even think about washing clothes. In reality we can go 6 weeks if necessary. Keep in mind that most of our wardrobe consist of business attire that goes to the dry cleaners. So as I was folding 36 pairs of Chris's underwear last night I was pondering the following quetions...

1. How often do all my friends have to do laundry?

2. When we have children how much will this change?

3. How many outfits does a baby go through every day?

4. What household chores do my friends only do every 30 days?

5. Do Chris and I have some sort of odd obossesion with clothing?

6. Are those front loading washing machines really as cool as they look? (I just like that they come in pretty colors)

7. Do you do all your ironing when you do laundry or do you iron as you go?

Working From Home

When I tell people that I work form home 2 days a week they always get this little look in their eye. Like.... Yea right... Working from home must mean that I watch soaps all day, do laundry, take a nap and just answer emails as they come to me. So for all those out there here is what my working from home day has looked like today:

1. It is 5:30 and I still have not taken a shower and trust me I need one. I started working at 7:30am and haven't stopped since. I kept meaning to stop and make myself some lunch but I just kept working in different projects and finally around 2pm I realized I needed some food. So I ate my lunch during a conference call with two sales people.

2. I woke up only to realize we were out of coffee and there is not a Starbucks on my way from the bedroom to the office. I need to talk to Chris about getting coffee delivery. Me with no coffe is not a good thing.

3. My Blackberry isn't communicating with my Marriott email and after an hour on the phone with Support I decided to give up and just try to work on it later.

So there you go working form home is well..... Lots of work!

I have to go take a shower so I don't offend all the neighbors when we go to the National Night Out Picnic at 6:30pm.... which I still need to make cookies for.

The Fair

We went to the Texas State Fair on Saturday and as usual I had a great time. Here is what I learned at the fair:

1. You can fry ANYTHING and people will eat it. Some of the fried items I saw this year were: chicken fried bacon, fried cookie dough, fried grilled cheese sandwich, fried waffle balls, fried pb&j sandwich, fried queso, fried guacamole, fried banana pudding. You name it a saw it. I did try the PB&J and it was wonderful.

2. You see all kinds of people at the fair. The people watching was great!

3. Bel Biv Devoe still sounds the same they did in 1992. Yes we watched them in concert at 3:00pm. Poison....Poison....Poison.... This brought back all kinds of memories of me watching Club MTV after school when I was 15.

4. I think I may want to trade in my car for a Navigator. I fell in love with one at the car show.

5. The 6 ticket lemonade taste just as good if not better then the fresh squeezed 10 ticket lemonade.

6. A Popsicle that taste like a pickle is pretty good.

7. The Sham-wow can soak up any liquid you may spill around the house. They are $19.99 on TV for 2 but there is a fair special for $24.99 you get 4. No I didn't buy one.

8. The rascal scooter comes with a trailer option that allows you to tow friends and family around as well. I was amazed by this.... Picture is included.

9. Mike the farmer can carve so really cool pumpkins.

10. It cost $25 to valet park at the fair and is worth every penny!

See you next year Big Tex!

The time has come

We had our first appointment with Dr. Kevin yesterday and Chris and I are now officially started our Invitro Fertilization Cycle. I am soooooo excited that the process has finally started. We met with the embryologist and she explained to us how they will combine my eggs and Chris's swimmers in a test tube and let the magic happen. Next thing we know we will have little Miazga's growing and getting bigger, splitting cells, and making little embryos before we know it. After 5 days their little Miazga vacation will be over and Dr. Kevin will put them back in my uterus to implant and make a home for the next nine months. This is if everything goes as planned!

I started taking Lupron injections last night and will go in for my first blood test next week. At that point I will start taking injections of Follistim, Monpur and continuing the Lupron as well. I never thought I would have the guts to give my self three shots a day but it really isn't bad at all.

We will be doing a egg harvest on October 23 with an embryo transfer on October 27. Just to think we could actually be pregnant by Halloween!!!

I am confident that this will work and Chris and I will be parents in 2009.

On a different note...... Loved Palin last night! I think that she rocked the debate!

My facination with High School Shows

Ask anyone who has known me for more than 30 days and they will tell you that my one of my all time favorite shows is Beverly Hills 90210. I grew up with the kids from West Beverly and just always have felt like I was in their little clique. You see in 1989 we all started High School together and in 1993 I left Grapevine High School to find my way at Stephen F Austin State University and the kids from WBHS headed off to California University. I came of age with Kelly, Donna, Brenda, Brandon, Steve, and Dylan. Many people know that I will spend 3 hours on a Saturday morning watching Beverly Hills 90210 re-runs on SoapNet. I don't even care that I have seen every episode 467 times and in three different languages. So I was a little skeptical when I heard that the CW was going to start a new 90210 (They dropped the Beverley Hills part because come on EVERYONE knows the city that zip code belongs to). Well I am here to say that I love the new show. It is actually really great and has now become one of the top shows on my Tivo. Who ever thought I would watch anything on the CW? Now I am addicted to Gossip Girl, 90210 and Privileged. Is there such thing as a quarter-life crisis? Maybe I am having one? Maybe I am trying to relive my high school years and I am in need of some serious time with a shrink.

On another note I am thinking of divorcing the girls from The Hills. It is getting to be the most boring 15 min of my day. I say 15 min because once I fast forward through all the commercials and street shots of LA that is all that is left in actual content for the show. I mean when did MTV decided to start showing music videos again? Funny how I can watch hours of shows on MTV and never once hear 30 seconds of music but if The Hills comes on they are suddenly playing songs from "new" bands every 2.5 min. OK I get it, Lauren, Audrina, Lo and the girls are hip and cool. Turn off the music so I can hear them talk shit about each other. As I have said before lets see more Broody Jenner!

We have an appointment with Dr. Doody tomorrow morning to start the whole IVF process. So I will post updates on here for anyone who wants more details. Lets pray for lots of nice large eggs!