Saturday, June 23, 2007

times flyin'

Man oh man have we been busy. It seems like it's one thing after another around here. I don't have very much time to post but I just wanted to say that I'm on my way down to see my brother, sister in law, an their gorgeous baby boy. I hope to talk to you all soon!

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

The Real Deal

I have been busy but that isn't really why I haven't posted. Have you seen the size of this post?!?... that's why I haven't posted.

The day before we left to Vegas was just about the funniest day of my life, besides the time when I almost died on my wedding day, but that's another story. So last Monday I met a girl named Cody. She's such a sweetheart. She's the 20 year old with the 2 month old baby girl. Anyways, we met up for lunch at Taco Bell on Monday and had a great time getting to know each other. Afterwards we went back to her house and watched 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend' Oh my goodness that was funny! Then I stayed at her house till about 10:00pm. We had a great time talking and learning how much we are alike.

Tuesday we had planned on going to walk in the park but that didn't happen because we woke up and it was POURING rain outside. So instead she came over to my house and we hung out watching TV and snacking all day. It was great.

Wednesday, though, was a little different. We planned on going walking again but it was really warm outside and so we had to post-pone once again. Then I got a call from my husband asking me if I wanted to take Cody and the baby and drive to Yakima (an hour and a half away) so we can pick up the license plate and then on the way down we can take the back seat of our van to the car company. (to explain the whole seat story ... we had a van and we traded it in for an Explorer and when we did we had the back seat of the van taken out and it was sitting in our garage.. so the sales guy said to just bring it in when we came to pick up the license plates.) So anyways... I call Cody and she says yes so we go to pick her and the baby up. We had to put the baby's car seat in my car so when we switched it out.. it litterally took both of us, working together, about 25 minutes to install it. It's one of those 'infant-toddler' car seats, so it's not like you can just install the base and go. Nooooooo. It has to be all difficult. We finally got it installed to where it WOULD NOT MOVE it we both grabbed it and rocked it back and forth. Then we went to the car wash by my house and at this car wash they vacuum out your car for free with your car wash and they wipe out the inside of your windows and dash and stuff, so it would have been great since my dogs hair had invaded the inside of my car. So when we finally get my car back from the car wash people we put Sonia (Cody's daughter) inside her car seat... then we got in and started to drive off and something didn't feel right in my gut so I pulled back into my parking spot and got out.. Cody was confused. I just told her that something didn't feel right and I felt like I needed to check Sonia's car seat. Well I'm glad I did because the car wash people had un buckled the car seat and had messed the whole thing up so if we would have gotten in an accident there's no telling what would have happened. We were so mad! So it took us another 20 minutes to figure out what they had done and to fix it. UghhH! So we got all set to go and left to Yakima.

Once we get about 2 miles from our exit.. Sonia starts screaming because she was hungry so Cody was reaching back trying to get her to calm down till we got there so she could nurse her. Nothing was working so she gave her some water in a bottle.. luckily that seemed to work until we got to McDonalds. We went inside so Cody could nurse her and we could eat our lunch but then Cody remember she forgot something at home. See... Cody has to use a breast shield to nurse because she has flat nipples which means the tip of her nipple doesn't come out when the baby tries to nurse so the baby has a really hard time latching so she has to use a shield which helps pull her nipple out. Well she left it at home... an hour and a half away. Oh my goodness. So we had to give her more water until we could get all of our stuff so we could run to Fred Meyers to get some formula. Luckily Sonia's been switched back and forth from a bottle to breast so she makes the switch like it's nothing. She's even been on formula before so we knew she'd be fine with that. So we finally got the formula and had to kind of laugh at the situation. Then we get back in the car and get headed home.

Well 11 miles out of town we are heading down the highway and my car completely shuts off. The engine light was on so I thought "CRAP!!! MY CAR JUST BROKE DOWN!" Then I noticed what the issue was. I ran out of gas!!! Are you kidding me?!?!? So I looked over at Cody and said, "We just ran out of gas!!!" We both started laughing so dang hard!!! Oh my goodness it was just our luck.

So Cody says, "Do you think we'll make it to the gas station?" (we were just by an exit with a gas station)

so I said.. "NO because there is a stop sign up there and I have to stop!"

So she says, "Well I hope noone is coming so we can just coast through it!"

So we got off the exit... coasted through the stop sign.. luckily noone was coming. Made it around two street corners and made it about 5 feet away from the pump. All the pumps were blocked so we had to hit the breaks and wait. Well since we hit the breaks there was no more coasting, LOL! So Cody got out and pushed and I opened my door and we both pushed our huge Ford Explorer! We were so proud! Then we got gas and headed back home.

Oh believe me the day wasn't over yet. We were laughing at our whole day so we weren't paying attention to anything else.. well then I noticed that was was REALLY close to the exit we needed to take and I wasn't in the right lane so I had to cut over. There was this red truck that was about 10 car lengths behind me.. well went i hit my turn signal he hit his gas!!! I had to cut over to make the exit and I had plenty of time so I did.. well he hit his gas even harder to where he was driving beside me on the exit (A ONE LANE ROAD). I was like Jerk!!! There was plenty of time between me and the guy for me to get over but no he had to be a jerk and hit his gas. So then he's honking his horn and yelling at me.. Whatever dude. Have a nice day. So then he goes like 85 on the highway to pass me and he passes me shaking his head. Some people are so dumb.

So me and Cody are totally marveling at the day we had as we're driving home and we were just making sure we had gas... formula... and that no cars were driving next to us, LOL. Well we totally forgot about the fact that we had given her daughter about 4 oz. of water and it went right through her. Her diaper was sooooo full. Her pants were wet, her car seat was wet.. we felt so bad.

We had to come home after that... he he he! We were worried that something else was going to happen, LOL!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vegas was a blast!!! We had a great time. The only bad part was the fact there no matter where you went there was people handing out Porn!!!! OH MY GOODNESS. If one more person would have tried to hand me porn I think I would have shoved it up there a$$! It was so irritating!!! But we had a great time. Here are some pictures from our trip!


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Jeff and I at our formal dinner!

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Jeff and his Presidential Award!

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Live music we were watching at a Cigar Bar.

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HEY... That's Me!!!

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Welcome To Vegas Baby!!!

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Jeff and I infront of the Treasure Island!

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Here's the Ifel Tower Replica at Paris Paris

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The Lionesses in the MGM

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The Lionesses playing!

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The Big Lion in front of the MGM

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Me and a showgirl!

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Jeff and the same showgirl!

Monday, June 11, 2007

Star Spangled Banner

Here's something to hold you over until I am able to post about my whole trip. This is a fountain show that we saw FOR FREE at the Belagio!



or heres a link:

http://s155.photobucket.com/albums/s317/stephaniesblog/?action=view&current=100_0844.flv

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

A New Friend

Sorry I haven't been around.. I've just been busy with getting ready for Vegas and trying to make babies... lol, I'm just kidding. I've just been trying to keep up with everyone else around me that I haven't had time to get on the computer.

I met a new friend yesterday! She's 20. A single mom to a gorgeous little girl named Sophia (I really meant Sonia.. this was a while back and I was getting it confused!!! I'm sorry!! LOL!) who's 8 weeks old. She lives in my town and I really like her. We seem to come from the same background so that's nice. I met her on a local mommies site and we got together for lunch and a movie yesterday, it was really great to hang out with someone who was my age and thinking about babies. Usually 20 year olds are just in the party, independent, stage so it's nice to find someone else like me.

We went to blockbuster to pick up a movie and she even let me hold her daughter. She was so cute! Then we went back to her place and watched My Super Ex-Girlfriend it was way funny! I even got to feed her daughter and play with her a bit more. We had a great time.

She lives by herself.. well just her and the baby so I hope she had a good time visiting with someone in her area. She just moved here about a month ago (as did I) so it's nice to make new friend.

I hope you're all having a great time without me and I will talk to you soon.. from LAS VEGAS BABY!!! What happens in Vegas isn't going to stay in Vegas.. he he!

Saturday, June 2, 2007

A Hard Day

We went to our IUI appointment yesterday and as soon as we walked walked into the room, I felt like something was wrong. It just didn't feel the same as the time before. Well the nurse told me to do the same thing as usual.. 'undress from the waste down' so I did, as usual. Well then I really realized something was wrong when two doctors came in. Usually when you have an IUI (for me anyways) only the lab tech will come in to inject the semen.. well this time the lab tech came in with another doctor whom I have seen before but never during an IUI, so something had to be up. Well then she showed us the normal paperwork and my final confirmation was when she opened the analysis paper.. it had red pen circles all over it, which means that something wasn't right. So she finally explained that last IUI Jeff's sperm before washing was 18 million after washing there was 5 million, which was the cut off for IUI's (5mil) so all was good. Well this time his sperm count before washing was 9 million and after washing it was .3 million which was extremly below the cut off for an IUI. When they do an IUI they want the best possible chance for you to get pregnant... they said that .3 was hardly addiquate. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I looked over at Jeff and the look of devistation was quite evident, I felt so bad.

So she gave us the option to either cancel this cycle and to NOT do the IUI or just to go ahead and try and see what happens. She did make a point to say that people have gotten pregnant on this low of a sperm count before but not very often. They left the room and Jeff and I talked about it while crying and hoping that everything would be okay. We decided that we were going to try, after all we had paid for it all up to this point and there's no reason to give up even if there is only a slim chance it could work. So we went ahead with it.

During the IUI, I think I was on edge the whole time.. spacing off and not paying attention. Everytime the nurse touched my leg or any other body part, I jumped, which I'm sure didn't make it easy to guide the catheter in through my cervix. I couldn't help it though. Once she did insert the catheter it felt like she was jabbing a knife and scraping off some tissue.. it didn't feel good. I wanted to cry but I didn't want to let her know that it hurt so I held it back and I didn't want Jeff to feel like he was making me go through this for nothing. I cried once she left the room though. I could just tell that Jeff felt so bad. While I was laying there for my 20 minutes he read me two childrens story's which was really cute but it just made me cry more because he's going to be such a great dad.

So anyways.. we got done with that and OH.. while the dr's were talking to us about whether to continue or not they also suggested that we got with IVF next time, because they really don't think that Jeff's sperm is addiquate to get me pregnant.Once we got done in the IUI room.. they sent us on our way but Jeff and I wanted to talk to someone about IVF to see all that it entails(sp). We talked with a 'ivf specialist and councelor' so that was nice. She went over all that we would have to do and how things are going to go. We also set up an appointment to start IVF if this IUI doesn't take. It's June 25th.

An IVF cycle takes two cycles.. the first cycle you are on birth control to suppress your hormones and to basically let the dr's take over your body and tell it what to do and you are also on a drug called Lupron which suppresses your piruitary gland so it doesn't have any effect on the medications to stimulate the ovary. Then you start a stimulation cycle which begins on the onset of your period, which is about 3-4 days after the last dose of BC. Once you start your period you have to call and make an appointment to schedule a 'supression check appointment' to check for cysts on your ovaires and the lining of your uterus. If you have no cysts and you have a very thin lining of your uterus then you are assigned a day 1 for IVF. Then you will start stimulation medication on day one and continue until the dr's have determined that my follicles are mature and ready for egg retrieval.

I will start the injectable medications for stimulation of more than one egg. Once the eggs are deemed mature then I take my shot of HCG to make me ovulate. Then EXACTLY 35 hours later I will go in to have my eggs removed. This is done by needle aspiration through the vagina. They do it under IV sedation, whatever that means. If they can't get the eggs under needle aspiration through the vagina they will take me to the hospital to have me undergo laparoscopic surgery to get the eggs. Then I will be sent home about 45 minutes later.Once the eggs are taken to the lab I will start progesterone injections or vaginal suppositories.

During this time, in the lab, jeff will be giving a sperm sample (either by ejaculation or by testicular biopsy... most likely ejaculation) then the eggs will be fertilized either by insemination (leaving the sperm with the egg in the dish and hoping that it fertilizes) or by ICSI (where they inject the sperm straight into the egg.

While the eggs are in the lab they will be in a special 'media' room for 4-6 hours while the sperm is washed then the sperm will be placed with the eggs for 18 hours. The eggs will then be ecamined for fertilization, if they are fertilized they will be placed in a special growth room. Then they will be examined again on the day of transfer for cell division. The they will be transfered.Then I will have a pregnancy test 15 days later to see if I am pregnant. If it is uncesseful I have to wait 1 normal period before beginning a new suppression cycle.

Anyways.. I hope I haven't taken up too much of your time. I just wanted to all know what the process involves. I find it rather interesting. We also have to go through a injection class to learn how to give ourselves and each other injections. So we'll see how this cycle goes...