The Warden

A warden:

"An official charged with special supervisory duties or with the enforcement of specified laws or regulations."

Ben has officially deemed me the "vitamin warden."

I'm really not sure I deserve the title. A gentle reminder every now and again when he forgets to take his vitamins doesn't really warrant a designated identity. And while I admit that every now and again the prompting has come when I am softly nudging him out of sleep with,"Hey, did you take your vitamins today? You can't forget to take them." I really don't know why he gets annoyed by this. After all, he might forget to take them if I'm not in his ear reminding him all the time, and I KNOW he wouldn't want that....

Besides, who wouldn't be happy swallowing all that liquid gold every evening. I'm sure his boys are jumping for joy with every added bit of magnesium they get. And they might even be jumping in the right direction for once. Not entirely likely as they have a mind of their own, but you never know.

To be quite honest, our vitamin intake is the one and only thing that I can actually control in the whole IVF process. If my eggs grow stronger with vitamin E and zinc, damn strait I'm going to do everything I can to pump them full of vitamin E and zinc.

Unfortunately for Ben, I took the approach of compiling a list of every vitamin with any study improving fertility and went out and bought them all. An overkill? Not if it helps us conceive Ellyette Jr. in three weeks.

In the big scheme of things, it really hasn't been too bad on Ben. Because of all his extra vitamin intake, I have made a few dinners with zero nutritional value just for him.

So Ben, when you read this. Go take your vitamins. After all, I did make you tater tot casserole, twice. And I didn't even try to hide spinach in it.

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The countdown

Less than two weeks until we are baby bound for Prague.  I have been asked by numerous people if I am as nervous this go-around as I was the last one.  My reply? Of course not!
 

Unless you include the nail biting that has suddenly occurred again in the last three weeks.  And the upset stomach I get whenever I think about the potential negative outcome of the procedure. Or the anxiety I feel whenever I think of traveling for a month with Ellyette.  Or the panic I feel about spending that kind of money when there are no guarantees. 
 

At least I can blame my sleepless nights on Ellyette reverting back to waking up during the night….Most of them anyway.  My awake nightmare of Ellyette falling into a canal kept me restless for hours last night until I googled “how many people drown in Venice canal’s every year.”  The good news?  Only seven since 1992.  And most of them were from being drunk.  The bad news?  I guess I have to worry more about Ben then Ellyette now.
 

But at least this time I have the ultimate confidence in our clinic.
 

Not to say that I was worried the first time around.....I had complete,  total a good amount of trust  with our research of clinics. However, there was still that little question in the back of my mind of what we were getting ourselves into.  After all, the internet can make anything look good.

Exhibit A


 

What you think you are
getting

                        What you are
                       actually getting
       





Exhibit B

 

The date you thought you had

 

                                     The date you actually had

At least we know going over there this time, that while the clinic is in a back ally, it is not the type of back ally that comes with a side effect of infection or death.

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Here we go again

Well, we are officially taking the plunge and going back to Prague. Tickets have been bought. Reservations at Gennet are made, and now it’s time to get my mind focused and the rest of my baby weight off ….eye roll.

I’m actually pretty close to getting those last pounds off. In part because after Ellyette got the stomach flu last week, I got it too. And magically 3 pounds disappeared. I call it the “stomach acid diet.” It’s not for the faint of heart, but might be worth a book at some point.

One of my other motivations is this d-bag personal trainer at Gold’s Gym who upon doing my “short term” and “long term” goals, informed me he thought my short term goals should be to lose 2 pounds a week. For a year. Yes my friends, that amounts to 96 pounds, which means I would weigh less than 30 pounds at the end of the year if he got his way.

My long term goal was to lose 10 pounds.

Where the discrepancy lies between his goals and mine, I do not know. However, I can tell you that the whole “you are your own harshest critic” was completely debunked with that assessment.

So now whenever I see him at the gym, I put my snarkiest “you are terrible at math, you idiot” face on, and run an extra 15 minutes.

Maybe that was his plan to begin with….Whatever, still totally insulting.

The other piece to getting ready for this adventure is mentally preparing for IVF. So naturally, rather than do anything ultra productive after Ellyette goes to bed, I will lurk Fertilityfriendsuk.com. and get the highs and lows of my community out there. And this time I will do it with no shame. Take that Ben Hummel. Did you here me? I WILL LURK INFERTILITY BOARDS WITH NO SHAME!!!

Oh infertility, and all the smilies that go with it, I have missed you so. 

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For more posts on my pregnancy and baby girl Ellyette....

For more posts on my IVF pregnancy, birth and baby girl Ellyette.  Please visit petri dish chronicles

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The verdict is in....

Over the last few months, Ben and I have been overwhelmed with support from all of our friends and family. Although, when we told people we were doing our cycle in Prague and we received a lot of, "I'll be praying for you," I wasn't exactly sure if it was meant to be "I'll be praying for you," for a successful cycle, or "I'll be praying for you," for your sanity and lack of good judgement. Regardless, we were happy to take all the prayers we could get. In fact, I think even God was surprised with the people who were praying for us. We had Christians, Atheists, Agnostics, Spiritualists, and even a (dare I say it?) Reformist. And I'm sure the Jehovah's Witnesses who stop by my house every three weeks to drop off End of Times, Are you Prepared literature, are praying for me too. But not for the same reasons as everybody else. In fact, the funniest text I received was one of my friends. It said, "I'm excited to see you. Been thinking about you guys a lot. I even prayed for you, even though I'm a little rusty."

How awesome is that?

Well, in my opinion, God must have been impressed with the diversity of people giving us shout outs, because he decided to give us a

Hooray!!!!!!!

I did have to do a little triple checking just to make sure

And while I'm at it, here is a money saving tip from yours truly. That little test in the middle is from the Dollar Store. While I had already had two positives when I purchased it (I was a little skeptical), I wanted to see if those things did indeed work. And, what do you know...they do. So for all of you wondering "who the heck would buy a pregnancy test at the dollar store?" (That would be me before this morning) I have now become "that person."

Rest assured, the Dollar Store ends with the pregnancy test. I promise to not buy anything else baby from there, unless I'm looking for lead paint legos or something.

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Are we there yet?

The two week wait before finding out if the IVF cycle actually worked is what one forum poster described as "feeing like the time lapse between Prince albums, or complete solar eclipses." Which, I have to say, is not too far off.

Since the transfer, this is an example of one minute inside my head:

"I really hoped this worked. If it didn't work, I have no vacation time to go back in the next 8 months, and we are going into our busy season so my boss wouldn't let me go anyway. That means I would have to wait until next June. I will be an entire year older. I wonder if that would affect the quality of my eggs. The embryologist said the embryos were high quality, so it should have worked. If it doesn't work, I'm going to be disappointed. A lot of people have unsuccessful tries the first time so I shouldn't be that disappointed, but I would be anyway because the whole thing went perfectly. Nothing went wrong so they wouldn't know what to change for next time. Ben and I aren't usually lucky enough to have the best case scenario and we already had an awesome trip so our luck must have run out on the pregnancy. Now I know for sure it didn't work. We aren't that lucky....oh shoot, I just sneezed. I hope the embryo doesn't fall out. I know, Krista, it is impossible for an embryo to fall out from sneezing. You are driving yourself crazy. Maybe I am pregnant. Pregnant people are crazy. What if it's twins? What the heck would I do with twins? I can't think that far ahead because I don't want to be disappointed if it's nothing. But I feel really tired and weird. But mainly tired. But that would make sense because I just traveled from the other side of the world less than a week ago and I'm taking that disgusting progesterone. That stuff is so gross. It makes me so bloated. I'm sure I'm not pregnant because I think I walked around too much in Europe. Why did I insist on making Ben take me to Istanbul? Oh yeah, so I would stop thinking all these thoughts. I wonder if I'm stressing out too much? Did I take that gross progesterone this morning? What about the Prednisone? I wish I knew already, that way I could move on with my life one way or another. I still have four days to go? Uggg. I hate this.

Now, take that minute and add 59 more, and then multiply it by the amount of hours I am awake (roughly 16), and there you have it; the two week wait.

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Well, there is no going back now

It's done. The two finalists have officially been transferred from the dish to me. So now we wait two weeks to see if they felt comfortable enough with me to stick around for an extended stay.

Look guys, it's their new home!!

Ben also got to witness the transfer and dressed up for the occasion. What a stallion!

He just couldn't keep the ladies away.

Overall, I couldn't be happier for how things turned out so far. A little bad news is that we did lose the other 6 embryos between the fourth and fifth day. They clearly had both of our genetics when it came to being cold, as once they must have realized they were going to be frozen, they said "forget that," and stopped growing.

Defiant little bastards.

We only wanted super-embryos anyway, and hopefully that is what we got. I'll continue to keep updating as things progress, but for tomorrow, I'm going to spend the final days over here resting on the black sea.

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Funny thing about Prague

Almost all the souvenir shops in Prague have similar nick-knacks. They all have wooden clocks, magnets of St. Charles Bridge and Vitus Church, bottles of Pilsner Urquell and Becherovka Liquor, marionettes, and of course, painted eggs.

I thought it slightly ironic that I was surrounded by eggs. White lace eggs, multi-colored eggs, wire-wrapped eggs, eggs with simple designs, crazy designs and pictures. I decided it must be fate that I was in a city full of so many eggs, when I too, was so full of eggs. I took this shot as a remembrance of Czech's egg glory.

For $3.50, I also purchased one of these beauties:

However, in my several week obsession with eggs, and an actual purchase of one, I didn't want Ben to think he was going to face nothing but estrogen and crazy Krista in his future, so I searched high and low and finally found and purchased this gem.

I would say we are equal now

Whoever calls first dibs can claim the "liquor" inside when we get back.

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Tivas and Crocs and Nylons oh my!

If Europe is as fashion forward as we all have been led to believe, and all the trends here are headed to the United States, I thought I should warn everybody of what we all have to look forward to (I fear this could be a two-part series)...

Exhibit A: Her- See through lace tank with visible bra, shaved head with one side chunk of hair left to flow freely, Him - man Capris.

Exhibit B: Combination of eccentrically bold man capris, high black socks, and running shoes

Exhibit C: Plaid man capris paired with a striped shirt and finished with black socks and brown sandals.

Exhibit D: Man extensions, apparently goes with everything and nothing at the same time

Exhibit E: Socks and sandals for him, and acid washed parachute jeans for her. I guess in Europe MC Hammer is making a comeback. The good news is that she decided not to wear the shirtless vest and tuxedo shoe combo to go with the pants....

Exhibit F: Who wears short shorts?

Exhibit G: "I do. I do"

Exhibit H: "Me too. Me too"

Exhibit I: Czechs version of our "striped shirt guy," complete with full frontal shred on his jeans, unbuttoned shirt, and rockin' kicks

Exhibit J: Showing off abs of steel

Exhibit K: Abs of steel part 2

Exhibit L: Speedo with Crocs, the ultimate European trend. Can't wait for that one to cross oceans!

Exhibit M: Last but not least, Ben making his own failed fashion statement

Other fashion forward trends I've noticed but have not gotten a picture of (yet)

Faux Hawks - bold and brash with equally annoying people who's heads they adorn.

Skin colored nylons with everything: Dresses, pants, shorts, skirts, shirts, mini skirts.

sandals with massive ankle cuffs

Girls with half of a shaved head (actually kind of cool)

Jeggings (yikes)

Capri jeans and rayon pants with large elastic pant cuffs and waist bands

And......I have now named Tiva the new international shoe. Worn by people in all countries without discrimination. And it must be a shoe that begs for socks, because most people wear the Tiva/sock combo without embarrassment.

Consider yourselves warned

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The waiting game

I spent the first couple days after the transfer on the couch reading and feeling lousy, while Ben changed his fantasy football line-up probably 100 times, studied every team and every player, and memorized all things football. He has complete knowledge of every team in our league and who has what player and who he is going to trade for who, etc. While boredom I'm sure played a part in this, Brad changing his team name to "Pummel the Hummel's" certainly didn't help. Thanks Brad. Maybe if you actually get your iPad working and change your lineup every once and a while you would have a chance....

Since then, we have just been waiting around for our embryos to marinate in the petri dish. So far, they seem to be enjoying their accommodations. Of the 14, we had eight fertilize (good), and up to today we still have eight (great). Of the eight, six are good-very good quality. That is good awesome news.

For anyone wanting a visual, below is a picture I got off the Internet. We are at the pink line with six of them and the orange line with the other two.

If all goes well, they will put two of them back tomorrow and freeze the rest.

Here's to hoping they like me as much as the petri dish.

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Fertilize this

What a terrible wife, I didn't even mention Ben's clinical duties in my last post. He too was adorned with white Crocs before heading into his own private room to preform his manly duties. The room came equip with both magazines and movies for his viewing pleasure. What a nice staff. They even offered that I go in the room with him. But alas, I had my own fun stuff to get ready for, and magic red sweats and a sweatshirt don't exactly qualify as sexy, so I entrusted him to Kim Kardashian and crew to get the job done.

I'm beginning to change my mind about Crocs...He looks pretty good sporting them

He was waiting for me in my room when I was finished, so everything must have gone well on his end..... I have to say, of the two of us in this whole thing, he's gotten off pretty easy, although he will have to answer to this picture in Croc's a time or two in the future.

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Eggs a plenty

I scared even myself the other day when I realized that I have become so accustomed to taking injections that I don't even care where we are when I have to take one.

That picture was taken right after my last and final trigger shot. Hooray! The scary part is, that is the exact spot where it was taken.

I blame Ben for that particular spot though, and here is why: I had strict orders that the shot needed to be taken at 9:00 p.m. We happened to be at dinner when nine rolled around, so I suggested we hole up in the bathroom and do it there. Ben thought that would look too suspicious, both of us coming out of one bathroom (snicker). So instead, he thought behind a tree right outside the restaurant would be a better option. No matter that it was a beautiful day and everyone was eating outside, right on the other side of the tree (if you look closely, you can see a chair right next to the tree). I thought he might be right about the bathroom, so, like the classy couple we are, behind the tree it was.

Fast forward 36-hours-later.

Time for the egg retrieval. I was glad to have those little buggers out of my mango sized ovaries because they were starting to become uncomfortable. And when you have 100 stairs to climb to an over-sized metronome monument expressing Prague's freedom, it's no fun having those things drag you down.

So away I went to face the bright lights of the surgery room.

I should have known it was going to be an unpleasant experience when they made me swap my shoes for a pair of white Crocs. But it only got worse from that point on.

I'll spare the exact visual, but I will say this: Like riding a horse vertically, and one huge bright florescent light shining somewhere, but not on my face.......

And this is where I sat for what seemed like eternity. They had to ask me all kinds of questions, get the equipment ready, talk amongst themselves, etc. All the while, I was hanging out in the most awkward position ever. Finally, they spared what was left of my dignity by putting me under.

So I don't remember the rest, until this point:

In one piece

A-OK!

They retrieved 14 mature eggs when it was all over. Well done Krista (insert pat on back here). It must have been all the wine and beer to stimulate blood flow.

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Riddle me this

"A popular bar had a new robotic bartender installed. A guy came in for a drink and the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?" The man replied, "130." So the robot proceeded to make conversation about physics, astronomy, and so on.

The man listened intently and thought, "This is really cool." Another guy came in for a drink and the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?" The man responded, "120." So the robot started talking about the Superbowl, dirt bikes, and so on.

The man thought to himself, "Wow, this is really cool." A third guy came in to the bar. As with the others, the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?" The man replied, "80." The robot then said, "So, how are things in Poland these days?"

Sorry, I couldn't resist.....

I had two days between appointments, so rather than take it easy (like I probably should have), we kept the car for a couple extra days and headed to Krakow.

Besides being one of the most amazing cities I've ever visited, it was also one of huge contrast. While one of the most obvious contrasts was the modern vs. communist buildings, another one sticks out in my mind just a little bit more.

To Ben's good fortune, this is what all the women in Poland look like.

To my misfortune, this is what all the men in Poland looked like.

Not fair.

It doesn't even make logical sense that almost all of the women are attractive and all the guys, well, look like the guy in my picture to the right.

But aside from the genetic makeup of Krakow's finest, the city was also a stark contrast of incredible and vibrant buildings vs. communist dorms (but now is mainly awesome buildings.)

One of the 235 (or something like that) amazing churches in the city...All of which had weddings the day we went to tour them.

Communist's have no architectural style

I also thought it was interesting that despite all the reminders of the country's rough past, the people still seem to have a sense of humor.

These guys need a one-way ticket to Comicon, and a couple of girlfriends.

"A popular bar had a new robotic bartender installed. A guy came in for a drink and the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?" The man replied, "130." So the robot proceeded to make conversation about physics, astronomy, and so on.

The man listened intently and thought, "This is really cool." Another guy came in for a drink and the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?" The man responded, "120." So the robot started talking about the Superbowl, dirt bikes, and so on.

The man thought to himself, "Wow, this is really cool." A third guy came in to the bar. As with the others, the robot asked him, "What's your IQ?" The man replied, "80." The robot then said, "So, how are things in Poland these days?"

Sorry, I couldn't resist.....

I had two days between appointments, so rather than take it easy (like I probably should have), we kept the car for a couple extra days and headed to Krakow.

Besides being one of the most amazing cities I've ever visited, it was also one of huge contrast. While one of the most obvious contrasts was the modern vs. communist buildings, another one sticks out in my mind just a little bit more.

To Ben's good fortune, this is what all the women in Poland look like.

To my misfortune, this is what all the men in Poland looked like.

Not fair.

It doesn't even make logical sense that almost all of the women are attractive and all the guys, well, look like the guy in my picture to the right.

But aside from the genetic makeup of Krakow's finest, the city was also a stark contrast of incredible and vibrant buildings vs. communist dorms (but now is mainly awesome buildings.)

One of the 235 (or something like that) amazing churches in the city...All of which had weddings the day we went to tour them.

Communist's have no architectural style

I also thought it was interesting that despite all the reminders of the country's rough past, the people still seem to have a sense of humor.

These guys need a one-way ticket to Comicon, and a couple of girlfriends.

While it was necessary that I go to Auschwitz/Birkenau, it was also a mix of: Krista + massive amounts of hormones + Auschwitz = What was I thinking?

All in all, I was far more impressed with Krakow then I could have ever imagined. After all, who wouldn't love a city that tolerates a guy dressed as Luigi trying to look like he is urinating in a fountain off the main square?

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