Day 7 of Turkey--The Bosphorus Boat trip

Merhaba which is hello in Turkish!!


Today we saw the doctor.  Our eggs are growing well so he is going to keep me on the same dosage of 300 IU.   They measure the eggs in millimeters (mm).  When the eggs get to be around 18 mm they will retrieve them.  He went really fast as he measured so I wasn't able to keep count real well but I think we have around 13-16 eggs.


On the right ovary our totals were:
2  8 mm eggs
4-5  7 mm eggs
2-4 6 mm eggs


On the left we had:
3  8 mm eggs
4  7 mm eggs
2-4   6 mm eggs


On Friday I think I will know a better total of our eggs.   We will definitely have plenty of eggs and they are growing well.  So that's all great news!  Our egg retrieval will not be until at least the 16th.  


Seyhan, generously spent the afternoon and evening with us.  When I say "us", I am speaking of Staci and I, and the other two couples we mentioned in other blogs who are here for IVF.  She is a very sweet muslim, works all around the clock.  She is always on call, attending to all the logistics for the hospital.  She privately told us of her own personal physical challenges involving surgery with having one of her lungs removed, and coughing up blood.  She was in an ER in the UK, which meant waiting for 4 hours before being attended to (while she was coughing up blood)  and the doctor said, “you’re not dead” when he finally saw her.  They could not after several months identify the problem.  She finally arrived at this John Hopkins affiliated hospital and they diagnosed it in 2-3 days.  However, her ribs were broken, and they healed and broke in cycles multiple times during this time.  It is difficult to fully understand, but I think she is still facing some of these issues today.  This hospital is a hospital where all the worse cases come.  So there are a lot of tragic cases.  Seyhan is involved with a lot of them, because she handles travel arrangements and logistics of all kinds.  She personally gets involved and tries desperately to help families cope and resolve issues.  She is a very generous person and tries to help in many ways.  She has gained the respect of all her peers and everyone she works with.  When we have been with her, we have met some of the fine doctors and surgeons.  She mentioned, on a few occasions – “this is the best heart surgeon in the world”, and we met a chiropractor today. 

Seyhan also invited her cousin to be with us today.  So we spent the most of the day with them.  Seyhan, initiated our journey on a shuttle from the hospital and we were dropped off at a ferry.  The ferry was similar to the one before, but a little smaller.  It was better because we could feel the cool breeze as we crossed the Bosphorous.  It was a slower pace across the Bosphorous which is what we wanted, because it was intended to be a Bosphorous cruise.  It really pretty much covered the same area as the last SeaBus we mentioned yesterday.  However, it was slower, we could feel the open air and could see and enjoy the atmosphere.  There are two bridges over the Bosphorous - so this cruise we were on was south of the lower bridge - of course which I do not remember the name (as it was in Turkish).  At the conclusion of the cruise, we arrived on the European/west side of Istanbul (like last time).  

We walked down one of the streets (I don’t actually know the name) and enjoyed some of Seyhan’s favorite area of Istanbul.  We passed by several universities on the way.  On one of the universities, they had two huge posters/banners with names of graduates on each.  On the left banner it showed a list of all the graduates from college.  On the right banner it showed a list of all the graduates from high school.  So she said that there was some peer pressure, where friends would ask each other, “Is your name listed?”  LOL.  Kind of interesting.

We arrived at a mosque, named after the town, Ortakoy.  So it was named Ortakoy mosque.  Pictures are provided below (inside and out).  We took some pictures of it.  Right in front of it, there is a huge basketball.  They are into basketball here, but they admit they can never compare to the US.  Not sure why the basketball is there, but it is.  Has nothing to do with the mosque. 

This season is Ramazan (pronounced Raw-ma-dawn), which is ending tonight.  All the muslims fast which means no food or water until 7:30 at night (from sun-up to sun-down) - not a single thing can pass their lips - not drinks, not medicine, not gum, not cigarettes.  This period is for a month when they practice this.  They have different prayer calls during the day, if I remember correctly, 5 a day.  They must face Mecca and actually there is a strange sound of men singing throughout the city at different intervals at the time of prayer.  The singing, we were told is actually in Arabic and the meaning of it is essentially we believe that God is the highest and almighty.  So tomorrow, is when it is over and they have the first opportunity to eat breakfast.  And really, they are supposed to eat breakfast with their mothers.  They must kiss their mothers hands and grandparents hands to show respect and honor.  The men must go to the mosques to pray.   They must also go to “nursing homes” or wherever old people are, (complete strangers) to spend time with them.  The taxis, buses and public transportation are all free for 3 days because this is the time when all families get together to spend this time together so there is no excuse.  It is kind of like our Christmas.  

We went inside the mosque.  We took off our shoes prior to entering the mosque, and placed them in a locker.  We then walked inside.  The women were provided wraps or scarfs to wrap around their heads/necks before they entered.  The architecture was ornate, the lighting was very nice.  It was right next to the Bosphorous, so it was nice to see the water from inside.  The pictures will show the ceiling, and the chandelliers.  We watched as men were praying.  We stayed in the back and took a few pictures. 

I will describe this as Seyhan spoke to us.  (Please no comments about this as it can be a controversial topic and that is not my intent).  She wished that people did not lump her beliefs as a muslim with the Arabs.  Many people assume that they are all the same.  She mentioned her long wishes were to go to Mecca and to earn enough money to pay for her mother to go to Mecca.  It is their belief that they must go there at least once in their lifetime.  But she said, I hate Arabs and since Mecca is in Saudi Arabia, she said she didn’t want to waste her money, because she knows the money would go to them. 

She then proceeded to describe that she loves the mosque because it is peaceful.  She said that she is responsible to know all her neighbors.  When people go to visit each other, it is kind of like the islanders.  They are provided food and you must eat all the food placed in front of you, which usually consists of several courses of food.  You cannot simply provide an excuse such as “I’m full”.  That will not be tolerated.  You must eat, and eat and eat.  Another part of this, is she said she must be very familiar with her neighbors.  If they do not have sufficient food and such, she must share hers.  She is in effect required to share her food, or invite her neighbors over for meals so that they have enough to eat.  If she fails to do this it is rude.    She also mentioned her experience reading from the Koran.  The words she used to express reading from the Koran were almost the same words and vocabulary used when (I myself in the past, and others I know have expressed while reading the Bible or scriptures).  She was sincere, and described the experience a Christian might say when they feel the Spirit while reading scriptures. 

After leaving the mosque, we went on a different ferry.  This time, the ferry covered the northern part of the Bosphorous (up until the next bridge – which was near the top of Istanbul).  It was beautiful, and we enjoyed the cool breeze.  We loved that it had cooled off a little.  It was nice and relaxing.

We then finished the day going to a large mall.  I think it was 4 of 5 stories tall and very long and wide.  It was the largest mall I have ever seen (anywhere).  It even had what looked to be a Home Depot (different name), and a wal mart (type of supermarket – not Walmart) with lots of groceries and so forth.  It was pretty cool.   We ate dinner at one of the places in the mall. 

There are always new things to learn.  I hope that the things we have written are interesting and not boring.  There is a lot of interesting things we see and learn each day.  Of course, we can’t mention all of them.

Thank you for everything.

Glen and Staci

On ferry crossing Bosphorous

The following pictures are of the lower bridge across the Bosphorous:

These are a couple pictures - it was a cool silhouette of the city underneath the bridge:

These are pictures of Ortokoy / Istanbul - near the mosque:

These pictures are of a basketball right in front of a mosque:

Vida on left - IVF patient,    Right - Seyhan (Hospital responsible for logistics)

All the IVF girls:    Susan, Vida, Seyhan and Staci

These are the pictures of the mosque we went inside - Ortokoy Mosque:

Bottom right - Vida's husband Ebenezer

Day 6 of Turkey--The Grand Bazaar

Hi everyone!

No egg update today.  I only see the doctor every other day for right now.  I will see him every day once it gets closer to egg retrieval.  When we had our first appointment, Dr Arici put our egg retrieval at probably the 13th, but since the eggs didn't grow very much last time it might be a day or two later. I'll keep you posted once I see the doctor in the morning.  Ok, so I'm beat so I'm turning this over to Glen to do the story telling for the day!!

For today’s outing, we might have been tempted to take a taxi from the hotel (their word for taxi is taksi - sounds the same), however it would probably be at least $100 (american) one-way.  So we opted for public transportation which was much more affordable.  That was a challenge in and of its self.  We paid ticket dispensers without knowing the language which was confusing.  After figuring out how to use the ticket dispenser with the right form of money and pushing the right buttons, we received tickets.  The tickets were in the form of plastic chips which looked like poker chips. We had to place these chips into a turn stile so we could enter the tram/metro station and get on our tram.  In the end, we now are familiar with how to get around town.  The biggest challenge now is getting to the point where we can use public transporation  from our hotel, since our hotel is so far away.  Seyhan has been very helpful in providing a shuttle for us to get from the hotel to the point where we can use public transportation.  We really have appreciated that because it has saved us a lot of money.

Today we went to the Grand Bazaar with the other couple. It was an amazing experience.  Seyhan, our international patient coordinator, arranged for a shuttle to take us to the sea bus port.  Istanbul is split by a river called the Bosphorus.  They call the two different sides of Istanbul the Europe and Asia side.  We are on the Asia side.  So we had to take a sea bus, which is like a big boat/ferry, to get to the European side.  Then we had to catch a tram to the Grand Bazaar.  

The Tram was really cool.  We drove through the "old" town (on the European side).  On the Tram, there were several stops and along the way, there was a lot of cool things we could see.  We saw a few mosques, and interesting looking buildings, McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, and then a bunch of their shops and banks, etc.  It was very fun and interesting to see.  Then in some parts, the tram was so close to the shops and buildings we could reach out and touch people standing there in line for the shops - and/or we could almost reach out and touch the walls also.  It was close, almost like an alley way in a few of the areas through the city.  It even went over one of the bridges over the Golden Horn (waterway).    

The Grand Bazaar is HUGE!!!  The building is many city BLOCKS wide and has tons of corridors.  It's like a maze in there!  It has at least a thousand merchants selling stuff.  Canton pales in comparison to the Grand Bazaar.  It's basically the same stuff like pottery, carpets, scarves, lamps, etc.  But it's still awesome!!  We had a good time looking around and we even bought a few things.  You definitely have to haggle to get a good price, but it was fun.  Most of the merchants were very nice and accepted  NO the very first time, except we saw one merchant chasing a blonde tourist because she didn’t buy something from him.  He was following her quite a while.  I have yet to know where (if ever), he stopped following her.  LOL. 

Oh yes, there was one experience, we must not omit.  Just shortly after we entered the Grand Bazaar, a merchant was standing in the middle of the aisle-way posing as a shopper.  He proceeded to guess where we were from, asking us in English – “Are you from Texas”. With a completely baffled look on our faces we answered, Yes, we are!   We later thought, it must have just been a lucky guess because nothing on us said Texas and I wasn't wearing my cowboy boots. LOL We figure that when he sees an American he probably guesses them to be from one of three states, California, Texas, New York. These are the most populated and the odds are high that someone would be from one of these states.   He got lucky when he guessed right for us.  After his introduction, he then tried to get us to go visit his shop which was way off the beaten path.  There were four of us, so I knew he was potentially trying to scam us in some way, so I proceeded with caution – however the other 2 in our group were kind of leading the way so Staci and I followed.  So it took a while to get to his stall, but along the way we saw many other merchants and what they had to offer so it was not a wasted journey.  He was a pretty funny guy, very humorous.  Of course, he said “you must buy something” – at least one thing from me.  Then he said, after you buy something from me, I will then show you the best place to eat “in the Grand Bazaar”.  He claimed to say that even George Bush and Michael Jackson had been in the Grand Bazaar to shop and he had seen it for himself.  LOL.  It was entertaining.  He actually asked us “would you like to see some tiles?”   Tiles, we later found out was his ceramic shop of bowls, and coasters and stuff like that, all allegedly hand-painted.  There was lots of competition for him in the Grand Bazaar, so of course if didn't take us long to figure out, why he wanted to steal customers right away before they saw the competition since he was way off in the boon docks of the Bazaar.  We didn’t buy anything from him, and we didn’t eat where he wanted us to eat.  LOL.  He was very persistent.  Said we should have bought something because of his comedy.  LOL.  He made fun of us because we were “window shoppers”.   Hey at that point, we had just gotten there and we had already told him we were "just looking."  Later in our shopping, we actually ran into that same guy a few more times!!  Which is crazy because this place is HUGE!!!  Each time we saw him coming, we would duck behind some carpets to avoid him seeing us.  LOL. One time we accidentally ducked into a store selling the exact same "tiles" as him.  We were like, Oh, crap!  What if he see's us in this other persons place and thinks we are buying from him instead!!!!  But thankfully we avoided him after that point and there were no further incidents. He just provided us with some real entertainment.

After the Grand Bazaar, we got on the tram to go back to the place where we arrived (in the morning from the ferry) - in the town Kabatas.  From the tram stop, we would need to go another mile or so to a hotel called The Marma, where Seyhan had gratefully arranged for someone to pick us up at 9pm.  So we took the tram back up to Kabatash, then we got on a metro/subway to take us north west (a mile), to complete the last jaunt to be in the place of pickup at 9pm.  Then we spent the evening in Taxim.  Some of the pictures will show some of the sights while we were there.  While we waited to be picked up, we looked at a few shops and had dinner.  There was also a nice park that we saw and there was an outdoor concert which we heard while we walked around.  

In Taxim, we also bought dinner there.  They have meat on a stick (or Kabob) - which they call Doner.  There is a picture of that.  They seemed to have a choice of chicken or beef.  The meat is stacked up on the metal skewers.  They have a choice of how the food is packaged.  For lunch we had it just sliced up on a plate with rice, etc.  At dinner, we opted for the burrito-style where they wrap it up with vegetables and a tortilla.  They oiled up the tortilla after they wrapped it all up and place it near a flame, long enough to char the tortilla.  Oh yea, we asked for the "spicy" version - which was supposed to have chiles with the vegetables.  It was very tasty, but definitely not spicy.  I don't think they really have spicy food here.  I prefer the burrito-style packaging of the meat - it tasted better than the other.  

Because we liked this experience so much, we will probably go back to the Grand Bazaar and Taxim again.  When we go back we will take a new couple we met. The new couple got here around the same time we did but they haven't had a chance to see any of the sights yet. Their names are Ebenezer and Vida, and he informed immediately that he was no Scrooge!  LOL They live in New York, but are originally from Ghana. They seem like a really nice couple and we look forward to getting to know them better. Tomorrow, all the couples are going on a boat ride together along with Seyhan down the Bosphorus River.  This should be SO awesome and we should get some really good pictures!!

I bet y'all are wanting some pictures of the Grand Bazaar.  So here ya go!!!

On the ferry, we passed the "Prince Islands" - they are 3 small islands.  This a picture of one:

On the ferry, these are some pictures of the European side of Istanbul. You will notice there are some mosques:

Bridge Over the Bosphorous River:

A random mosque right after getting off the seabus at Kabatash:

Then these are a collection of pictures taken at the Grand Bazaar.  They all show different merchants and the products they were selling.   The architecture of the building was interesting to, so pictures may only show that as well:

(above - lights / lanterns)

(above - this is a funny one).  Does anyone know what this merchant is pointing at?  if you can't figure it out - scroll down for the answer

Then we have some pictures in Taxim (in the evening)

(above - these were some soaps in the shape of fruit, etc.)

(park in Taxim - near the shops and concert)

(above - this was interesting - in front of concert.  Concert stage not shown.  The vendor was selling popcorn and cotton candy.  Not sure what the purpose of this architecture is for.)

(above - this is how they sell their meat - "Doner" in shops on the side of the road.  This is what we ate for lunch and dinner today)  There are several of these adjacent to each other.  There were 4 of these shops literally next to each other and then Burger King on the end (in Taxim).   Near the Grand Bazaar they had 2 or 3 next to each other as well.

Right before 9, immediately before we were being picked up - we went on a scavenger hunt to find Turkish ice cream, which is stringy like taffy.  The other couple said they knew where to look, so we started walking down a street.  This is a picture.  There were lots of people:

Their ice cream was interesting.  It was good, but interesting.  We had 3 flavors - chocolate, vanilla, and lemon.  They were pretty good.   Remind us to post about the ice cream experience it's getting really late and we have spent over two hours on this blog. LOL  It takes a long time to up load all the photos one at a time to the blog!

Oh, and the answer to what he is pointing at.  Staci was taking most of these pictures with her iphone today. In most places it was ok to take pictures, but I guess at this place it was not. Because when she brought the camera down she noticed that he was pointing at a picture of a camera with a big red X over it!  So  she accidently took a picture of a guy telling her not to take a picture!  LMAO

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Glen & Staci

Day 5 of Turkey---OMG we have sperm!!!!

Hello Everyone!

So as you can probably read from our title, everyone’s prayers have paid off and a miracle has happened! We found out today that they were able to find sperm in Glen’s samples, so he doesn’t have to do the sperm aspiration!!!!  They froze it so we can use it here in a week when they do the egg retrieval.  The doctor even said Glen could try again on the day of egg retrieval to see if we can get any fresh ones, but if not then we have the frozen sample from the other day!  We are so thrilled.  This doesn’t mean that we would ever be able to conceive on our own, because they found only 80,000 and most were not even swimming, but it’s plenty to do IVF.  So we went the right route regardless.  To conceive naturally you need at least 20 MILLION with more than 50% swimming!!   We are over the moon happy and we are very glad we came here because they definitely know what they are doing.  Sorry if too much info but such is that when you are dealing with infertility. On the day Glen had to do the analysis they gave him two cups, which he was completely puzzled by.  He asked them about why the two cups and not just the usual one. They said two different samples were needed because sometimes there will be no sperm in the first, and then some on the second.  We had NEVER had any doctor ask or do this before.  You would think after getting our zero analysis, our vasectomy reversal doctor would suggest doing this, but oh well!  We don’t know if it was the first, second, or both, but regardless they found some sperm and that is all that matters!!!!  No more needles or incisions down there for Glen!  Yipeee!!!!  Ok so Glen is blushing bad now, as if he wasn’t already! LOL  He’s such a trooper!  Thank you baby! I better move on to the next topic, THE EGGS!!!

As for the eggs, we have around 15-17, which is great, but they haven’t really grown much, so he upped my dose to 300 IU. So all is well they just need a little more fuel! ;)  I think they didn’t grow much, because when I took my first dose Friday night I didn’t know you were to suppose to prime the gonal-f injection pen before using it, so I think the first dose wasn’t the full 225 ius, but oh well!  With the increased dosage, it will make us for the small first dose!

Today was a nice day.  The weather was cool and over cast.  Not cool enough for a jacket, but just right for short sleeves and jeans.  We went with the other couple, Susan and Paul, to the mall where there is a supermarket, so we all could buy some groceries.  We bought a huge 10 liter jug of water and some snacks.  The kitchen here is WAY too small to cook in.  Besides, there are no pots and pans even though we have a stove!  LOL  I think we have to ask the front desk for some pots.  Tonight was a first for dinner. The past few times we have eaten downstairs in the hotel restaurant, which is kind of pricey and not very good.  Tonight we ate in the hospital cafeteria.  Susan and Paul were the ones who pointed us in that direction, so we had dinner with them.  We had seen the cafeteria, and had even stopped in there a couple of times to have dinner, but it was always too late and there wasn’t any food left.  But tonight, we made it on time and the food was actually better and cheaper than at the hotel.  So a win, win situation! Well at least tonight’s selection.  LOL  Could be a different story tomorrow night.  It’s nice that breakfast is included, because it doesn’t take long for meals to start adding up in cost!!

I'm going to wrap this up. Glen and I are going to try and plan what we would like to do for the rest of the week and try and make it work with the shuttle schedule that they have here at the hospital for going out into the city.  We hope you all are doing well!  Thank you for reading our blog and supporting us with your comments, thoughts, and prayers!  We really appreciate them! Keep them coming because they are so paying off!  We feel so blessed!!!

PICTURE TIME

Below are some pictures of our little apartment/condo and another pic from our open window. No balcony just  big doors that open up. It’s wonderful!!!

From the Window 

View of the room from the entry

View of the room from the far corner

This is the huge glass window that is part of the shower.  If you don't keep the blinds closed it could be quite the peep show/shower!  LOL

Our tiny kitchen

The shower

Vanity and toilet 

Full view of the room

Day 4 of Turkey--Back to Istanbul

Hey everyone!

Well we made it back to Istanbul safe and sound!  We spent the morning in the pool having fun and goofing around.  Then at noon we had to go back to the room, shower, and then get our bags to be checked out of our room at one.  Then we ate lunch and hung out until our shuttle arrived at 3 to take us to the airport.

We had a great time and we are very glad we did the trip to the beach.  It was so relaxing and definitely made it feel like a vacation. Not saying the whole trip isn't like a vacation, but our hotel in Antalya was a resort with huge pools, nightly entertainment, and right on the beach.  Where our hotel here is off the beaten path, not close enough to the beach to just walk down to, and there is definitely no resort like atmosphere at all.  We don't even have a pool.

No signs with our names messed up to report because.... the shuttle service that was suppose to pick us up from the airport to take us back here was a no show!!!  After waiting 45 minutes, we got a cab. We gave the taxi driver a hospital business card with the address on it and he was able to know where to take us.  The taxis at the airport are actually really nice.  They are all new little compact cars. So that was nice not to be in a stinky dirty old car.  The cab driver did a great job of getting us home quick. He was hauling!  When we arrived at the hotel, we had a phone call. It was the shuttle company saying that they were still at the airport looking for us and had been there since 5:30 but that was a lie!  At this airport there is only one place where you can exit, and this is where everyone is picked up.  Glen and I stood right there for 45 minutes, and lets just say we wouldn't be hard to spot. Granted there were A LOT of people standing around that exit, but it was VERY obvious we were Americans, standing there in our shorts with our pale white legs and sneakers. LOL  Also we were probably the ONLY Americans that came out those doors during the whole time we were standing there.  Oh, well!  I was proud of us, neither of us got worked up about being left.  Well....maybe I should re-phrase and say, I didn't get worked up like I normally would.  I'm sure just by that sentence you know who is typing this, yes, it's Staci!  LOL  I admit, I have my uptight moments especially when in new situations and typically I would have been majorly stressed considering I'm in a foreign country, with no cell phone, don't know a soul and hardly anyone speaks English! But nope, I stayed calm, cool, and collected!  LOL  Even under the influence of hormones!!

So we met another American couple from the states that are here to do IVF as well.  They have been here for a week and they are scheduled to do their egg retrieval on Wednesday, but they don't leave until  the day before we do.  Their names are Susan and Paul.  They are from South Dakota.  They are a very nice couple and we are really looking forward to hanging out with them and getting to know them better.

Well I better wrap this up!  It's midnight here and we have to be at our appointment at 9:00 am in the morning!

I'll post again tomorrow with an update on how the eggs are growing!  Grow girls, grow! I call them girls because technically they are girls since all eggs are X's and it isn't until the sperm comes along that either confirms it's a girl by adding another X or makes it boy by adding a Y! I hope you enjoyed your reproduction 101 course for today!  LOL

Until we meet again!

Much love,

Staci & Glen

As promised here are some pictures thus far:

Crossing the Bosphorus during our first day in Istanbul

A two in one shot!  A picture of our shuttle driver and the crazy traffic where no one can pick a lane and stay in it!! 
 

Our Resort, The Titanic, in Antayla

And a picture of the ocean from the window of our home away from home in Istanbul

Day 3 of Turkey!!!

Hey everyone!

We are checking in for our daily blog.  Today was a good day. We spent it in the pool just relaxing.  The weather here was a little cooler than yesterday with a nice breeze and sunny.  We went off the resort to a pharmacy to buy some sunscreen for 25 lira, which in the gift shop here they wanted 25 euro.  A euro is way more expensive than a lira.  One dollar US is equal to 1.50 Turkish Lira.  But One dollar US is equal to only .75 euro.  So basically $1.25 of our money to equal one dollar of the Euro!  Most places in Turkey use the Lira, but there are places that use the Euro to jack up the price.  We skipped buying the toothpaste and deodorant, to save money.  We will just stink! LOL We figured the sunscreen was more important.  We have been brushing our teeth with water and then eating parsley or mint at meals.  They have a ton of herbs and so forth on their salad bar here.  It’s buffet style for all meals.  Very different food than what we have in the states, but there is always French fries on the buffet.  LOL  We never eat them though.  The food has been interesting, some of it good, some of it not so good.  The desserts all seem to come in mold/gelatin form.  It’s very different and it keeps us from eating too many sweets, since we’re not real fond of thick molded desserts.  The food hasn’t made us “sick”, but our stomachs can definitely tell we aren’t in America anymore!  LOL

 So can you say hard as a ROCK!!  Our beds at both the hotel in Istanbul and here are SO hard. Man, I don’t think they know how to make mattresses here or what the meaning of the word soft is!!! It feels like they have put a blanket or two over some box springs. I’m not exaggerating at all!  Both the hotels are part of a chain called Titanic and boy do they not know how to pick out a mattress!  We were hoping that maybe it was just going to be the hotel in Istanbul that had the bad beds, but nope it’s here as well.  So needless to say we have not slept good the last couple of nights.  We complained to the front desk today, and they brought up some extra like comforters to put under our sheets, but there is just no helping this bed.  It does make it a little more bearable but not by much!  We miss our bed, BADLY!!!  When we get back to Istanbul tomorrow night, we are going to talk to the front desk there and see what they can do for us.  If they can’t do much, then we will talk to our go to person, Seyhan, and see what she can do.  If worst comes to worst, we will just ask her if there is somewhere she can direct us to buy a blow up mattress or some kind of padded mattress.  Our bodies just can’t keep doing this.  Thankfully my back has been holding up pretty well considering the bed situation. I have been taking Tylenol to help prevent any more pain/inflammation in my back, since it is the only pain killer I can take during my treatments.

I took my first injection last night at 9:00 pm.  I have to do it every night at that time.  It doesn’t really hurt. It’s a very fine needle that I just stink into the fleshy part of my lower stomach and then inject the medication.  All the shots during the first half of the IVF process are basically painless. It’s the second half where I get into the painful butt shots!  Yikes!  Not looking forward to those, but it will be well worth it if the end result is a beautiful baby or two!  J

We fly back tomorrow evening around 6 and then we will be staying in Istanbul for the rest of our trip.  We will see the doctor Monday morning, and we will know how the meds are working on getting my eggs to grow.  Hopefully quite a few of them will have started to grow, we want a lot, but not too many or else there could be complications, but I’m not worried.  I trust and know our doctor is the best and knows exactly what he is doing!  We will also find out if Glen will have to do the sperm aspiration or not.  He had to give a sample, in fact TWO, on Friday to see if they couldn’t at least find a few sperm. If they did find some, then they said they would freeze them for us. So… cross your fingers and pray that some got through!  We aren’t holding our breath, but we are hopeful.  If none are found, then we will proceed with sperm aspiration. Thankfully, this procedure will be NO WHERE as painful as the vasectomy reversals! Amen!  Poor Glen!  He has been such a trooper and a wonderful husband through this whole process!  I’m so thankful to have such a great guy! 

We hope you are all doing well!  We miss you all!  It’s amazing how much we take for granted during our normal everyday lives, until we are taken out of them and put into a completely different country and situation.  We are very blessed to have family, friends, and the life that we do in America!

Until we meet again…much love!

Staci and Glen

PS  Pictures are coming once we get to free untimed Wi-fi!  Yipee!!