Day 20 in Turkey-We are officially parents of 10 embies!

Hi everyone!

Well as you probably read we are the proud parents of 10 little embryos!  Of the 23 eggs they retrieved, 17 were mature and they tried fertilized them by injecting Glen’s sperm into them.  Of those 17, 10 fertilized and have begun growing into embryos.  They grade the embryos on a scale of 1-4, with 1 being the best. The grading system is based upon how symmetrical the cells are dividing. By today they wanted to see the embryos to be 3-4 cells.  The 2 cells still have a little bit of time to catch up. They said they are constantly changing and multiplying so you could look at a 3 cell embryo and then come back to look at it an hour later and it could already be a 4 cells.  Tomorrow they would like to see most of the embryos at 6-8 cells with good symmetry.

So here is the count of how many we have of each cell count and grade:

3 embryos that are 4 cells and grade 1

1 embryo that is 3 cells and grade 1

2 embryos that are 4 cells and grade 2

2 embryos that are 3 cells and grade 2

2 embryos that are 2 cells and grade 2

Isn’t it funny how you can already love and be proud of your future children when they are just two days old and a  fewcells each!  LOL  Grow our little embryos, grow! 

Depending on how the embryos look tomorrow the transfer could be tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday day morning. They say the best place for the embryos is in their mother’s belly.  So if they can tell by tomorrow morning which embryos are going to be the hardiest then they will do the transfer then.  If we have a lot of 6-8 cell grade 1 embryos tomorrow morning, then they will probably wait another day and watch them grow and see which of those turns out to be the hardiest. Then they will transfer the 2 or 3 best embryos and then freeze all the rest that look to be hardy enough to with stand freezing and possibly thawing later on down the road.

Now comes the tough decision, do we put in 2 or 3 embryos.  At first we thought we would just do 2, but we are really leaning toward 3 now.  The doctor told us today that only 3 out of every 10 Grade 1 embryos, which are the very best, will implant!  So here are the odds of implantation and getting just ONE baby according to how many Grade 1 embryos are transferred :

1 embryo transfered -30% chance of getting ONE baby

2 embryos transfered-close to 60%  chance of getting ONE baby

3 embryos transferred-70% chance of getting ONE baby

The odds of mutiples if we decide to go with three embryos:

Less than 10% chance of triplets

30% chance of twins  (which deep down we have been hoping for twins, two and done, no more IVF)

In the end we will make the final decision we feel is best for us, but for now…. we wanted to take a vote and see how many all of you think we should put in, now that you know the odds!

Thank you again for all your prayers and support!  Please keep those prayers coming for the wisdom to make the best decision possible for our future babies and that our future babies will love their new home and want to stick around for 9 months!!

Lots of Love,

Staci & Glen

Day 19 in Turkey - Nothing to Report

Well, we anticipated waking up and having all our questions asked regarding our embryos.  Unfortunately, there was a break down in communication.  Most of the hospital was closed today, except the embryologist department and E.R..  However, we could not contact them and they failed to contact us.  We are in the dark today unfortunately.  Tomorrow, we will visit with Dr. Arici to answer our questions.  We are relieved that he is finally back from his obligatory monthly trip to Yale.

We spent the day resting.  Staci is still in a lot of pain.  Thank goodness, it is somewhat less than yesterday.  We brought some Vicodin with us that is helping relieve some of the pain.  Since no eggs are inside her at this point, we figured there isn't much harm taking anything.  We ordered pizza from Dominos for dinner.  It was pretty good, not as good as it is in the states.  We asked for an Estravagaza, medium -- we said "Hold the corn" or "Hayir corn" which means no corn please.  It is customary for them to put corn on pizza here, among other strange things.

One of the other couples, Ebenezer and Vita actually had an embryo transfer the other day - they transferred 4 eggs.  Not really legal in Turkey, but they only wrote on the paperwork "2".  In Turkey, the locals are only allowed to transfer 2.  Us Americans can transfer 3 if we request that many.  That's kind of scary.  They could end up with quadruplets, and even more if any of them split.  Very risky.  

Here are a few pictures which might be interesting to look at from various days while we have been here:

Newsstands by the ferry we take across the Bosphorus

In grocery stores and shops along the street, this is how they display their fish (they are on ice)

Galata bridge - where all the locals like to fish

Another view of Galata bridge

Woman weaving a carpet

Thank you everyone,

Glen and Staci

Day 18 in Turkey – Holy Cow!!!, I mean chicken!!!

Staci must have been a chicken in another life!  (boy can she lay the eggs! )   LOL.  I was soooo proud of her egg making abilities!   Staci had 23 eggs retrieved today.  All of the follicles had eggs in them.  She’s in a lot of pain still, but doing well.  They put Staci under “twilight sedation” during the procedure.  They went in through the vaginal wall to aspirate the eggs from both ovaries.  She did not anticipate the pain level, the volume of eggs probably was the cause for most of the pain.  To get down to the eggs, the doctor had to apply a lot of pressure on her lower abdomen and sides to reach them.

This afternoon they were going to fertilize the eggs and by tomorrow we should know how many embryos / tiny little babies we have growing.  They are going to call us tomorrow (Sunday) with the results.  They told us not to expect all 23 to fertilize, for one of two reasons.  Either some of the eggs are not mature enough or as in nature, not all eggs fertilize.

They anticipate that our embryo transfer will be on Wednesday, which Dr. Arici will be here to do!   Yippee!

We started the day at the hospital at 8:30 AM today.  Staci waited patiently until 10:05 when she was taken to do the egg retrieval.  At 1:30 PM we left the hospital to get her first progesterone shot and then we spent the remainder of the day resting at the hotel (doctor’s orders).

We hope you are all doing well.  Thank you again for all your prayers.  Staci is very sore, but recovering nicely.

Day 17 in Turkey - Egg Retrieval Eve

Thank you everyone for your comments, thoughts and prayers.  Here we are the night before the big event, of sperm finally meeting egg!   Tomorrow is the day of our egg retrieval and fertilization.  We will know tomorrow how many eggs we really have, and hopefully Sunday we will find out how many eggs fertilized and have begun growing into embryos.  We are excited and nervous at the same time, as well as a mixture of other emotions.  Please continue to pray for us.

Today, we took a shuttle into Suadiye and Bostanci.  It is a part of town (closer to the hospital) than our other ventures.  It is on our side (Asian / east side) of the Bosphorous.  This area is where we usually caught the ferries to go over to the other side of the Bosphorous.  We took it easy, we didn't want to walk too much.  We took a casual stroll down one of the main streets that was less populated street and we admired the unique shops along the way.  The streets were decorated with trees, providing shelter from the hot sun.  It was a little more peaceful than the other places we have visited.   We have pretty much gotten to where we can ignore the incessant honking from taxis and cars.  At times we would get a nice breeze which helped to cool us some along with the nice shade of the trees that outlined the sidewalk.  It was nice to just take it at our own pace and not be worrying about cramming a bunch of stuff in.  At a few intervals, we sat on a bench to watch the people passing by. It's definitely fun to people watch here!

We found a small street that led down to the Bosphorous.  It was nice to be next to the water.  The water was dark blue and beautiful as nature intended.  It was quite peaceful.  As we walked along the water some parts were sandy beach, while other parts were adorned with rocks being hit by waves.   Adjacent to the short / almost absent beach was a wall with a bike lane and a park of green grass.  There were some palm trees of a short nature along the sides of the walkway.  There was no shade down here, so we lasted only a little while...but there was a nice breeze blowing which helped take the edge off from the heat of the sun blasting down upon us.  After about a half hour of walking by the ocean, we walked back to the main strip to catch the shuttle back to the hospital.  FYI:  These people here must like to be hot!  They are always shutting windows on the buses, and they rarely open the windows or turn the air on in the shuttles so it's always stifling hot!!  Today, it was just miserable on the shuttle ride back.

So when we returned to the hotel,  the air conditioning  in our room was so welcomed and needed.  For the rest of the afternoon we relaxed in our room watching movies, reading books, and playing games on our iphones.  For dinner we first checked out the cafeteria, but nothing there looked recognizable or edible!  So we had dinner at the restaurant in our hotel.  Glen had salmon and Staci had steak. I wasn't too bad, considering we have had A LOT worse since being here!  LOL  In fact, it was pretty good!  Surprise, surprise!  We said we just might order it again!  Oh, and we found out we can order Dominos.  So we are thinking we will try that out next week. Hopefully it's like in the states, and not like here where they put a bunch of weird crap on it like mussels, and corn, and other disgusting stuff!

Staci goes in tomorrow at 9:00 am, so I guess the middle of the night for you all, but please say a prayer for her before you go to bed! They are going to put her under and then take all the eggs!  Thanks again for all your prayers they are definitely being answered!

Lots of love,

Glen & Staci

Picture time!!!

The main street

Another one of their crazy window displays!

We're not really sure what they were trying to sell in this store?

It isn't unsual to find street vendors selling beautiful looking and smelling flowers along with these bagel looking things called Simits

This is the street we walked down to get to the ocean!

Pictures from today's walk along the ocean

Day 16--My Birthday, Random Phots, And the eggs are ready!!

Hey everyone!

Thank you all for the birthday wishes!  I had great birthday!  Glen and I went into the city.  We hung out at Taxim again.  We read in the park, people watched, did a little souvenir shopping, and had dinner and lunch there.  It was a beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky.  As usual there was a wonderful cool breeze blowing at Taxim.  Glen also had bought me a cake yesterday while we were at the grocery store yesterday, and we had that when we got back from our days outing.  We were gone all day and didn’t get back until 10:20 pm.  We rode the bus back home, and always an adventure.  We got kicked off AGAIN!!!  This time we were on the right bus going the right direction, but I guess it was time for our bus driver to get off work, so instead of the finishing the route he pulls over at a random bus stop and kicks us all off. He tells us we all need to pile on this already packed bus that’s sitting at the station. It was crazy!  Oh and as they are kicking us off, there are these old guys who were so outraged they are yelling at the driver in Turkish. I bet there were a few obscenities thrown at the driver, but seeing how I don’t speak Turkish, I can only imagine in English what they were calling him!  LOL

IVF Update: The follicles/eggs are ready!!!   I took my last shot tonight, which is the HCG shot which will help the follicles mature. Then no shots or appointments tomorrow, and then the egg retrieval at 9:00 am on Saturday morning.  The female doctor will be doing the retrieval, and Dr Arici will be back in time for the transfer.  The female doctor doesn’t know how many follicles she is going to get but she says there are A LOT. Because my estrogen levels aren’t sky high, she thinks some might be empty follicles, because if all the follicles had eggs in them then my estrogen levels would be through the roof.  She thinks there should still be plenty of follicles with eggs in them to retrieve as well. This is actually good news, because if my estrogen levels were really high then I would have a good chance of hyper stimulating, which comes with complications that aren’t so good.  I trust the doctors, and feel they have done a good job of monitoring and keeping things in check! I’m looking forward to reporting back Saturday with the total egg count.

Since we didn’t really see anything new today, we are going to leave you all with some random pictures we have taken while people watching and site seeing. We think you all will find some of them humorous!  We sure do!

Lots of love,

Staci & Glen

Recognize these characters?  Guess Twilight is huge here as well!!! Bella has an expiration date mustache!  LOL

 There are stray cats everywhere!  We got a kick out of where this one decided to catch a "cat nap"!

 I think the female mannequins, might be a bit cold!!!

We are going to title this window display: Do Your Balls Hang Low?!?!?

We told you all these Turkish people are NUTS for YOGURT!!!

We are going to title the next two pictures...Trick or Treat!  Jeepers creepers, check out these peepers!!! LOL

Don't you think the glasses are the perfect touch?

Day 15--An overview of Day 14--Sultanahmet

Hey everyone!

Today was a nice and relaxing day.  We went with the two other IVF couples to a nearby mall and had lunch and then we came back here to the hotel and just rested. Glen read and I played games on my iphone.

Egg Status:  We didn’t end up seeing the doctor today, I just had blood work done. Man, do I feel like a pin cushion with all these needles!  LOL  My estrogen levels rose from yesterday,  which is a good thing, but they aren’t quite high enough to take the eggs just yet.  So they upped my dose of gonal-f to 450 IU and I have another blood test in the morning and a sonogram.  They are thinking that tonight’s dose  will probably be my last dose of the egg stimulating medicine and then tomorrow night  I will take a shot that will help the eggs mature, and then they will take them on Saturday. 

So yesterday was a very fun and amazing day. We fit in a ton of sightseeing.  Since Seyhan is on vacation, she decided to meet up with us for the day and show us around Sultanahmet ( the Old City).  This is where you can find the Blue Mosque,  Topkapi Palace, Ayasofya, and the Bascilica Cistern.   It’s such an amazing area with some  buildings and objects dating back before the time of Jesus!!  It really puts things into perspective how very young our country truly is. 

Glen and I are getting pretty good at getting around now.  So we took on a shuttle that took us right to the edge of the Asian side of Istanbul.  Then we hopped into a Dolmus, which is like a mini van taxi that you pay a cheap rate to go from point A to point B.  It took us to the ferry station, where we met Seyhan at noon.  Then we all took the ferry across to the Asian side to do some historical site seeing.

The first place we went to was the Blue Mosque, but we couldn’t go in because it was prayer time.  The Muslims have prayer time, or Call to Prayer, five times a day.  So we left to come back after prayer time was over.

We then headed over to Ayasofya,  or has our history books call it Hagia Sofia.  It’s just incredible!  A little history lesson:

Hagia Sofia meaning The Church of the Holy Wisdom, is a former Byzantine church and former Ottoman mosque in Istanbul. Now a museum, Hagia Sophia is universally acknowledged as one of the greatest buildings of the world. It first started out as a Church built by Constantine, who was the first Christian Emperor, back in the 5^th century.  The first church was destroyed, the second one was burned down in a riot in 532 and then it was rebuilt in 532-537 where it still stands today.  Hagia Sophia remained a functioning church until May 29, 1453, when Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror entered triumphantly into the city of Constantinople. He was amazed at the beauty of the Hagia Sophia and immediately converted it into his imperial mosque. When the Muslims took over the church they covered all the Christian images with plaster and other such coverings and then added their writings to the walls. In 1934, under Turkish president Kemal Atatürk, Hagia Sofia was secularized and turned into the Ayasofya Museum. The prayer rugs were removed, revealing the marble beneath, but the mosaics remained largely plastered over and the building was allowed to decay for some time. Some of the calligraphic panels were moved to other mosques, but eight roundels were left and can still be seen today.

A 1993 UNESCO mission to Turkey came in and began their restoration of the church by removing the plaster to now reveal the mosaic Christian images of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and other such Christian figures. It’s the only place today that you will find both Muslim and Christian symbols in the same place.

outside - front

one view from inside

view from upstairs

another view from upstairs

cool shot from below showing all the chandelliers

at side entrance/exit

one of the walls on 2nd floor 

By the time we finished seeing Ayasofya, prayer time was over so we headed over to the Blue Mosque. It’s called the Blue Mosque not because it is blue on the exterior, but because of the titles used to cover the ceiling on the inside.  The titles aren’t actually entirely blue.  They are made of various designs, but from way down below the blue color in the tiles is what really stands out and the eye perceives that ceiling to be blue.  Seyhan was saying that it use to seem even more like a sea of blue, because they had blue carpet.  But they have changed the carpets since she was last there a couple years back, and she was not as impressed.

enclosed square adjacent to actual  Blue Mosque (still considered part of the mosque though

The mosque also had parts like this for a library, and other purposes.  

ceiling inside the Blue Mosque

before they enter the mosque to pray, they wash here 

After the Blue Mosque, we headed to the Basilica Cistern which was built in 527, so right around the time of Ayasofya during the Byzantine Empire. The cistern lies underneath the streets of Istanbul.  For over a thousand years, it was used for Istanbul’s main water supply. It consists of low pools of water with big marble columns stretching from the floor to the ceiling.  Below you will see a picture of the head of Medusa used at the base of a column.  Yes, she is suppose to be upside down. In Greek methology, it was thought that if you looked upon Medusa’s face you would turn to stone.  Researchers believe the Medusa heads were just used  as a base, but there are some rumors that say the Medusa heads were put in the cistern for protection, and they were placed upside so that  if you were to gaze upon them you would not be turned to stone!

lots of columns here, these are only a few of them

one of the 2 Medusa heads

WATCH OUT!! you might be turned into stone if you are upside down

After all the sight seeing we headed to the Grand Baazar again.  Seyhan was looking for a gold bracelet for her cousin who is getting married this weekend. It is tradition that everyone (aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, cousins, etc) in the family give the bride a pure gold bracelet. These bracelets start at 300 Turkish lira, so $200.  She said that EVERY relative is expected to give one of these bracelets.  She told us that Turkish people are excepted to put aside money just for these sort of occasions.  She said the bride then can sell the gold and put it toward a house or keep it.  Seyhan made a joke, that getting married was good business to be in!  LOL   

After the Grand Baazar, we headed over to the Spice Baazar which is basically what it sounds like. A whole bunch of vendors selling tons of spices and Turkish delight with a sprinkling of vendors selling goods like that found in the Grand Baazar. 

After a long day of sightseeing we hopped on the 500T around 9:00 pm the going the RIGHT direction this time.  We met a really nice Turkish man by the name of Hakan that spoke pretty darn good English. ;)  He helped to ensure that we knew where our stop would be.  He kept wishing us the best with our IVF and said he really hoped we got a baby or babies.  He told us that he LOVES babies, and that he can’t wait to be a father. He especially wants a daughter and he has already picked out her name.  He even gave us his card and told us we could call him anytime we needed help, if we got lost, or just if we wanted to go out with him.  Glen and I both said he was a catch and whatever girl gets him will be a lucky!

Staci sneaked a picture of Hakan on her iPhone

Well I guess that’s about it for now!  We hope you enjoy the pictures and history!

Much love,

Glen & Staci

Day 13 in Turkey--Whew! What a day!

Hi everyone!

We are just checking in to give an update on the eggs and to let you all know we are still alive and kicking!  LOL  We had a very educational and fun day!  We just rolled in at 10:30 pm after leaving here at 10:30 am so we are beat!  We will make a big post tomorrow with lots of pictures of all the amazing places we saw today.

The eggs are doing great.  My right ovary is so full that it looks completely black on the sonogram.  I had bloodwork this morning, and I guess the doctor thought all was well, because she raised my gonal-f back to 300 IU for tonight, and then blood work again tomorrow morning and a sonogram.  She is thinking egg retrieval on Saturday. We will know more tomorrow, and we will add that to our post as well!

Hope you all are doing well!  Thank you to all of you who commented.  The answers to the name that things are:

1) The first picture was of a really old timey telephone in the lobby of the Titanic Hotel in Antayla. At first when I saw it,  I thought it was a electrical meter like we have on the sides of our houses.

2) The second picture was of the blow dryer in our hotel room in Antayla.  When first got into the room, Glen and I both laughed about how it looked like it could be vaccum and that the first time I used the machine it just might possibly suck the hair right off my head! LOL

Much love,

Staci & Glen