AI Update - Insemination Day!!!!

our day started at dr. levi's office at 7am. rob gave his sample there at the doctor's office. he came out and said, "i sure hope to hell i do not have to sit in that sample giving room any other time!" he said it was pretty nasty. poor guy. he would have produced the sample at the house but the office on friday didn't send me home with a cup! lol they called me back around 815am and the procedure was done a few minutes later. the numbers for today that they were looking for was a low ball of 5million before they wash the sperm. well rob started with like 3million (which normally people do not even think about doing AI with that.) after the wash rob had about 1.7 million good sperm...and even with that the sperm didn't look stellar either. but we went ahead and did the procedure only because like people say, "it only takes one spermy to make things work!" we were thinking of doing 2 days of insemination...but because of such low numbers rob gave today...we figured it would just be a joke.

after the appointment they gave me two more apts where i go back next week to check my projesterone and then the following week (two weeks from today) i will go in for a pregnancy test. eeek!!! so that is the update.

today we spent the day out at the Woodbury Commons Outlet Mall out in NY. So Rob and I had some shopping therapy. It was nice.

AI Update - July 24th

I went to the doctor levi's office yesterday. the nurse checked my follicles and saw that there are TWO that are the correct size that they are looking for. She had me do some blood work as well. she told me that if the blood work came back good, then she said she would call me and give me further instructions. I told her that she may have to leave a message on the cell phone only because i was going down to NYC for the day and may not hear my phone. She was able to get a hold of me and told me that everything came back good. So today I am taking the HGH shot at 815pm tonight. (goodness i am hoping that it was evening that she said otherwise this is going to throw everything off). Rob and I then arrive to the doctor's office on Monday morning at 730am for rob to give his "sample". The actual AI process will happen at 815am!! I will then go back on tuesday for one more insemination procedure. then will be the waiting period to see if any of the sperm did what we wanted them to do.

Rob also had an appointment with his urologist yesterday as well. He had to give a sample just so that dr. honig could see what rob's numbers were. the news coming from dr. honig were not very good...but we are still going to think positive. Rob's count was 11 million, 20% motility (# of sperm actually moving), Morphology is basically pinheads. we are keeping our chins up with everything.

Days and Nights mixed up

So it has now been a week since Rob and I arrived home from China. I knew coming home my sleep would be messed up and that it may take a few days to get switched back. Well 7 days later, Rob and I are still messed up. If I go to bed around 11pm or midnight, I am wide awake by 4am. I have tried laying in bed hoping to go back to sleep, but that almost never works. So I have had many early mornings. Tuesday I went down to school with Rob, as he had to deal with some Freshman Orientation at Iona College. When he and I got home, I was feeling tired and thought I would go upstairs and take a nap. Normally I will only sleep for a couple hours. Well, the next thing I knew it was 10pm and I was waking up to put my pajamas on to go back to sleep. Rob had decided to go ahead and get up for the "day". I opted to stay in bed and dozed on and off until about 4am. Oh goody...my lucky 4am again. I then took a nap around 1pm. Big mistake to take that nap. I ended up sleeping until 5pm. So then by midnight when i should have been tired, I was once again wide awake. Rob was awake as well, and we ended up going to "breakfast" I guess you could call it.

When we got back we broke out the scrapbooking items. Decided it was time to work on the wedding scrapbook since it has already been two years. Monday I spent time picking out the pictures and sending them to walgreens.com to have them printed. We got everything out and said, "We are going to need a lot more pages!" So as of right now nothing has been done with the scrapbook. We have things sorted, but that is about it. I am hoping this weekend we will be able to get some of it done.

I am hoping that my sleeping pattern will get switched back...but my work schedule does not help with that at all. I am scheduled all really late hours all week. So maybe soon I will be a day-bird again rather than the night-owl.

China - Days 6 & 7

Day 6 -
Tuesday was our first full day in Beijing. Rob and I woke up early and got ready for the day. Harry had told us that he would meet us at our hotel around 9am to go to the Forbidden City. So we left the hotel shortly after getting ready and went to find some breakfast. Since it was early...the only thing that we could find open outside of the hotel for breakfast was a McDonald's. Rob was happy that he got this for breakfast...where as I really wanted to have something substantial like pancakes or something. But only place that sells American pancakes for breakfast would have been the hotel restaurant. Rob didn't want to pay $30 (US dollar) for one plate of pancakes. I on the other hand thought it would be worth it...only to be able to enjoy some comfort food. lol I like Asian food...but I am just getting sick of it. After breakfast we went back to the hotel and waited for Harry. Harry called to say that his Taxi was stuck in traffic and that he should be there soon. He finally arrived around 10am. We then left and walked down to the Forbidden City. All the tour guides in the hotel said that it was only a 15 minute walk. Well it must have been a fast walker because it was a much longer walk than just 15 minutes. Oh well. The Forbidden City was really cool. After awhile though, I kept thinking, "Oh look another old building that was either a Hall or a Palace." Harry tried to explain some of the items to us...but he did not know too much as he had not been there in a very long time. It was a very very hot day yesterday. Probably around 95-97 F. degrees. Not a good day to be walking around old buildings...and 90% of everything was outside. Harry did tell us that when the Emperors did live in the Forbidden City they stayed with in the "city walls" the entire time. The only time they would leave the Forbidden City was when they would live at the Summer Palace during the summer time. After the "must see" items within the City Harry asked us what we wanted to do. I voted on heading back to the hotel. I was extremely hot and felt like I was going to die. lol well maybe not die...but I was really in no shape to be walking around anymore. Harry thought it would be cool to show us the new Beijing Subway system. It was built for the Summer Olympic Games last year...and so it is all very new. I found it as if I was in Manhattan riding the subway...but the only difference was that the place was clean and it didn't smell. Plus we only rode the subway for one stop, so it was not too much for me to notice.

Once we got back to the hotel room we just hung out and relaxed. I really had no desire to go back outside until it started to cool off. Harry told us a couple of other places that we may like to go to. He wrote the places down in Mandarin so that the taxi drivers would know where to go. Around 5:30pm or so Rob and I headed out to dinner. Harry recommended us to go eat at Peking Duck. So we went and found the place he was talking about. First off...there is no restaurant called Peking Duck. Peking Duck is only a special dish that you can order. The food though was very good. Rob and I ordered a half of a duck to share as Harry said that would be plenty for the two of us. The duck came with chinese pancakes, onions, and some type of Molasses BBQ sauce. When the duck was ready to be served...someone would bring the whole duck out on a tray and carve the duck right by your table. You were first given the duck skin to eat. You would take the duck skin and dip it into sugar to eat it. I did try it...but it tasted very weird. I do not think I would eat that again. Once the duck was carved the meat was served to the table. The server showed us how we were suppose to eat it. You took a chinese pancake, opened it up, took the duck and dipped it into the Molasses BBQ stuff, add an onion, then wrap up everything with the pancake and eat it as if it was a burrito. I preferred mine though with just the duck meat and the pancake. Skip the other steps...just plain and simple. After dinner we walked through another large mall. I do not know how many floors this one was...but it was huge. it is about 2 blocks long...and i have no idea how wide. after that we headed back to the hotel.

Day 7 -
Today was our last full day in Beijing. We slept a little bit later today. I woke up once again just craving american pancakes...and once again...i did not get them. We ended up at Starbucks and I had to pretend that my croissant was a big fluffy pancake. **didn't work out too well, btw** after breakfast we walked through the big APM mall and found a little shopping market that had all types of food. We were able to get some snack items for the day. we both said that we would come back to this store before it closed so that we could pick up items to take on the plane tomorrow. We then went and exchanged the last of our US money into Chinese RMB. We walked through an open air market and also part of what would have been the "old time beijing" where you can get the weird types of food, like scorpions on a stick or starfish or who knows what else. I have pictures of it in my picture folder labeled CHINA PART 3. We then went back down to the little gift type shop and picked up a few more things before heading back into the mall to find some lunch. I had told Rob that I wanted all American type of food today. I know that is probably bad for me to say...but I guess I am ready to be back home. We ended up eating at Pizza Hut over in the mall. I like to eat at some of the American places when I am traveling internationally so that I can see if there are different items being offered as well as the items that i am use to seeing in the states. Well Pizza Hut had tons of different things to get. You could get seafood on your pizza (i know that is not weird for most east coasters...but for a Pizza Hut...it is wierd). You could get lots of different dishes...like deep fried shrimp and some more Asian types of dishes. I know that in Germany at Pizza Hut...as a dessert item...you can get these little fried dough things that come with chocolate dipping sauce. I wish that dessert item would come to the states for PH!! After lunch we went and rested back at the hotel.

In the evening we took another crazy taxi ride over to a place to see a Peking Opera. Peking Opera is an old tradition in chinese history. the theatre that we went to has been around for 200 years and was a key place for Dr. Sun Yat-Sen for political items in the 1910s. The opera was very cool. I could not understand any of the words...but i could understand the actors. It was awesome and I am glad that I was able to see it.

Now we are back at the hotel and my dear husband is snoring away in bed. I should head that way as well...since we have to leave for the airport around 9am. Our plane leaves around 1pm and we get back into JFK around 2pm. So to us...since we have adjusted to China time...it will feel like 2am. I have a feeling that we will sleep very good tomorrow night. at least i hope we will!!

All in all it has been a good trip. It was definitely an experience that I will be able to tell my children. I would definitely come back to China only if I knew that I was coming back to a world city like Beijing. The next time we come back to BJ...I hope that we will be able to spend a week just here. I would also not recommend coming in the summer. The hotel book said the best time to come would be early spring or fall. So that is what we will do next time. :)

China - Day 8

Yesterday was day eight which was the conclusion of our trip to China. We woke up thinking, "we are going back home to the US today!" While I took a shower and got ready for the day, Rob was able to get all the bags up on the bed and sorted which clothes were clean and dirty. He then started placing all of the items that we had purchased with in the different bags. That way the clothes would go on top to help protect anything from getting broke. About 8am we went downstairs to check out and got into a taxi and headed to the airport. One last crazy nerve-wrecking taxi ride. We were able to see Beijing at "rush-hour". Definitely not something that i would want to see on an everyday basis. Once on the motorway we got into a traffic jam. I noticed that the Chinese think that the Emergency Lane is a good and valid lane to use where there is a backup. So crazy!!! We made it to the airport all in one piece. I was happy to be getting out of the taxi though. I think it will be awhile before I ever get back into any type of taxi!!

Once at the airport and all checked in, we headed towards security. In Europe and Asia people do not have to take off their shoes while going through security. Once through security...we headed over to find food...for an early lunch. We ended up eating at another Pizza Hut only because it was that or some type of chinese place. After lunch we headed clear down to our gate. It must have been on the opposite side from where lunch was. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 1:05 and so you would think that we would be boarding around noon since it was an international flight. well noon came and went and no boarding information announced. Rob and I went ahead and got in line for the shuttle bus as the plane was not there at the gate. finally around 1240pm they started the boarding process. In China, they do not board by rows or zones like the US. Instead everyone lines up in one large line and then pushes each other to get onto the shuttle bus to head out to the plane. after cramming close to 100 people onto this shuttle bus we headed out to the airplane. We got off the bus and then were ordered by officials to get back onto the bus. Rob and I looked at each other and said, "now what is going on?" I kept seeing a ticket agent talk to the flight crew along with a couple other people, plus talk on a cell phone. After probably 10 minutes I looked at Rob and said, "this is taking too long...i have a feeling they are going to take us back to the gate." sure enough i was correct. I noticed that there some technicians working on one area of the wing. Once back at the gate, rob went and got a couple of seats for us as there were not too many available. We were not told why we were back at the gate but the new departure time was 2:30pm. so about 2:15 or so people once again started to line up. rob and i sat tight as there were no shuttle buses arriving yet. 2:30 came and went as well with no shuttle buses. finally around 245 the buses started to appear. we didn't jump up too soon as the line was not moving very fast. why give up comfertable seats if the ticket agents were going to change their minds again. finally we decided that the line was moving fast enough that we probably should get in line. once again on the bus and we were hoping that things were fixed and that we would be leaving. we ended up leaving around 4:30pm. rob did the calculations in his head...and said that we would be arriving at JFK around 5:30pm. For those of you who know JFK...trying to leave the airport at this time is foolish as it is smack dab in the middle if Manhattan/Long Island Rush hour. So we planned to take our time getting off the plane and through customs.

The flight seemed as if it was never going to end. taking off...the cabin had a pretty good vibration which did go away after a couple of minutes. this didn't make me feel any better. i already have some flight anxiety....and this just added to it. i made myself eat both meals that were served on the flight and did sleep for awhile. our flight was 13 hours long. we flew over the north pole. i took a few pictures. hard to see though as we sat on the wing. Getting through Customs was pretty much a breeze. there was a little bit of a wait...but it maybe took us a total of 30 minutes to get through which includes getting our bags. We decided that it was still too early to leave the airport due to traffic and so we found dinner at the terminal food court. not that i really wanted mcdonald's...but it was either that or a place that thought they could make chinese food. so we picked the lesser of the two evils. haha. when we left we did hit some traffic...but not as much as if we would have left at 530 or so. we made it home at about 6pm.

it was nice to be home. all i wanted to do was just sit and do absolutely nothing. i called my mom and sister-in-law once i was home to tell them that i was home and did not die on the airplane even though i thought i was going to die at times. When people ask me if i had fun...i tell them that it was an experience that I will never forget!!