Marissa and Tony took a couple of weeks to get their rhythm, in part because they look at things differently. Marissa says she's always "in my head," and it took her weeks to stop thinking about the dancing and let it happen. Tony is a world champion ballroom dancer who is confident in the physical. But they are in the same place about one thing, says Marissa joyfully. No matter what happens on the show "we're getting ready to have babiesI" Marissa and her husband Judah Miller are expecting a baby boy in July by surrogate (hopefully not on Tony's birthday, July 17th, she teases.) Tony and his wife, Lina, are expecting twins in August and they know at least one is a boy. They have a 2-1/2-year-old little girl.

The Dancing experience is getting Marissa, 35, ready for parenthood. "I'm a control freak," she admits freely, "and here you have zero control of everything. I don't ride roller coasters. I don't take chances." Now, she says, she doesn't freak out about the small things. Or, at least when she does, the survivor of cervical cancer reminds herself that "it's not cancer."

This duo have clearly become close friends and worked out an effective partnership. Tony tells Marissa that he is her teacher on Wednesday, Thursday and half-days on Fridays when she is learning the dances, but by Friday afternoon he becomes her partner and they work together.  I left them on Friday afternoon as it was time to get that partnership on the fast track for Monday.