Vacation part 1 : horny insects and Epcot Center

Hi! We are in Orlando Florida, finally making use of Ken's timeshare. This place is awesome! There's a jacuzzi in the master bedroom, a full kitchen (with a dishwasherl, which Ken adores) a washer/dryer, great decor, and a front porch.

Ah, the porch. It's definitely the Lusty Month of May here. First of all, Ken and I are driving from the airport to our resort, crawling toward our first toll plaza, when Ken notes, "Insects having sex in midair." Certainly amused us while waiting to shell out our toll!

It turns out down here in Florida there is a twice-yearly mating season for these lightning-bug-like creatures and we've hit the springtime one. They are everywhere, flying and crawling (well, never mind, you don't want the explicit details). Lots of them get killed on windshields. It took a good scrubbing at a gas station (thank you, Tom!) and a rainstorm to get our windshield reasonably clean.

Back to the porch. We sat on the screened-in deck the first night, overlooking the pond and the frogs were croaking like crazy. Ken imitated/translated: "I-want I-want I-want-sex. I-want-sex. Sex. Sex. Sex."

Okay now that I've got that out of my system...

Sunday was our settling-in day. First we had a most excellent Thai lunch: pad thai for both of us--and not spicy at all! First time I've been able to have Thai food in years. The place also had authentic decor (handmade carved dragons, Buddhist shrines, other lovely items) and great service.

Then we pre-checked in, went to the local outlet center for matching light-sage hats and sunglass clips (both on sale!) and did grocery shopping.

Monday we went to Epcot Center. We went for the main ride, on the history of human communication, in the huge geodesic dome (the "golf ball") and critiqued the display (too many white males especially in the "caveman' days and no mention of China, but coverage of Arabic culture during the European 'Dark Ages').

Then we focused on the Worldwide Showcase. It was lunchtime so of course we headed to Japan where I had udon noodles (yum!) for the first time. They had an excellent display of Japanese tin toys from the 1890s to about the 1990s, including of course Astro Boy and Godzilla, also the precursors to mechas and Transformers. We spent a lot of time in the shop--oooh all the cool Japanese candies! We bought about $15 worth including effervescent "soda candy" in garishly colored wrapping for my AnimeFreaks club at the library, and sushi-shaped candy for me (Squeeeeeee!) We admired the kimonos ($175 plus tax, obi costs extra) and the largest collection of Hello Kitty merchandise I've seen. No manga though 8-(

Next segment: Visiting Day on Tuesday plus whatever else I fit in.

the baby process, continued

Ken and I have been talking about adoption. He'd brought up the idea of starting to look into it shortly after Dr. U. canceled our IVF cycle. Of course I'd already done a lot of reading while we were still debating whether to try IVF first. So we've done the adoption quiz I found on an adoption site, and talked about it.

I guess I'm leaning more toward adoption as the way we'll have a child. I've searched Medline and a medical-literature database we have at work for information on my paradoxical reaction to the first set of drugs and there is nothing. I sort of expected that as I'm sure our doctors keep up with the literature, but I was hoping I'd ferret out something new, being a darn good online researcher (specialized in it at Rutgers) having medical knowledge from my pharmaceutical company days and medical reading, and then there's all the health-information research I've done for patrons.

A conversation I had last night was what really affected me, though. Wanda, the manager at my old branch (an amazingly wonderful manager and person), recently lost her mother. I was at the funeral home last night talking to Wanda and the conversation turned to her daughter Lauren, whom Wanda and her husband adopted while I was working at North County. Wanda told me if she'd special-ordered a daughter she couldn't have a better one. Soon afterward Lauren, who had been very well-behaved by six-year-old-at-Grammy's-viewing standards, came over to hug Mommy and to be picked up. (Definitely worth two years of wrangling with the oldest bureacracy in the world!)

People keep telling me "there's a child waiting for you." Ken and I have our doubts about our "adoptability" as adoptive parents (age, health and financial concerns). But I'm getting all these leadings that maybe there is a child waiting for us...

Latest news on the baby-making front (warning: gynecological details!)

This all went down over the past week.

My menstrual cycle simply wouldn't stop completely (which means no chance of building a nice uterine lining for a fertilized eggs). We're talking fourteen days, unheard of even for me with my long cycles. Also, I had no significant egg follicles, and my estrogen was friggin' lower than it is when I'm *not* on hormone-inducing medications. Wednesday morning I went in for my latest round of tests (this has been every three days: a blood test and a pelvic ultrasound). I was hoping to get answers from Dr. U. but he was in surgery so I got the ultrasound/office visit with his partner, Dr. M. (Boy, I picked the right doctor. I do *not* like Dr. M--lousy bedside manner and communication skills.)

That afternoon I called Dr. U. to see what the story was. He said we should have had results long before now and it was time to stop the drugs since they weren't working and "try another protocol," which means different drugs, once my body resets.

I was actually relieved after talking to Dr. U. on Wednesday. I had been getting so upset over my body just not doing what it was supposed to and ending the struggle and uncertainty really helped.

Dr U. has never heard of such a thing happening (the incessant though slight bleeding and the lower estrogen) and neither had Dr. M. and they've both been doing this over 10 years. So I'm guessing and hoping Dr. U. is on a fertility-doctor blog or discussion list asking "has anyone else had such a weird patient?

I hope I get into the medical literature for this. At least I can help further the cause of reproductive science.

Planting Seeds

(This was supposed to go up on the 7th but for some reason I never posted it. The events of my latest blog entry may have had something to do with my spaciness...) Over the last month I've been planting. In early April I concluded that since the ice storms seemed to be finally over and the dirt in my planters was "able to be worked" (quoting from the seed packet here) that is was time to plant my early-spring seeds.

The bok choy came up beautifully, despite being year-old seeds. The year-old chive seeds, however, were a no-show, so I bought a plant and the bok choy will take over their planter. The forget-me-nots are sprouted, and the parsley is finally seeming to make an appearance.

A couple of weeks ago I planted basil (now starting to come up) morning glories (just popped up this weekend, to impress my mom and dad when they visited Sunday!) and cucumbers (still thinking about coming up any day now...)

In the perennial container, the pansies have fully recovered from ice storms and are blooming like crazy. The first johnny-jump-up plant has bloomed, and the others are jumping up.