Overachieving Ovaries & Sculpture

Okay, so those two are only tangentially connected in that it sums up our morning. Things started very early with the howling winds waking us up about five minutes before the alarm was due to go off. We had to be up especially early to get to our 7:00 a.m. appointment at the fertility clinic. The ultrasound technician checked things out, and Evelin has 13 follicles growing on the right and 10 on the left (each follicle has the potential to spit out an egg, and since we're doing IVF, the more the merrier). None are big enough to count yet -- we're only on three days of stimulation at the moment and still early in the cycle -- but we're expecting the doctor to want to scale back our doses some, which is almost ridiculous because Evelin's on a very low dose (1.5 ampoules Gonal-f, 0.5 ampoules Repronex) as it is. But she is very much an overachiever when it comes to responding to medicines ...

After dropping Evelin off at work, I headed off to see the collection of Birds I View sculptures at the Show Place Arena in Upper Marlboro. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Birds I View was a public art thing that went on this summer; now the birds have been gathered up and on display for a few days until they are auctioned off next week. I don't think we'll bid on any of them -- and they weren't as cool in the hallway of an equestrian arena as they were out in the wild -- but it was good to get to see some of the ones I hadn't seen yet.

I also flipped through the University of Maryland College Park to get a quick look at the Jim Henson Memorial Garden that was dedicated a few months ago. It's a nice setting, albeit in the midst of a construction zone until they finish work on the Stamp Student Union, with a life-size bronze Henson sitting on a granite bench talking to Kermit the Frog.

The rest of the day, I think, will be spent getting some things edited/written at home (I may be playing hooky, but I'm swamped at work at the moment), and Evelin has an acupuncture appointment at lunchtime. I also plan to try a recipe from Southern Living that my mom sent us, as I'll have time to actually cook something semi-complicated this evening.