Garden Photos

I was waiting to take some photos of my garden until my lilac tree burst into bloom which was yesterday and today so here they are:

We have a nice mix of perennials and annuals in our garden so it looks pretty good no matter what time of year it is.

The Lilac tree that greets all of our visitors.

All my herbs in the backyard, close to the kitchen door so I can just pop out and snip what I need and run back inside!

We hung a bird feeder for the first time this year and have had a lot of fun looking at the many little visitors we've had!

Backyard tomato plants! They still look a little anemic but I hope they'll toughen up and start to grow since they've been put in a much larger growing space.

Endless Summer Hydrangeas. These three bushes are one of my favourite plants - comes back every year with huge flowers. The trick is to see what colour they are since that varies based on soil acidity. I always want the blue flowers so I fertilize with the aluminum sulfate to get them to change colours but more often than not, I will have some pink, some indigo blue and others that are blue! Makes for a good variety and the blooms are always big!

Our front garden. The little spirea in the middle was really damaged by the winter and I had to cut it down to about 1/3 of its size. It seems to be coming back though so I didn't end up having to pull it out.

A Clematis vine - it has a lot of screening to cover so we're glad it's a fast grower!

I've been off BCP now for 6 days and still no sign of AF. I am not surprised though since last time I did this protocol, AF was 7 days late so I'm still expecting to get it sometime on Friday this week. I'm twitchy with anticipation because once AF arrives, it locks down the schedule and I can finally make travel plans. I will finally be able to book time off work and I will be able to look forward to the next step.

Next up on the FET protocol for me? Estrogen patches!! I've never used them before and I know that everyone talks about how sticky they are and how hard they are to remove without taking a pound of flesh off but I am looking forward to it. Why? Because it means that I am moving forward and we are getting closer to going to Denver to pick up our American children.

On an interesting note, I was talking to my TCM doctor and I mentioned that I had a lot of dental surgery done to put in dental implants since I'm missing so many adult teeth. In total, I am missing 13 adult teeth...never had them, never will. Apparently adult teeth is something you're born with or without and if you have them, they're little tiny seeds that sit in your gums until it's time for them to turn into real teeth. Missing teeth is also hereditary in nature. Seemingly unrelated to IF right? Apparently not! My TCM got all excited when I told her because the kidney essences govern bones and bone structure in addition to governing fertility and she remarked that it was interesting that I was also missing teeth because it indicates that I didn't have enough kidney yin at that time either. Huh.