Corona 2020

COVID-19 hit fast and B and I have been working from home for the past 8 weeks. It's a crazy time in the world right now that almost feels surreal. Businesses are closed, families are isolated in their homes, schools are shut down, sports are cancelled, people are wearing masks whenever they leave their homes, it's all very crazy.

What's life like for me and B right now?

1. Jive was able to stay open and we just live-streamed classes via FaceBook and Zoom. It was weird and so exhausting standing in front of a camera for 7 straight hours with no dancers in class, but i'm so grateful we were able to stay open. This week, we opened the studio for students who feel safe coming in, so things are on the up-and-up but still not back to normal! We pushed the concert back to August, and may have to push it back even more, but we're determined to still make it happen.

2. Me and B are getting a lot of time together before the baby comes and we are loving it. I love being with him and being forced to slow down has been a blessing in a lot of ways. We're doing a ton of yard work, making actual meals, watching all the seasons of 24, playing board games, etc. It's great!

3. I have to go to all my doctor's appointments alone but luckily, I can just FaceTime B in. As of right now, ONE person is allowed into the delivery room during labor and the duration of the hospital stay whenever this baby decides to come. It's sad to think my family won't be there (especially my mom), but I'm grateful Blake can be there. And who knows—we still have 3.5 weeks until baby is set to be here . . . maybe things will be different by then.

4. I was planning on not having a baby shower with social distancing being a huge requirement right now, but cute Niki was set on hosting one for me. So, next Saturday we'll be having a drive-thru baby shower where B and I will stand outside my parents driveway and people can drive by and say hi! Such weird times, but i'm so grateful we'll be able to celebrate this little nugget before he comes.

5. Church has been cancelled since middle of March. We're currently the Sunday School teachers for the 11-16 year olds and we miss them! This has been my favorite calling. The kids are incredible and it's so fun being able to teach with B.

6. It's hard to tell if the weight i'm gaining is purely because i'm pregnant or also from the constant snacking and no real workouts happening lately. hahaha whoops! But thankfully i've still been teaching dance through all this and that's keeping me active.

7. B is loving working from home and never wants to go back to the office! Me? I'm not planning on being back in the office until my maternity leave is over at end of August, so I don't even have to worry about that.

All in all, we're handling Corona 2020 well here at the Sanford home and basically just can't wait until we have a baby to snuggle though all the down time at home.

34 Weeks Pregnant

I remember when I first found out I was pregnant, I was only 4 weeks along. 40 weeks felt like one million years away and I was certain May 30th would never come. But even as the weeks chug along, I still feel like I'm never going to have this baby. I am so excited I can't even stand it. And while 6 weeks isn't far at all, I still find myself dying that there are still 6. more. weeks. left.

I feel so ready to be a mom. It's everything I've ever wanted and the thought of snuggling a baby, my baby, makes me teary. I can't wait. 

Some quick facts about pregnancy so far: 

1. During my first trimester, I never got morning sickness. (I threw up one time at night after I took all my fertility medicine on an empty stomach, but that's it.) No nausea, no fatigue, no crazy cravings. I did have to give myself massive "progesterone in oil" shots in the booty for the first 14 weeks, but as horrible as those were, it's all a distant memory now and I'd do it all over again, no question! 

2. I had a weird aversion to grilled chicken through the 1st and 2nd trimester.

3. Because we did genetic testing during IVF, I've known the sex of the baby since before I was even pregnant. Turns out all 4 of our good embryos are boys!

4. According to everyone, I carried this baby really low, which is strange because I don't feel like I have a long torso or anything. I swear I looked like the grinch for a good 6 months with how low I was carrying. 

5. We started the nursery around 28ish weeks and it's still not done. I was on a roll for a little bit, but corona virus hit the world hard and fast and suddenly me and B were working from home together. The nursery quickly became B's office and no progress has been made on it since! 

6. At 34 weeks, I have yet to experience heartburn, round ligament pain, fatigue, trouble sleeping or a contraction! It truly has been such an easy pregnancy, and I'm so grateful for that. I have some back pain, my hands and feet are starting to get a little swollen, my legs feel restless before bed, and I feel winded a lot, but nothing too crazy or uncomfortable. 

7. We are fully planning on naming the baby AFTER he is born. I never thought I would be that person, but here we are. One of my favorite names has always been Reggie (and that's a top runner), but Trip is also one of our favorites. We have about 10 other names we like, but as of this week, Reggie and Trip are our favorites. 

8. For some reason, pregnancy has made everything so funny to me. Especially B! He basically has me in tears every other day from something funny he'll randomly say. It has been one of my favorite parts of being pregnant! 

9. I can't wait to see B become a dad. He is the favorite uncle and loves loves loves playing with the nieces and nephews. He is going to love our kid so hard. The other night, we were talking about almost being parents and he said, "Rik, if you think you've seen the best of me, you just wait until my boy is here." 

Cheers to 6 more weeks and hoping they come fast. We are so ready for you, baby!

IVF Delayed . . .

20 minutes ago, I got a call from our doctor telling us that we have to postpone our implantation and do a frozen transfer in 7 weeks instead of the fresh transfer we were planning on in 7 days. (We were sooooo close!)

Apparently, I produced a LOT of eggs (which is amazing because we'll most likely get a lot of embryos), but my body responded TOO well to the medication, causing my estrogen levels to sky rocket. I'm at high risk for developing Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS) and our fresh transfer is officially off the table. 

So . . . crap. 

I'm so annoyed. 

And sad. 

And feeling a little crushed.

And way totally emotional. 

We were supposed to do the transfer in a week from today. Instead, it's going to happen 7 weeks from today. Which I know, it's not the worst thing in the world, but we've waiting a long time to get to this point of IVF and now it's suddenly pushed back a month and half?! Eternity, you guys. 7 weeks from now, we could have had 2 IVF rounds behind us. GAH!!!

Patience. I feel like I've been really good at patience up until this point but now I'm overrrr it. 

Right now,  I'm sitting in a work meeting, totally distracted and totally emotional. But that's infertility (and just trials in general). Life has to go on, regardless of bad news or not. (And regardless of all the texts coming in from Blake telling me to "just leave and go home!!!!!")

The Road to IVF

Well, we are here. We have officially started the IVF journey after 4 failed IUI attempts.

If you read my last blog post, you know that I struggled really hard with the first failed IUI—I can still picture that day (and all the emotions) perfectly. Through this whole journey, I feel like I have naturally been very positive and level-headed about it all, but man, that day was a sad one. 

Luckily, each failed IUI after that was a lot easier to handle. Thinking back, I don't think I cried at all after receiving the news of each failed attempt. As horrible as it is to say, you just get to the point where you don't let your hopes get up. You're not googling symptoms every night before bed, or counting down the days until your blood draw, and a negative pregnancy test isn't so soul crushing because hey, you've been here before! 

But now we have a new game plan (IVF) that we are so excited for and we're forging forward, full speed ahead! 

Honestly, B and I are so pumped on the idea of it all. No matter where you are in your infertility journey,  a new/different course of action is so comforting. Trying something that you haven't tried before just feels so good! 

I'd be lying if I said I'm not super worried about the repercussions of a failed IVF round. If the first failed round of IUI with it's ONE shot was hard for me to handle, I can't imagine the pain and heartache that we'll experience if the first round of IVF doesn't work. (It's so many shots and pills and suppositories and emotions and TIME!)

I try not to voice these fears, but whenever I do, B shuts them down real quick. Whenever I say "what if this doesn't work?!", he's quick to respond with a "but what if it DOES?!". 

And holy crap, that thought instantly makes us both so happy. 

So, we're chugging along—checking our IVF calendar daily, taking our pills, and making a conscious decision to be happy. We know we'll have a kid someday and we know we're doing all that we can do to make that happen. 

In the meantime, B will become a professional shot-giver and I'll continue to be baffled at the things that make me teary-eyed from all the hormones pumping through my body. 

Infertility Update

Today, we found out that our first round of IUI didn't take. I got the call while I was at work and immediately tried to go back to my desk and work, but lo and behold, my eyes wouldn't stop watering.

Up until this point, I would blame the crying on all the hormones getting pumped into my body (let's be real, weird things make me teary and the NON-crier in me is feeling way freaked out by all these new emotions) but at this point, hormones or not—I am just sad. Real tears here. No horrible hormone-induced tears (at least not alllll of them).

B and I decided we wanted to start trying for a baby a little under 3 years ago. I went off birth control and while we weren't actively tracking anything, we weren't using any type of contraceptives.

Fast forward 2 years and we start to realize that this isn't happening for us naturally. So, I go see a fertility doctor and get started on the whole infertility sha-bang.

Lots of tests, blood draws, medication, and hormonal acne have landed us to where we are now: no explained reason for our infertility (every test has come back positive), 1 clinic switch, 4 failed rounds of femara, a few months of breaks, and 1 failed IUI using clomid and an HCG trigger shot.

I don't know how much you guys know about IUI, but it's when they take Blake's sperm, wash and clean them (don't ask me HOW that even happens), and then insert them directly into my uterus. Turkey basting at it's finest. Immediately after, they put you on progesterone suppositories while you start the 2 week wait until a blood draw to see if you're pregnant or not.

A sucky part about this month's attempt at pregnancy has been the progesterone. The side effects of progesterone are the same signs of early pregnancy: sore boobs, bloating, heightened emotions, drowsiness, cravings, etc. So, you're getting all these symptoms that scream "you're pregnant!" but really, you don't know if it's just the progesterone. Of course, you try to be realistic and level-headed, but man, it's hard to not think you're pregnant when your body is changing so much. Of course, we know now that for me, all those symptoms were just side effects of the progesterone. I'm grateful that I know that going into round 2 of IUI. Those side effects gave me lots of false hope and that is making today hard.

But I think what'a hardest about this failed IUI is the stark reality that not even artificial insemenation worked for us this month. I mean, they made my follicles huge, cleaned up B's swimmers, inserted a needle full of 74 million sperm STRAIGHT INTO MY UTERUS and still, no dice. I've never considered us a couple with real infertility problems, but after today, we feel like we are there.

However, we still feel sooooo hopeful. We have 2 more rounds of IUI left before we move to IVF and we're just going to keep chugging along and enjoying this phase of life. We are so blessed and truly love our lives and each other. Luckily, these years (and especially the last 8 months) have brought us closer. Our prayers are more sincere and we're learning to really lean on each other. I know one day we'll have kids and we'll never get this time back of just Rik and B—so, we're soaking it up and being okay with some tears being shed along the way.

2017: A Year in Review

Well, another year has come and gone and I still haven't legally changed my last name yet. So, it's pretty much a failure of a year EXCEPT for a lot of great things. I'll dive right in.

1. We moved into our very first home! And have our very first loan! And pay our very first mortgage! We feel so grown-up (having to buy our own blinds and being excited for big purchases like a fridge) and it's all very exciting (and expensive) stuff! You know what sucks? Decorating for CHRISTMAS! You just want to spend alllll your money on Christmas stuff. Once we went to Home Goods and spent $300.00 and after I put everything up, me and B were both like, "Where are all the things we bought? I swear we bought way more stuff! It should have decorated 15 houses!" Lo and behold, decorating a house feels like a black hole.

2. I got a new job! It's very very bittersweet because I LOVED PROLOOK SO MUCH! I'm good friends with every single person I worked with and I miss them. But I saw a job opening to be a content marketer at BYUtv at I just applied on a whim. I got the job and have worked there for a few months and it's going good! I mean, I am a very, very small fish in a big pond (which is a lot different than it was at PROLOOK) but the hours and people are great.

3. B turned 29, which probably doesn't seem big—but that's big. How is he almost 30? That's weird and we both feel weird saying he's 29.

4. I got called to be the primary  chorister in our ward that has 12 million kids. That also doesn't seem like a big deal, but I cried when I found out. I came home, B was still in bed, I told him my new calling and he laughed so hard while I laughed/cried so hard. Ha! honestly I think it was just another thing added to my plate that at the time, seemed impossible—it's really not that bad, I think I actually like it. Never mind the fact that I am a horrible singer, (I'm known for being the only member of my family that didn't get the singing gene), but it's cool. While I'm up in front of the kids, in my head I'm thinking, "yah . . . this song does not sound good coming out my mouth" but hey, I sing loud. It's #forthechildren.

And Blake is the Young Men's 2nd counselor, which I feel like should always be his calling, he's so good with those kids!

5. We opened 2 new studios this year! One in Vineyard and one in South Provo. SO, if you are in the market for a non-competition dance studio for your littles, HIT UP JIVE! And the concert planning for Riverton and Orem studios is in full swing and it's the most horrible/most exciting time of the year! I have a love/hate relationship with all of it, but mostly love the challenge of it all.

6. We finally upgraded to a king sized mattress—which, we were way pumped about. But if we're being honest here, I haven't even noticed a real difference. B and I are major snugglers, so the extra space? It feels like whatever. But I'm sure the occasional nights when I get restless leg syndrome will feel way better as B won't try to murder me in my sleep from moving and stretching and kicking my legs (and him) every 5 seconds.

7. We've watched more of "The Office" this year than any other year. Man, we love this show. This time around, B got really sad when Micheal Scott left. It was weird and he didn't want to watch it for a few weeks, but we are back on schedule and watch it every night before bed. It definitely beats all the boring documentaries that B loves to watch before going to bed.