Life Right Now [December]

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, or whatever other holiday you may be celebrating this time of year. I hope your season has been merry and bright!

In this month’s update I will be covering all the wonderful happenings of the past month, giving an update on our infertility journey, as well as doing a quick recap of 2023.

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December

I cannot believe it is the end of 2023. In some ways this year went by in the blink of an eye, in other ways it felt like it would never end. My top three highlights from this month are:

Giving the Gift of Water to Ivuukula, Uganda

For those of you who don’t know, in my spare time I serve on the board of directors for Subi Foundation, a non-profit organization that focuses on educational services for women and children in Uganda. Our big push for this year was to drill a well in the village of Ivuukula, Uganda.

The women and children in that village had to walk 5k (3.1 miles) ONE WAY to get water. That is 10k (6.2 miles) round trip EVERY DAY with half of that distance being walked while carrying heavy water. As you can imagine it would take most of the day, hindering the children from attending school and the women from finding money generating opportunities to help raise their families from poverty.

Through the help of our generous donors (which includes some of you) we were able to drill a well right in the village. Now the women and children only have to travel about 15 minutes roundtrip for their daily water needs. It was so fun to get video footage and photos from Uganda of the excitement at this wonderful gift.

Christmas Tree Shopping

In an effort to get into the season we went and bought a Christmas tree. This year we went to Green Ridge Christmas Tree Farm instead of Bailey Farms due to the ability to get a tree a bit later in December. It just so happened to be snowing on the day we went and made for a magical experience. The tree we ended up getting was the perfect size for us and they were kind enough to trim the end off for us. The kids had a ton of fun decorating it and drum roll please…it lived until Christmas!

Dustin’s Graduation

This month Dustin also graduated with his Bachelor’s Degree in Manufacturing Engineering. That might not seem like a big deal – but it is. Let me give you some context. No one in Dustin’s family has gone to college and graduated with a degree. He is a first generation graduate. He also returned to school at age 33 and spent most of his time working full-time on swing shift, while going to school part-time in the mornings. He went to school every semester (fall, spring, and summer) for 5.5 years STRAIGHT. That is a long time to go without much of a break. I couldn’t be more proud.

Infertility Journey Update

So last month I mentioned we did our first cycle of IUI. So the question of the day is…did it work? And the answer is…NOPE, it didn’t. To say I am disappointed would probably be an understatement. I am fine with it now, but when my period showed up I was seriously deflated. I didn’t realize I had gotten my hopes up that it would work. But looking back I can see that is the pattern I have followed through this whole infertility journey. Every time we try something new I think “Ah this will fix it”. And then it doesn’t and I am bummed until the next shiny new thing comes along to get my hopes up.

I think it also didn’t help that I have had a hard time believing we will go to Switzerland. I have spent so much time planning the trip, while also thinking “I’m not going to be able to go if I get pregnant” that I just assumed that this would be the thing to keep us from going. So the bad news is, I’m not pregnant. The good news is, we are going to Switzerland. But in all honesty, I much rather have a baby than go on a two week trip to Switzerland with Dustin (no offense Dustin). Let’s just hope I can have both 🙂

Round 2

So since the IUI didn’t work, that put us right back to starting another cycle of IUI. You start Clomid on day three of your cycle so there isn’t much time to warp your head around the failure of the first cycle before you are knee deep in the next. I was hesitant to do another one. I know the plan is to do three, but I wanted to wait until next year sometime to do the second attempt. I think partially because I am afraid it won’t work again. But Dustin encouraged me to keep going.

So I did the Clomid and actually this time around it didn’t make me super grumpy (maybe because I took it at night instead of the morning). My midcycle ultrasound also showed that my body reacted well to the Clomid. The goal is to get your body to drop 2-3 eggs. My body was ready to drop 4. Because of the increase in eggs my doctor talked to me about there being an increased chance of getting pregnant with twins this cycle if we proceeded with IUI. She asked if we would like to skip this cycle and try again in January. I told her it was fine if we got pregnant with twins and we chose to proceed.

We did IUI on the 18th and it was kind of stressful. So you can do an at clinic collection or an at home collection. The last two times Dustin and I have chosen to do an at home collection. The tricky part is you have to get the sperm into medium within an hour of collecting it. We live about 50 minutes away from the infertility clinic (in good weather and traffic) so it is a bit of a stretch for us to get there in time. This time was no exception.

Dustin was supposed to drop off his collection at 8 am which put us driving right in the middle of morning rush-hour traffic and of course there was an accident. Luckily with some intentional speeding and the ability to use the carpool lane we were able to make it there just in the nick of time. However, in the rush to get out of the door I forgot my purse. Which is a problem, because they won’t do the IUI without ID. Once I realized my mistake I was so worried that they would turn me away. Luckily the director approved for them to call Dustin and get my name and date of birth and then verify it with me to show my identity. Phew! I am getting too old for this!

So our journey continues. We won’t know if it works until either my period shows up or when I take a pregnancy test on January 1st. So fingers crossed! I will be sure to update you in my January post.

2023

Overall I feel like 2023 was a great year. I created New Year resolutions and did them this year – which felt like a HUGE accomplishment. I think it was all to do with being consistent in my quarterly and weekly planning. Some of the things I was able to accomplish were:

• Moved my 401k to an IRA.
• Increased my IRA contribution.
• Switched our retirement funds to target date funds.
• Set-up a springing power of attorney (the last piece for our estate plan).
• Digitized Dustin and my LDS mission letters.
• Got all of our photos in one spot and backed up to the cloud and an external hard drive.
• Made my kids’ baby books.
• Got water containers to ensure we are storing enough water for emergency preparedness.
• Learned how to make sourdough bread and sourdough discard recipes (in Dustin’s words this accomplishment was “life changing”. Thanks Misty for teaching me. If you want to learn – I know a girl who can help you out 😉
• Learned how to travel hack and book flights and hotels to Switzerland with points.
• Held Adventures After Kids first mom retreat.
• Worked on having gentle and edifying communication (this is still a work in progress but I feel like I have made a lot of improvement in not being so spicy when I am stressed or upset).
• Stayed within our monthly grocery shopping bill – this felt like a Herculean effort given the crazy inflation we have been experiencing.

Some goals I didn’t quite get to:

• Learning how to use my fancy camera. This will definitely be slotted for a 2024 goal.
• Saving all our windfall money. We did good at the beginning of the year and then things went off the rails.
• Getting all our photos cleaned up and organized. Yes they are all in one spot but there is still A LOT of work to be done.
• Making family videos for each year we have been married. So the idea with this was I just wanted to gather all the videos we have taken and then make a simple compilation video of all the little video clips for each year. I started collecting the videos into folders by year but then ran out of steam when I hit 2018 (the year Madic was born and we loved the use of live photos – aka mini videos).

What are some of your 2023 highlights?

Favorite 2023 Products

I am not a big spender and rarely buy things for myself but this last year I did find a couple of new favorite products and services. Hopefully, some of them may be useful to you in the new year.

Peloton Fitness App – For those of you not familiar with Peloton, it is a fitness company that sells fitness equipment and provides fitness classes through its app. It is a paid subscription to use the app, but so far it has been worth every cent. I love the on-demand weight lifting classes, spinning classes (especially their power zone classes), tread classes (walking and running), yoga classes, and meditation classes. Since I started using the app I have had my longest stint of working out consistently – EVER! With so much variety I don’t get burned out or bored with my routine. If you are looking to get fit in 2024 I would definitely recommend checking it out.

DoTerra Sun Face + Body Mineral Sunscreen Stick – We discovered at the beginning of the year that Emma’s face was super sensitive to sunscreen. We tried a variety of hypoallergenic sunscreens with no success. I finally decided to try DoTerra Sun and it she didn’t react. I love that it is a stick, making it easy to apply to her face!

Sun Bum Cool Down After Sun Lotion – I received this gift in February at a Galentine’s Favorite Things Party and it works like a charm. It wasn’t long after that, that Madic got wicked burned on his face while skiing (mom fail). I put some of the after sun lotion on and his burn looks SO much better by the next day.

Swedish Dish Clothes – I have loved these because they are super absorbent but they dry quickly so the chance for bacteria growing is decrease so they don’t get super stinky. I have also found the easiest way to keep them clean is to just throw them in the dishwasher at night with my dishes. They have officially upped my cleaning game.

Orange-Sol De-Solv-It Laundry Saver – My brother-in-law recommended this laundry spray to us and I am in love. Not only does it smell amazing, but this stuff gets grease stains out even after the clothing item has ran through the dryer. Given that my husband likes to work on his truck and my children like to help it has saved tons of items of clothing that otherwise would have been ruined.

What are some of your favorite 2023 finds?!

Until Next Year

I hope you enjoy the last few days we have in 2023 – and I will see you next year 😉

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