MARRIAGE, INFERTILITY

tional journey of fertility treatments. A grueling year later, they finally received the news they’d waited so long for. On Feb. 13th, 2017, they welcomed a beautiful bundle of joy named Elsie Kate.

Upon Elsie’s first birthday, swimming along peacefully as a party of three, Erich and Sally jumped back into the tumult of family planning. Six rounds of IUI later (intra-uterine insemination), a test finally showed positive. Relief and joy flooded the Richardson’s. Erich recalls, “These quads are the result of our last ditch effort. We were giving it one more go.” Almost immediately Sally began noticing a change in this pregnancy. The sickness, bloating and showing were way ahead of pace. “I knew there was more than one. There had to be. It did not feel normal.” A short time later, at only five weeks, the early ultrasound showed her why … her very own relay team was swimming around in her belly.

“When you tell someone you’re pregnant with quads, you don’t get the same response as when you tell them about a ‘normal’ pregnancy.” Excited but also nervous for them, their communities immediately surrounded them. Sally’s teaching colleagues donated cribs and showered the Richardson’s with love and gifts. Additionally, in true swim-family fashion, the Fargo-Moorhead-West Fargo swimming community gathered around them with tremendous team spirit and generosity. The stacks of donated diapers in their garage multiplied as the pregnancy progressed. Being the athlete she is, Sally carried four babies like a champ, teaching fulltime up to 28 weeks and never needing bed rest. During her checkup at 30 weeks and 3 days, Sally’s doctor informed them that due to some concerns about a couple of the babies, it was go time. “Today is the day. These babies are coming today.”