Shelton & Brandi

Hello! We're Brandi & Shelton Koskie. Since 2006 we’ve been one of the many couples on the In Vitro Fertilization journey. We were the first IVF fundraiser blog, and thanks to the generous help of many, in we had our first successful IVF attempt. Nine months later, we had a beautiful girl, Paisley. You’re invited to follow along on our journey from infertility to parenthood.  Learn more

A choice in gender

In some twisted way it might be kind of fun to determine the sex of your children. Then again, I often complain that for those of us doing IVF, the romance and mystery of having a baby has been stripped away. At this point, we’re just lab rats.

BUT- this new study from Oxford suggests that a woman’s diet basically makes her “crave” a male or female sperm. In theory, suggesting that she could ultimately choose a boy or a girl. The whole thing sounds a bit suspect to me- but you are of course welcome to see for yourself.

Written by Brandi and posted under Baby News and Resources

Irony

Today, my doctor gave me a prescription for birth control. Alanis Morrissette never spoke truer words as she did on Jagged Little Pill- “A little too ironic… don’t ya think?”.

It’s a necessary evil. Birth control is just as effective at, well, controlling birth, as it is regulating hormones. Mine are jacked right now. I’m having long periods with weeks of spotting in between. It has been months and months and months of this nonsense and I’m pretty much over it.

I thought it had something to do with my ovarian cysts, but he assured me one has nothing to do with the other. We’re going to try it for four months and then stop using it. Hopefully that will hit some sort of period reset button.

Written by Brandi and posted under IVF Journey

Biggest Loser Finale

As some of you know- I work as the senior editor for DietsInReview.com. It was such a privilege last night that I was able to attend the live Biggest Loser finale in LA. It was an amazing experience and rather surreal. All of the contestants looked amazing… stunning.

I wanted to share with you the interviews I did immediately following the show with Ali Vincent– the first female Biggest Loser, as well as Bernie, the at-home Biggest Loser.

Written by Brandi and posted under Koskie Life

Fertile Dreams IVF Grants

We received this email this morning and I thought it was very appropriate to share with you. (Thank you Angie!)

Fertile Dreams is a fertility non-profit based in Florida. Each year they give each of two families a $10,000 grant to spend toward IVF expenses. (I cannot wait until BabyorBust is doing this!!)

The following is directly from the email with all of the event information.

I would like to invite you to participate in the 4th Annual Paths to
Parenthood Conference in Orlando, Florida, for those seeking
information about becoming parents through fertility treatments and
adoption.

On May 4, Fertile Dreams, a nonprofit organization dedicated to
offering patients hope through education and access to resources, is
hosting the free event at the Orlando Marriott, Lake Mary, Florida.

This year’s guest speaker is Dr. Alice Domar, a pioneer on women’s
health issues, nationally known speaker and best selling author.
Among the books she has written are, “Infertility Explained” and
“Conquering Infertility”.  Dr. Domar has appeared on the Today Show,
Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, Dateline NBC, CNN and has gone
on tour with Oprah with the LLuminari team for health and wellness

The event is free, includes lunch and dinner, great give-aways, but
you must pre-register to attend~
For more information, go to Fertiledreams.org or call Angie Best-Boss
at 317.861.8205

Written by Brandi and posted under IVF Resources

Tip Toes and Egg Shells

We were told this morning that yet ANOTHER friend is having a baby. (He reads the site so Congrats!!) I hope you don’t mind me calling out your note like this- but it just made me remember that I’ve wanted to post about this for a while. Basically- told me they’d just found out they were pregnant. But hesitant to let us know because he didn’t know if we would care of if we would even want to know. And asked if it was dumb to feel that way.

Not dumb to feel that at all. You and everyone else do the exact same thing. It’s not necessary though.

I seriously love finding out someone is pregnant. Sure- I have a twinge of jealousy and that eensy little flash of “is this EVER going to happen for us?” It lasts for mere seconds and back to the YAYYYY!!!! Why wouldn’t I want to know? Shelton and I have had had the pleasure of being a part of so many close friends and family members pregnancies, births and raising children. It’s the most amazing and truly blessed gift- for both the parents to receive the baby- but for us to be a part of it. We’re like the unofficial aunt and uncle to 3600 kids! That’s an exaggeration- but I’ve never claimed to be any good at math!

We always kind of snicker amongst ourselves because we think watching all of you have all of your babies- we’ll have it pretty well figured out when ours arrives. Sometimes we forget about the baby restrictions and that a lot of our friends don’t have the freedom to come and go and do as they please like we do. But we’d give up that freedom in a heartbeat.

Like I said, this happens all the time. Our closest and dearest friends avoid telling us for fear we’ll be to hurt or something. I promise- we won’t be. I’m more hurt when I find out months later that someone has been pregnant for months and didn’t tell me. That’s what I don’t like. So please, just tell us. We really do want to know and we really do want to celebrate with you. Let us live vicariously through you for a while… and then we’ll call in some favors for babysitting later on.

Written by Brandi and posted under IVF Journey

Donate to March for Babies

Most of us are probably familiar with the March for Dimes– a wonderful organization that raises money to support mothers and babies. They provide funds for research for the health of infants and babies- to reduce the instances of premature birth, infant mortality and birth defects. It’s such an amazing worthwhile cause.

This year, the famous WalkAmerica campaign has changed its name to Walk for Babies. A little more too the point! This year, Bernie from the Biggest Loser is participating. BabyOrBust has made a $10 donation. If you’re interested in making a donation- help Bernie reach his goal to raise $5,000 by donating here.

Written by Brandi and posted under Baby News and Resources