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

Checking In

I hope you are all enjoying this GORGEOUS! spring weather as much as we are. The tulip leaves haven broken through the soil in the front yard, I’ve been cleaning everything that will sit still, and while I’m not what you might call an “experienced” golfer, I’m itching to get out on the course.

By cleaning I mean gutting. I emptied my closet on Saturday and took out everything I haven’t looked at, worn or fit into in at least a year. Let me say, two more people could move into my closet now. It’s depressingly empty. I’m donating it all the local DAV. Hopefully someone there will find some better use of it than I. Now I need to get Shelton to do the same.

The biggest clean of all is the house. We’re selling it. (Yes, the ONE house that we own). You know, I love this house. It’s a dream. It has so much character and potential. But that’s the kicker- potential. We fell in love with what this house will be after we spend every penny we have (and then some) remodeling and fixing up. So we’re getting out of here. Hopefully someone will come along and love her potential as much as we did, and have the resources to do it. We would have, but there’s that whole “baby” thing. Haha! The best thing of all- we’ll move somewhere with carpet!! There is not one single stitch of carpet in this entire house. I thought I would like it, but I hate it. It’s impossible to keep clean and we will have wooden feet before we leave with all the splinters we get. So, with that appealing explanation- any offers?

I’ve finally settled into my new job. I started early January as a temp and I’m now making the transition to stay on permanently. I’m still in marketing. It’s a fantastic company that will afford me a lot of opportunities that the agency did not. I’m considering going after my masters degree since they’ll cover my tuition. We’ll see how that goes… I’ll have to take the GRE! I haven’t taken a test in nearly 3 years!

I have more news, but I’ll include that in its own post. Happy Spring everyone!

Written by Brandi and posted under Koskie Life

The Small Things

This past weekend, Wichita received its second winter blast in two consecutive weekends. We’ve got about 6-8” of fluffy snow covering our yard. It’s beautiful. All weekend, I just kept telling Shelton I wished I could be 10 again, just long enough to truly enjoy the snow in a way only a kid can. I kept telling him we needed to find some kids to play with so we could enjoy the weather. But it would probably be kind of creepy if we stopped by the neighbor’s and asked to borrow their kids for a while.

We got even luckier, though. I’ve been involved with a mentor program with the same little girl for a year and a half now. We’ll call her Ms. J. We happened to have plans to take her to a college basketball game yesterday afternoon and on the way in noticed a huge hill with plenty of kids enjoying the sledding action. While she enjoyed the game, she kept asking when we could go sledding. Not being at all prepared, Shelton left half way through the game to go procure some sledding materials. He met back up with us with laundry baskets and cardboard boxes. Ms. J then informed us that she had NEVER been sledding in her life. I could not believe it. So for close to an hour this girl flung her self down the hill and dragged herself back up with a grin that could only be described as pure magic. She giggled the entire time and kept wanting to go faster and farther. She even braved the snow ramp that had been build and launched herself airborn.

I just kept thinking that THIS is why we want to have kids. To watch them discover sledding. The way the icy cold blasts your face as you speed down a hill, that on any ordinary day is just a hill. Your pants and coat and gloves get drenched from the snow. And no matter how cold you get, no matter how tough it is to climb back up- it’s so worth it.

This little girl on more than one occasion has reminded me how fantastically fun the most simple things can be. Riding an escalator, going through a drive-thru car wash, having cupcakes at school on your birthday. Each time she beams the most beautiful, brightest smile I’ve ever seen.

I have read ”Dooce“ everyday for probably three years. She is a writer that I truly admire, and best of all makes her living staying at home with her beautiful little girl and telling the world about her life. Last week she posted a video of her 3-year old daughter laughing because she was so blown away by her own reflection in the video camera. This little girl laughs the heartiest laugh for an entire minute and by the end Shelton and I both caught ourselves howling right along with her. And again, I said THIS is why I want to be a mom.

It’s those small, perfect, innocent moments when you see them discover some other part of this big life. I want to be transformed by those as much as all of my friends say they have been.

Written by Brandi and posted under IVF Journey and Koskie Life

Strong Little Embryo

I don’t know if there are just more infertility stories in the news recently, or if we are just more aware of them, but we found another wonderful story a few days ago.

It seems a New Orleans couple had frozen embryos at a clinic during 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. The clinic saved the embryos and implanted them in the mother- and recently gave birth to their new baby boy!!! They gave him quite a fitting name- Noah.

Congratulations to the parents and welcome little Noah!

Story Here

Written by Brandi and posted under IVF and Infertility News

In the News

While trolling around on the web this morning, I found a couple of infertility-related news articles that were pretty interesting.

The first, it looks as though scientists are persuing research to conduct a uterus transplant. This would be performed on women who have lost their womb for a variety of reasons, including birth defects or surgery. How progressive is that?! Women who had no alternative but surrogacy could possible carry their own babies. I think it’s brilliant, as is their plan. The uterus would be taken from a deceased donor and placed in the woman. She would have to live with it for three months without any complications. They would then implant previously frozen embryos. After the delivery, or two years, the uterus would be removed, so that the woman wouldn’t have to stay on anti-rejection meds her entire life. I say brilliant again! You can read the full story here.

Next, the world’s first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, is now a mommy herself!! She gave birth to a little boy in December. How wonderful for her and her husband. You can read about it here.

Written by Brandi and posted under IVF and Infertility News

Still Here!

Hello everybody! I feel like every post I start goes “ sorry it’s been a while.” I HAVE NO EXCUSES. So my goal is to start getting here a lot more frequently, because after all, that is the point!

We had a pretty topsy-turvy, hellacious year last year. But it’s over and gone and we rejoiced naked in the streets. Not really, but we did rejoice. Part of the reason my posts are so few and far between, as I have mentioned previously, is that we’re just in this holding pattern. Nothing is really developing and so I feel like you don’t need to keep reading about all my sappy up and down emotions.

When we started this last year, our target cycle date was February, as in next month, starting our hormones and such this month. That’s not happening. A lot of reasons really, the money isn’t there yet and we don’t want to force that, we’re not under a strict “should have had it done yesterday” timeline like a lot of couples are, and the closer we came to the end of last year, I knew we needed some emotionally boring time for a while. I need my entire mind, body and soul to be in tip-top shape, and I’m getting a lot closer. I also changed jobs at the very end of December, and so a little adjustment time was needed.

But have no fear, we are still planning to do our cycle. In fact, we are scheduled for the February IVF class with our clinic. That gives me the willies because they will teach us how to administer my shots, injections, needles in my skin!!! I know Shelton will be a pro. At this point we’re looking at the April/May cycle, but possibly the July/Aug cycle. This class will really help us make up our minds.

The topic everyone wants to know about- the moolah. Well, we’ve raised an exciting $5836!!! (I’m really behind in updating that page too. I’m so bad!) Unbelievable, and we’re just more grateful than we’ll ever be able to express. So we have close to $4000 of that, because of expenses already incurred. We have our FSAs which I discussed in a previous post. Due to expenses taken out of that for my surgery, we have the full amount of Shelton’s remaining. We expect to get a significant tax return. This leaves us only needing to borrow less than $5,000. It’s getting so close!

This site was never intentioned to be solely about the donations, and we’re so glad that so many people get that. So many of you have reached out and just said thanks for the information, for the candid stories and for stepping out and talking about infertility. That was so important to us. We’re still hopeful that we’ll be able to raise more money that we need and be able to to help out one or ten or one hundred other couples. That would just be the ultimate.

So I’m feeling pretty good these days. More like myself again and that is such a good feeling. Shelton and I are both working all the time and enjoying our time together. We feel like we’re in this weird grey zone between the married without children and impending parenthood. We’re taking advantage of the freedom while we have it, but also looking forward to not having that anymore. It’s an interesting place to be. I know we’ll have more updates more frequently and I will get better about writing.

Thanks to all of you who still stop by to catch-up. Thanks for all the donations. And we wish you all have fabulous 2007!!

Written by Brandi and posted under IVF Journey

One Year Later

A couple of days after Christmas will mark one year since Shelton and I found out we were not going to be able to have a baby without the assistance of IVF. One whole year. It’s so small and yet it feels like a lifetime. I can remember the Christmas before that, in 2004, telling family over the phone that by the next Christmas I’d have a huge belly to celebrate with. We’re now approaching one more Christmas and while my belly might be a little bigger, it’s not for the right reason at all.

The past few days I’ve been feeling really down again and I haven’t been this sad since we first started. I think it’s a culmination of so many things, but this constant desire to be a mom never fades and makes it so easy for me to slip back.

Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. I love the cold and the lights, the food and giving gifts, I love Christmas cards, I love how it brings people together. And I just can’t get into it this year. Christmas is less than three weeks away and I have not put the tree up and at this point I don’t plan to. For the first time in five years there are no lights on my house. I did get all of our cards out. And while there are so many reasons that are making this season tougher than most, but I think a lot of it comes back to our infertility.

I get the biggest joy out of giving gifts. And it’s not the material item wrapped up, it’s the joy that person shows when they receive the gift. But this year, there are no gifts. Shelton and had a long, hard discussion months ago and decided that we just couldn’t afford to sacrifice a Christmas budget this year. Probably for the better because I usually go overboard!! We also asked that we not receive any gifts this Christmas- we figured we already have so much, the one thing we want is a baby, and they could donate the money they would have spent on a sweater or picture frame.

Our family was blessed with the arrival of another new member this week… a little girl. She is beautiful and went home to the most AMAZING people who will make AMAZING parents. I can’t help but be so jealous of the excitement that is in their lives right now, and that they will experience on Christmas morning.

We’ve invited all of the family to our house for Christmas dinner and hosting them here will be both our gift from them and to them. And I’m going to get all the joy I can from that, and thank God for the many blessings I do have, and not the ones I feel I’m lacking.

Written by Brandi and posted under IVF Journey