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

There is no way to understand it unless you’ve been there

This infertility business is for the birds. Too bad the birds and the bees won’t get us what we want!

The first time the doctor says those words to you- that you can’t have a baby on your own- it’s mind-boggling. I remember when we were told everything just seemed so quiet, as if we were the only ones on earth who couldn’t go home, do it and get preggers. How nice would that be?

And look at the irony of how long we spent trying with all of our might not to get pregnant, only to find out we could have spared ourselves all of that… and just enjoyed it!!

In the early days, before we really had a definitive answer, and me always the pessimist, I called my mom to vent. This is who I always call to vent to no matter the topic. I would talk and cry and what if until I’m sure she was ready for me to hang up (just kidding). I remember one day she told me, “Honey, there is no way for me to understand what you’re going through. I popped out 3 kids without even thinking about it.” She was so right. And it dawned on me, unless you’ve been through this, you don’t get it.

Unless you’ve been told you can’t have your own children, you don’t know the unbelievable ache that you feel through your entire body. You don’t know that when you hear the other mommies telling stories about the CUTEST moments in their childrens’ lives, that you just want to cry. You don’t know how it feels every time someone calls to tell you that they’re expecting, you just can’t help but wonder why you weren’t as lucky. Walking through the store past the baby clothes- pure agony.

I’ve heard from SO MANY of you other women facing infertility and you have all said the same thing- no one gets it but us. It’s such an isolating feeling, and yet there are millions of us.

To hear your stories and to feel like I’m finally amongst people who get it is such sweet therapy. I feel your hugs and I hope you feel mine. Together, with our loud voices and our unending desire to be moms (and dads), we will make the world understand. I hope you too are finding some comfort in hearing mine and Shelton’s story.

I promise I’m reading all of your emails, I just can’t keep up with responding to them all! So please don’t hesitate to write and share your experience. I’m hoping to pull some of your great quotes and stories and post them- anonymously of course. We all have so much to share.

Written by Brandi and posted under IVF Journey

Our Cup Runneth Over

Since the site went up 17 days ago, Shelton and I have been completely overwhelmed with the amount of support we’ve received from not only our friends and families, but people across the globe.

We’re blown away by the number of people writing to us to share their stories and experiences, and showing off their perfect little blessings. Oh yes, lots of baby pics and we enjoy seeing every one of them! Every one of your stories has deeply touched our hearts and I’ve shed more than a few tears. The lengths at which a couple will go to finally become parents- be it IVF, other treatments or adoption- is touching. I never knew so many people were affected by this until we got in the boat with you.

Just an unbelievable thank you to everyone who has written to us and sent in a dollar… or more! We’d love to extend a hug to each of you, but we know that just isn’t possible. We’ve made so many new friends. And to our snail-mail donors, while we can’t respond to all of you, please know that you are so appreciated.

We don’t know that it’s been made clear enough- but we have no intentions of getting rid of Baby or Bust when we’ve reached our goal. We feel like the $20,000 is just the beginning of what Baby or Bust can accomplish. We hope to raise so much awareness with the site… and we hope to raise far more money so that we can offer grants to other couples and help them reach their goal to be parents.

We know the last few posts have just been about the goings on of the site and less about our journey, but we’re kind of at a stand still right now. We have a doctor’s appointment on Thursday and we’ll have plenty of news to share then.

Thank you for being a part of this with us and please keep sharing your stories, we look forward to them so much.

Written by Brandi and posted under IVF Journey

Insurance

I wanted to address the topic of insurance. First of all our insurance does not cover infertility treatments of any kind. We do have pretty good insurance though. Here’s how it works:

  • The first $1500 of covered medical expenses for the year is covered at 100%
  • The next $1800 has to be claimed so we can get the insurance company’s negotiated rates, but it is completely out of pocket.
  • We do not get credit toward the $1800 for expenses that would not be covered by the insurance company, although we may still save through the negotiated rates.
  • The rest is covered under various percentages.

We like this plan even though it requires quite a bit of planning before the year begins to figure out how you will stay within budget. We do contrubute to our flexible spending account (FSA) in the amount of about $1300 for the year. This means that if we had a $20,000 surgery we would spend the $1500, then the $1300 from FSA, which insurance views as out-of-pocket, then come up the $500 (1800-1300) on our own. That would leave about $16,900, which the insurance company would cover at probably between 80% and 90%.  Of course, none of this applies to our situation because infertility treatments are not covered.

Some states do require insurance companies to offer infertility treatments. Others require the insurance company to offer the coverage to every employer, who can decide to accept or deny it. For a listing of states and a summary what is covered by their law check out this page on Fertility LifeLines.

Our Progress & Expense page has brief descriptions of our charges so far.  Next to those descriptions you may notice in parenthesis the abbreviations CBI, PI and FSA for “Covered By Insurance”, “Partial Insurance” and “Flexible Spending Account”, respectively. This is to let you know exactly what our expenses are for those of you who want to know what to expect as you go through the process and also exactly where the donations are used since they are not needed for every visit.

Here’s a quick statistic for you: “Spending on IVF is up over 50% over the last five years to over 1 billion dollars last year.” U.S. News and World Report, Sept. 27th 2004, Article: “Making Babies”

Written by Brandi and posted under IVF Journey

Technical Difficulties

We apologize for the site being down lately. Our hosting service had a server go down that affected several websites. Our wonderful site designer has moved the site over to his host for the time being and has a redirect in place on the old server. This was the best method for us right now since a change in DNS would take aprox. 48 hours to take effect and we are going to be on the CBS Early Morning Show tomorrow morning. As soon as everything is back up we will move it back, until then there may be a slight delay in seeing your donations on the Progress & Expense page.

Thank you for your patience.

Written by Brandi and posted under About BabyOrBust

Minti.com

Brandi and I would both like to take a minute to thank the amazing people at minti.com, both founders and members. They have allowed us “non-parents” to be a member and discuss our situation with them. The community has been receptive and supportive and we are very appreciative.

Thank you.

Written by Brandi and posted under IVF Journey

Share the Love

We just received an E-mail about an our ago from a couple in Canada who is going through a similar situation. They have asked for help and we are happy to oblige. They have already gone through the IVF process once successfully, but unfortunately lost the pregnancy. Their next attempt is coming up in October and she is having a hard time finding the means. We have agreed to donate all internet donations made on Saturday, July 15th to them.

We have asked for proof of her situation and upon receipt and verification we will begin to share the love. Now, if this cannot be accommodated, then all funds will go back into the BabyorBust fund.

BabyorBust was founded on the idea that we could open people’s eyes to IVF and the expense and emotion that it brings with it. Our hope at the end is to continue accepting donations, along with any additional funds left over, in order to offer grants to other couples facing infertility. We look forward to helping so many more couples- and thank you for the overwhelming support we’ve received so far.

Together, we’re all going to make a huge difference.

Written by Brandi and posted under About BabyOrBust and IVF Journey