Creating a Family: Talk about Infertility and Adoption

Recurrent pregnancy loss, or miscarriage, is a little understood occurrence and is devastating to parents and doctors. Join our guest Dr. William Kutteh, Director of Fertility Associates of Memphis and researcher in the field of recurrent pregnancy loss, and Dr. Jeff McKeeby, with Shady Grove Fertility to talk about diagnosis and treatment.

Most domestic adoptions are “open”, but what does that mean? How does it work in real life? Is it best for adoptive families, birth families, and most important—the kids. Our guests will include Dawn Friedman ,an adoptive mom, and Jenna Hatfield, a birth mom, both in open adoptions and both blogging on the ups and downs of open adoption. We will also have Kris Faasse, Bethany's national Director of Adoption Services with more than 15 years of experience with open adoptions.

How does adoption affect couples, siblings, and extended families. Our guests to talk about some of the unexpected bumps of adoptive parenting are adoption therapists, Mari Itzkowitz, with the Center for Adoption Support and Education in Virginia and Rita Taddonio, the Director of the Adoption Resource Center at Spence Chapin Services to Families and Children in New York City.

What options does the LGBT community have for building their families as either singles or couples? Join our guests attorney Willard Halm of the National Fertility Law Center. Will specializes exclusively in assisted reproduction and family formation law, and he and his partner are the parents of 3 children from egg donation and surrogacy. We also have with us Barbara Casey, Director of A Baby Step Adoption, a licensed adoption agency, and she is also an attorney specializing exclusively in all types of adoption law.

Does the immune system play a role in infertility and miscarriages? What are the signs that your immune system is causing your problems and what can you do about it. Our guest is Dr. Danny Schust, a professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine, Chief of the Infertility Division at Columbia Regional Hospital, and researcher in the area of the immunological connections in infertility and miscarriages and their treatment.

We’ve heard of the Tennessee mother that “returned” her son to Russia because he was acting out. Is this the norm? Are children who struggle with attachment doomed to a life of violence and lack of relationships? What can parents do to help their children attach and thrive in family life. Join our guests Sue Gainor, Chair of the parent support groups Friends of Russia and Ukrainian adoption, and a psychologist that specializes in attachment therapy.

What are the risk factors for adopting a child with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. What’s the prognosis for children who have been exposed to alcohol or drugs during pregnancy. Our guest will be Dr. Julian Davies, a pediatrician that specializes in both adoption medicine and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Join us for a frank discussion with the real experts—adults of color who were adopted by white parents as children. They can tell us much about what worked, what didn’t, what they would suggest to this generation of transracial adoptive parents. Our adoptees were adopted domestically, as well as from Korea, China, and Colombia.

What should you expect when you go to an infertility clinic? How can you make the most of each visit? Join our panel of head nurses at three of the leading infertility clinics in the US. Infertility nurses are, in my not so humble opinion, the unsung heroes of infertility treatment.

Endometriosis affects at least 6 million women in the US and Canada and millions more throughout the world. It’s the number one cause of pelvic pain and can affect many aspects of a woman’s health and her fertility. Our guest will be Dr. Naveed Khan, a board certified reproductive endocrinologist with Shady Grove Fertility Centers in the Washington, DC metro area who writes and speaks frequently on the treatment of endometriosis.

More women and men are choosing to become parents without a partner either by donor sperm, donor egg and surrogate, or adoption. What should you know before you make this choice. What advice can help you if you have already made the choice. Joim our guests Mikki Morrissette, single mom through donor sperm and author of Choosing Single Motherhood, and Ann-Marie Kennedy, single mom through adoption

General adoption wisdom is that it is best not to adopt out of birth order or to create artificial twins through adoption. What are the realities of these decisions? Is it always a bad idea? Our guests will be Dr. Anne Brodzinsky, psychologist and co-author of Children's Adjustment to Adoption, and Dr. Martha Henry, Director of the Office for Foster Care and Adoption at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and co-author of Adoption in the United States: A Reference for Families, Professionals, and Students.

PGD and PGS offer great hope to many couples trying to prevent passing on genetic abnormalities and to couples trying to conceive without success. Much confusion exists as to the promise and failure of these procedures. Our guest will be one of the leading geneticists and researcher on PGD/PGS, Dr. Mark Hughes, Professor of Genetics, Medicine and Pathology, and Director, Applied Genomics Technology Center of Michigan

The world of egg donation is scary and confusing. How much information is available on potential donors, what factors are important, how do you decide? Our guest to discuss egg donation are Theresa M. Erickson, an attorney who practices exclusively in the areas of family formation, surrogacy, egg and sperm donation and embryo donation; Nancy Block, a co-founder of the Donor Network Alliance (DNA), an online service of compiling many different donor agencies with over 5,000 donors.

One of the biggest decisions prospective adoptive parents have to make is choosing an adoption agency. We'll talk about how to choose an international adoption agency and a domestic agency or attorney. Our guests are Laura Christianson, author of The Adoption Decision among other books; and Elizabeth Falker, author of The Ultimate Insider’s Guide to Adoption.