Creating a Family: Talk about Infertility and Adoption

What do you need to know when you first start thinking about adoption. Where do you begin? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Jim Thompson, a South Carolina attorney, with offices in Spartanburg and Charleston. He has worked in the field of adoption and assisted reproductive law for 25 years. Leanne Carnes, Chief Operating Officer at Children's Connection Inc., an adoption and child welfare agency with offices throughout Texas. Kara Eusebio, Associate Director of Outreach with Spence-Chapin Services to Families & Children in New York City.   Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on adoption can be found here.

What are the medical advances in in vitro fertilization in the last several years. Are your chances of getting pregnant with fertility treatment improving? What have we learned about helping people conceive. Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Eric Forman, Board Certified Reproductive Endocrinologist at RMA New Jersey, and co-author of the cover story in July ‘14 issue of Contemporary OBGYN Magazine  “The New IVF Paradigm”. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on IVF can be found here.  

Concern has been expressed on how children conceived via third party reproduction, including sperm donation, egg donation, surrogacy, and embryo donation are faring. Is attachment as strong in these families. What is the nature of the parent child relationships? Host Dawn Davenport interviews renowned researcher Dr. Susan Golombok, Director of the Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge and Dr. Martha Rueter, Associate Professor of Family Social Science at University of Minnesota.  Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on third party reproduction can be found here.

Internationally adopted children most often do not speak any English when they are adopted. How do they acquire English once home and what can parents do to help. Host Dawn Davenport, Exec. Director of Creating a Family, the national adoption & infertility education and support organization, will interview Dr. Sharon Glennen, Professor and Chairperson in the Department of Audiology, Speech Language Pathology and Deaf Studies at Towson University in Maryland. Dr. Glennen researches how children adopted from abroad acquire English after adoption.   Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on international adoption can be found here.

Polycyctis Ovarian Syndrome affects a woman's health and her fertility. Diagnosing PCOS is often difficult and treatment can be complicated. With proper treatment for PCOS and often with fertility treatment, many women are able to get pregnant. Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Jeanne O’Brien to discuss the latest research in diagnosing and treating Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and especially how to get pregnant with PCOS. Dr. O'Brien is board certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility. She is a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and practices at Shady Grove Fertiltiy Center in Maryland. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on PCOS can be found here.

What are the latest developments that can help prevent IVF from faililng. What can infertility patients do to help their infertility treatment succeed. Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Sonia Elguero, board certified Reproductive Endocrinologist with Boston IVF.   Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on IVF can be found here.

Adoption and fertility treatment are expensive. Not everyone has the money just sitting around in their savings to spend. How does Dave Ramsey and the Financial Peace Program suggest raising the money needed for paying for IVF, donor egg or surrogacy or for adopting a child? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Chris Hogan, from Dave Ramsey's organization about the techniques discussed in Total Money Makeover and the Financial Peace University. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on paying for adoption or fertility treatments can be found here.

Do you think your child has ADHD? Could it be caused by diet, food allergies, low blood sugar, or lack of sleep? How to best diagnosis and treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Host Dawn Davenport interviews  Dr. Vincent Monastra, a clinical psychologist specializing in ADHD and author of Parenting Children with ADHD: 10 Lesson that Medicine Cannot Teach, published by the American Psychological Association. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on parenting children with ADHD can be found here.

The Universal Accreditation Act is now reality. How will it change international adoptions? If you have already applied to adopt, how will it affect you? Host Dawn Davenport will interview: Robin Sizemore, Founder and Executive Director of Hopscotch Adoptionsan international adoption agency in North Carolina and New York; and Nicole Skellenger, an Adoption Attorney and Chief Operating Officer at MLJ Adoptions, an international adoption agency based in Indianapolis, IN. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on international adoption can be found here.

How do chemical, hormones, and pesticides in our food and environment affect fertilty, pregnancy, and health of our families. Host Dawn Davenport interviews Dr. Tracey Woodruff, Director of the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at the University of California San Francisco about common environmental chemicals and exposures affect on getting pregnant and miscarriage. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on infertility and miscarriag can be found here.

What do you need to know about the genetics of a potential egg donor or sperm donor? What type of genetic testing is available both pre and post conception? Host Dawn Davenport will talk with Dr. Harvey Stern, Director of Genetics and the Fetal Diagnostic Center at Genetics & IVF Institute, and Medical Director of Fairfax Cryobank and of GIVF’s Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) program. He also supervises genetic screening for GIVF’s egg donors and for Fairfax Cryobank’s sperm donors. Dr. Lee Silver, a molecular biology professor at Princeton; author of over 200 research articles on genetics and computational modeling, as well as two of the leading academic genetic textbooks; and he is the founder and Chief Science Advisor at Genepeeks.  Stephanie Andriole, who is a gentics counselor at Comprehensive Genetics with a masters in Human Genetics where she advised both prenatal and preconception patients. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on egg and sperm donation can be found here.

Children adopted internationally need to be prepared in advance for what adoption means, and how their life will change. How can adoption professionals and parents help to prepare these kids. Host Dawn Davenport will interview two of the leading experts on orphans care and adoption. Dr. Jane Aronson is a pediatrician specializing in adoption medicine and is the CEO and President of Worldwide Orphans. She has been providing direct service to orphans for 20 years. Ms. Jayne Schooler is the author/co-author of seven books in the adoption field, including her newest, Wounded Children, Healing Homes: How Traumatized Children Impact Adoptive and Foster Parents. She has worked in orphanages in Kyrgyzstan, Poland and Ukraine. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on internation adoption can be found here.

More children are being conceived with donor egg, sperm, and embryo through third party reproduction and IVF. We can learn from the generation that went before who were conceived through donors in the past. What was their experience growing up? Did their parents tell them of their donor conception. Does their donor conception affect how they feel about their family? Join our panel of four adult who were conceived with the help of a donor. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on telling your children about their conception can be found here.

What is the safest, fastest, and cheapest way to get pregnant in fertility treatment? How long should you continue to try Clomid or Letrozole and/or artificial insemination (IUI) with our without injectables before moving to IVF? Host Dawn Davenport interviews Dr. Alison Zimon, a reproductive endocrinologist at Boston IVF, and Dr. Samantha Pfeifer, Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at University of Pennsylvania Medical School. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on infertility can be found here.

Most parents that conceive children with in vitro fertilization wonder about the short term and long term impact of this treatment on the children conceived. Are children conceived through infertility treatment more at risk for congenital defects; physical growth delays; neurological, cognitive, behavioral, and mental health issues; metabolic disease, or at an increased risk for cancer? What does a review of the latest research show? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Seetha Shankaran, Professor of Pediatrics and Director of Neonatal Perinatal Medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine, and author of comprehensive analysis of the literature on childhood and young adult outcome following assisted reproductive therapies.   Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on IVF can be found here.