Creating a Family: Talk about Infertility and Adoption

What is transgender? Does it differ from gender non-conforming, gender dysphoria, sexual orientation, or gender variant? What are the causes and how can parents best raise a child that is transgender? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Jo Olson, an Adolescent Medicine physician specializing in the care of transgender youth and gender variant children. She is the director of the largest clinic in the United States for transgender youth at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. Kim Pearson, co-founder and Training Director for TransYouth Family Allies, and proud mother of a happy, healthy, transgender son. "Anne", mother of an 8 year old transgender child whose assigned gender at birth was male. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on parenting after adoption and infertility can be found here.

How in the world does an average family pay for an infant domestic adoption or international adoption? What options are available for financing adoptions? What grants and loans are available? Host Dawn Davenport will interview the following panel: Natalie De Prat, with American Christian Credit Union; Cherri Walrod, with Resources 4 Adoption; and Kelly Ellison, with Your Adoption Finance Coach. Domestic adoption, baby adoption, international adoption, adopting from China, adopting from Ethiopia, infant adoption, Chinese adoptions, Ethiopian adoptions, adopting from Korea, Korean adoptions, adoption agencies, adopting from DRC, adopting from Colombia, adopting from Thailand, adopting from Taiwan   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 can be found here.

Fertility declines with age, but what can women do to increase the odds of getting pregnant over the age of 40 with or without using infertility treatment? Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education organization, interviews Dr. Marcy Maquire, board certified reproductive endocrinologist with RMA of New Jersey, and Clinical Assistant Professor of Reproductive Endocrinology at the Robert Wood Johnson 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 becoming an older parent can be found here.

Host Dawn Davenport interviewed Dr. Ira Chasnoff, one of the nation's leading researchers studying the effects of maternal alcohol and drug use on the newborn infant and child. 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.

Children adopted from foster care or from an orphanage abroad have likely experienced some level of trauma from abuse, neglect, or malnutrition. What can adoptive parents do to help? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Bruce Perry, child psychiatrist and founder of Child Trauma Academy, and author of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog. Dr. Perry has been consulted on how to help children involved with the following high profile incidents involving traumatized children such as the Branch Davidian siege in Waco (1993), the Oklahoma City bombing (1995), the Columbine school shootings (1999), the September 11th terrorist attacks (2001), Hurricane Katrina (2005), the FLDS polygamist sect (2008), the earthquake in Haiti (2010), the tsunami in Tohoku Japan (2011) and the Sandy Hook Elementary school shootings (2012).  foster care adoption, international adoption, special needs adoption, older child adoption, toddler adoption, orphan care Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on parenting after adoption can be found here.

Raising children who have been abused or neglected is different from raising children who have not experienced trauma. Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Karyn Purvis, author of The Connected Child and Director of the Institute of Child Development at Texas Christian University, about how abuse, neglect and institutionalization affects children in the short term and long term, and what parenting techniques work for these children from hard places. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on attachment can be found here.

IVF and other infertility treatments are expensive and often not coverered by health insurance. Host Dawn Davenport talks with two pioneers in the field of fertility medicine about way and options to lower the cost of fertility treatments, including IVF. Dr. Joe Massey, a reproductive endocrinologist at Servy Massey Fertility Institute. He was involved with the first ICSI pregnancy in the US, the first US egg freezing in the US, and the world’s first successful assisted hatching procedures. Dr. Fran Yelian, a MD, PhD reproductive endocrinologist with Life IVF Center in Irvine, California. He specializes in minimal stimulation IVF and natural cycle IVF, as well as traditional infertility treatments. Recently, Dr. Yelian took a sabbatical leave to work at Kato Ladies Clinic in Japan where he mastered the new techniques and skills of Natural Cycle IVF and Minimal Stimulation IVF.  Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on Minimal Stimulation IVF and Natural Cycle IVF can be found here.

Is infertility experienced differently by the fertile partner in a relationship? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Andrea Braverman, a Clinical Associate Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of OB/Gyn and Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University.  Since 1985, Dr. Braverman has worked as a health psychologist with a specialty in infertility counseling, third party reproduction and medical health management issues. infertility, male infertility, egg donation, sperm donor, egg donor, adoption Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights    More Creating a Family resources on donor coping with infertility can be found here.

Sometimes our adopted kids come to us from a history in their birth families or drug abuse, rape, incest, abuse, or prison. Should adoptive parents share this information with the adopted child? If so, how? Host Dawn Davenport will talk with Beth O'Malley, author of many books about preparing lifebooks for adopted and foster children,  including Lifebooks: Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child; and Angela Magnuson, a licensed professional counselor with Bethany Christian Services with specialized adoption training through Rutger’s Certificate Program in Adoption and seven years experience working with foster, kinship and pre and post adoptive families. adoption, foster care adoption, international adoption, lifebooks, domestic adoption, adopting a baby Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on lifebooks and parenting after adoption can be found here.

Adoptive parents are often asked to be present at the hospital in open adoptions. This emotional time is complex for both adoptive and birth parents to navigate and hospital staff often do not help. Host Dawn Davenport will speak with Dr. Jennifer Bliss, the National Associate Counseling Director at the Independent Adoption Center, a non-profit domestic infant adoption agency; and Rebecca Vahle, Adoption Program Coordinator and founder of the Family to Family Adoption Support Program at Parker Adventist Hospital in Parker, Co - just southeast of Denver. open adoption, domestic adoption, adopting a baby in the US, American adoption, adopting an infant, infant adoption. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on open adoption can be found here.

How does your weight or Body Mass Index (BMI) affect your fertility. Does it alter your chances of success with infertility treatment. How does Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) affect fertility and infertility treatment. Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Allison Styne, a reproductive endocrinologist with RMA New York. 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 PCOS can be found here.

Adoptive parents wanting to adopt a baby in the US must prepare an adoptive parent portfolio, also known as an adoptive parent profile. To learn more about how to prepare an adoptive parent profile, host Dawn Davenport interviewed Madeleine Melcher, an adoptee, mother of three through adoption, the owner of Our Journey to You (an adoption portfolio design company), and author of the new book How to Create a Successful Adoption Portfolio: Easy Steps to Help You Produce the Best Adoption Profile and Prospective Birthparent Letter; and Aki Parker, the National Marketing and Design Associate at the North Carolina branch of the Independent Adoption Center.  In addition to marketing/designing nationally, she has also worked with adoptive families providing consultation on their letters and online profiles. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on donor insemination can be found here.

Should you adopt a child with cleft lip or cleft palate. What is involved with this special need? Host Dawn Davenport interviews four medical specialist working with chidlren with cleft lip/palate:  Dr. Andrea Smith a dentist specializing in dental and facial Prosthetics, in fact  she is one of only 350 Maxillofacial Prosthodontists worldwide. She is also Clinical Director at Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic in Lancaster Penn.  We also have Dr. Thomas Samson Pediatric Plastic Surgeon at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. Hi is co-director of the Penn State Hershey Craniofacial Clinic and the Penn State Hershey Vascular Anomalies Clinic. Abbie Ellis is a feeding specialist at the Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic. And of course no show on cleft impairment would be complete without a speech therapist. We are pleased to have Maureen Rostolsky, she has her Masters in Speech Pathology and specializes in working with children with cleft lip and palate at the Lancaster Cleft Palate Clinic. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on donor insemination can be found here.

How much of our personality traits, temperament, talents, health conditions, mental illness, and intelligence are controlled by our genes and how much by our environment? Which trumps in parenting: Nature vs. Nurture? What relevance does this have to us as parents? Host Dawn Davenport interviews Dr. Matt McGue, a behavioral and quantitative geneticist and director of the Minnesota Twin Study; and Dr. Kerry Jang, a Professor with the UBC Department of Psychiatry. Highlights of the show can be found here:   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on nature vs. nurture can be found here.

One of the hardest things many adoptive parents have to do is to decide if the risks or special needs of a particular birth mother match or referral are too great for them to handle. What are the likely effects of prenatal exposures to drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes? What if their is a history of mental illness in the birth parents family. What is the child has been in an orphanage for years? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Dana Johnson, Director of the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota and Professor of Neonatology, about what factor are red flags, what questions to ask, and how to interpret the scant medical history provided. Highlights of the show can be found here:   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on adoption can be found here.