Creating a Family: Talk about Infertility and Adoption

Research is beginning to come in on how infertility treatment affects the health of the children conceived. Does in vitro fertilization (IVF) or ICSI or artificial insemination cause birth defects, autism, nuero-developmental issues? Is freezing harmful to the children born from frozen embryos? Does Clomid cause harm to the babies? Our guest to help us sort out the often confusing results of this research is Dr.Thomas Molinaro, a reproductive endocrinologist with Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey and a researcher into the health effects of fertility treatment. 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.

How do uterine abnormalities affect the ability to get pregnant or carry a baby to term? Do they increase your chances for miscarriage or still birth? Is infertility treatment effective for women with müllerian anomalies. Our guests will be Dr. Robin Fogle, an Reproductive Endocrinolgist with the Atlanta Center for Reproductive Medicine and Dr.Thomas Trevett, Jr, a maternal and fetal medicine specialist with Atlanta Perinatal Consultants. Agenesis & hypoplasia: Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome, Unicornuate uterus (UU), Uterus didelphys (UD), Bicornuate uterus (BU), Septate uterus, DES-related uterus, Arcuate uterus (AU)

Interview with Dr. Ross Greene, Associate Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and author of The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children. How to help children, all kids, including adopted children, learn to control their frustration and anger. adoption, adopting from Ethiopia, adopting from China, adopting from foster care, adopting an older child, 

Join our guest Dr. Katja Rowell, The Feeding Doctor, and author of the new book "Love Me, Feed Me" to talk about some of the common food issues adoptive parents face—hoarding, gorging, pickiness, not eating, etc. domestic infant adoption, foster care adoption, adopting from foster care, international adoption, adopting from Ethiopia, adopting from China, adopting from Russia, adopting from Ghana, adopting from Africa, adopting from Korea

An interview with Craig Juntunen, Founder Both Ends Burning and Producer of a new documentary on International Adoption, Stuck, to talk about the ethics of international adoption and the delays.  Interntional adoption, adopting from Ethiopia, adopting from Vietnam, adopting from Russia, adopting from Haiti, ethics of international adoption

How can cord blood be used to help your child? What else should parents think about at birth to try to save or collect to potentially be used to treat disease or cancer?  And what exactly is “Wharton’s Jelly”? Our guests to talk about the potenitial uses for blood and tissue from the umbilical cord is Dr. Roni Bollag. Dr Bollag has a PhD in Genetics from Yale University and an MD from the Medical College of Georgia.  He is board-certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology and specialty certified in Transfusion Medicine/Blood Banking.  He is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology at the Medical College of Georgia, and also serves as laboratory director for the Cord Blood Service at Xytex Cryo in Augusta, GA.  We also have Dr. James Carroll, Chief of Child Neurology at Georgia Health Sciences University and Georgia Children’s Hospital. He has been involved with clinical and laboratory research in stem cells, cerebral palsy and brain injury for many years. pregnancy, trying to conceive, fertility treatment, infertility treatment

What does the latest research show on the emotional and mental health of adopted children? How do adoptees fare later in life? Our guest is Dr. Kathleen Whitten, a developmental psychologist and adoptive mother who researches the mental health of adopted children.   She has been a lecturer in psychology at Georgia State University and at the University of Virginia, where she was also a research faculty member at the Child-Parent Attachment Clinic, Department of Psychiatric Medicine.  She was named a Distinguished Fellow in Developmental Psychology by the National Council for Adoption in Washington, D.C. She is also the author of Labor of the Heart:  A Parent’s Guide to the Decisions and Emotions in Adoption. adoption, international adoption, foster care adoption, adopting a baby, adopting from foster care

It is tax time again, and adoptive parents have lots of questions about the Adoption Tax Credit for 2013. Our guest experts to talk about this credit are Mark McDermott, adoption attorney and adoption tax credit expert; and Josh Kroll, the adoption tax credit expert at the North American Council on Adoptable Children. adoption, adopting children, adoption tax credit, federal income tax, domestic adoption, adopting a baby, adopting a child, international adoption, adopting from Russia, adopting from foster care, adopting from China, adopting from South Korea, adopting from  Bulgaria

One of the hardest decisions to make when IVF fails is whether to try again. Your emotions and finances weigh heavily. If you knew the outcome it would be so much easier to decide. Our guests to talk about how to decide and what factors to consider are Dr. Mylene Yao, a Reproductive Endocrinologist, formerly on the faculty at Stanford University where she was a NIH-funded principal investigator looking into IVF prediction models that could personalize success rates for IVF patients. She co-founded Univfy Inc. to translate that research into user-friendly online prediction tests to bring personalized prediction to patients and doctors. We also have Dr. Philip Chenette, medical director at Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco. Dr. Chenette is among US News and World Reports' “Top Doctors” and was voted "Top Doctor" in San Francisco. Dr. Chenette is also the president of the Bay Area Reproductive Endocrine Society. Infertility, fertility, trying to conceive, IVF, ICSI, assisted reproduction, third party reproduction, donor egg, surrogacy, in vitro fertilization

How in the world do you explain something so complex as conception from donor egg, sperm or embryo to a child. When should you tell? How much detail is necessary? What words can you use?  Our guest to talk about the nitty gritty of telling is Patricia Mendell, therapist in NYC specializing in infertility and founding member of The American Fertility Association  and Currently Co-Chair of its Board of Directors. She is a member of the Mental Health Professionals Group of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. egg donation, sperm donation, embryo donation, embryo adoption, talking with children about conception, talking with children about sex and human reproduction

While sexual development follows much the same pattern for all children, there are some special issues that adopted children might face, including precocious puberty, the effects of childhood abuse or neglect on later sexual development, and questions about how the birds and bees applies to them. Our guest are Dr. Bradley Miller, a Pediatric Endocrinologist at the University of Minnesota and Joyce Maguire Pavao, a therapist specializing in adoption and an adjunct faculty member in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Early puberty, adopting older children, adopting from foster care, adopting from Russia, adopting from Ethiopia, adopting from Bulgaria, adopting from China, talking with children about sex, telling children about the birds and the bees

For years parents have followed the Beyond Consequences: A Love Based Approach to Helping Children with Severe Behaviors to help their children at home. But how can this approach be used in the school setting. Our guest is Heather Forbes,  co-founder of the Beyond Consequences Institute, author of Beyond Consequences, Logic, and Control: A Love-based Approach for Helping Children With Severe Behaviors, and mom to two children adopted as toddlers from Russia.

The diagnosis of cancer is terrifying. Amidst all the chaos, you need to think of your future fertility. Will you be left infertile? is there something you can do to perserve your option to get pregnant and have a biological child? Is it safe? What should you do? How to afford it? Our guests are Dr. Tessa Cigler, an oncologist at Cornell Medical Center and a Board member and Executive Committee member of the Alliance for Fertility Preservation. We also have Alice Crisci, founder of Fertile Action, a nonprofit with the mission of ensuring that fertile women touched by cancer have the option to preserve their fertility prior to treatment, cancer survivor, and author of Too Young for This. Cancer, Breast cancer, fertility, infertility, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, getting pregnant after cancer.

Many patients at some point decide that it is time to consider other options other than fertility treatment. The transition from treatment to adoption can be rough if patients aren't prepared. Our guests to help with this preparation are Stella Gilgur-Cook, LCSW, and Assistant Director of Outreach Spence-Chapin Services to Families & Children; and Pat Irwin Johnson, author of Adopting: Sound Choices, Strong Families. Fertility treatment, donor egg vs. adoption, embryo donation vs. adoption, adopting after infertility, going back into fertility treatment after having adopted

  The world of Special needs adoptions can be confusing. Parents need to explore the different types of special needs to determine which conditions and issues they can handle and which needs are beyond their comfort level to parent. Our guest, Dr. Mary Staat, Director, International Adoption Center at Cincinnati’s Children’s Medical Center, will walk us through the treatment, prognosis, and long term impacts of the most common special needs. Special Needs Adoptions, cleft lip/palate, heart murmur, albinism, amniotic band syndrome, Hepatitis C, HIV, AIDS, International adoption, domestic adoption, foster care adoptions