Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! We tell people that they should use the CDC or SART Infertility Clinic Success Statistics when choosing a fertility clinic, but we often fail to tell people how to interpret these statistics. Which ones are important and which ones can we ignore?  Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and suppo...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! How are the children and parents in alternative/non-traditional families doing? Families through IVF and donor conception, as well as single moms by choice and same sex families are increasing, but how are they doing, and how are the children developing? Are these new family forms harmful to children?  Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! What issues should families consider when adopting or fostering a child that may have been sexually abused? What are warning signs of past sexual abuse? How can these children be helped while not endangering children already in the home.  Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support organi...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! It is possible to do an independent adoption without using an adoption agency.  Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support organization, interviews two of the top adoption attorneys that facilitate independent adoptions in the US: Steven M. Kirsh and Mark McDermott. Creating a Family has...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! What should every fertility patient know about embryology labs before going through treatment. Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support organization, interviews two of the leading embryologist to find out what patients should know and what advances are on the horizon to improve success...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Parenting children tweens and teen requires a different approach than parenting preschool and school aged children. No where is this more true than when parenting transracially adopted kids. It helps to think about these differences when our children are young. Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption educa...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! How much of our children's basic temperament, their mental health, their intelligence, their learning disabilities, and all the things that make them who they are comes from their genes and how much from their environment. What can we learn about genetics vs. environment from the ongoing twin studies, including the study of twins separated at birth? Host Dawn Da...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Which embryos in IVF are more likely to implant and grow for 9 months and result in a healthy baby? What can patients and doctors do to select the best embryo to give you the best chance of a successful pregnancy? Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support organization, interviews Dr. Ma...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Parenting a child that constantly argues, is often moodly, and is generaly disagreeable is difficult and often feels impossible. Some of these children will be diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and some will never be diagnosed. What causes children to be this way, and what parenting techniques work? Host Dawn Davenport, Executive Director of Creating a Fam...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Can diet affect your fertility? What foods will increase your fertility or increase your chances of conceiving with infertility treatments, such as IVF? Can adding or avoiding specific foods increase the odds that you will conceive with or without infertility treatment or in vitro fertilization (IVF)? Host Dawn Davenport interviews Dr. Jeffrey Russell, Director of th...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! It's time for our annual adoption tax credit show. If you had adoption expenses in 2014, can you get a federal tax credit for them? Is this tax credit applicable to foster care adoption, or international adoption, or infant adoption? Can you claim birth mother expenses. Host Dawn Davenport, Exec. Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adop...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Embryo donation (also known as embryo adoption) can be confusing. One of the question we receive the most is how to find embryos that another couple has donated. Host Dawn Davenport, Exeutive Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support organization, will interview Kimberly Tyson, Director of the Embryo Adoption Awarene...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Should genetic screening become a standard part of IVF? Who should consider this option and for what reasons? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Jessica Mann, a Board Certified Reproductive Endocrinologist with Reproductive Science Center of New Jersey.   Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Cre...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! What causes premature menopause or ovarian failure? What are the symptoms?  What can you do to prevent and treat it? Host Dawn Davenport, Exec. Director of Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support organization, will interview Dr. Mark Perloe, Medical Director of Georgia Reproductive Specialists in Atlanta. He received trained a...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! What lifestyle choices affect your ability to conceive or the odds of fertility treatment working? How do diet, drinking alcohol, and exercise affect getting pregnant and miscarriage risk. Do supplements work? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Sheeva Talebian, a board certified Reproductive Endocrinologist and infertility specialist at Reproductive Medicine Asso...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Adopting two unrelated children or babies at the same time is a controversial topic with adoption professionals? Should you consider adopting two children when going abroad to adopt? What about if you are fortunate enough to have two expectant moms choose you for a domestic infant adoption? What are the pros and cons to adopting two children at the same time? Host Da...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Adopting a baby in the US can be confusing. Where do you find a child to adopt? How long does it take?  Should you use an adoption consultant, adoption facilitator, or adoption attorney. What is the difference and will is cost more or less and will it be faster? Host Dawn Davenport, Exec. Director of Creating a Family, the national adoption & infertility educatio...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! What causes miscarriage and what can women do to prevent them. Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Ruth Lathi is Director of the Recurrent Pregnancy Loss program at Stanford University, and Associate Professor in Obstetrics & Gynecology at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is board certified in Reproductive Endocrinology & Infertility. Dr. Lathi...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!   Transracial adoption is becoming increasingly popular in the US. There are issues unique to parenting a child of a different race. Our guest is Dr. Marlene Fine. She is a Professor Emerita from Simmons College in Boston MA specializing in issues related to race, racial identity, and interracial communication, and the co-author with her spouse, Fern Johnson, of The...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Time Magazine’s cover story on parental favoritism got to me.  I literally argued out loud with the author while reading.  It seemed only fare to have him on the show so we could argue in person.  Jeffrey Kluger, author of the new book The Sibling Effect: What the Bonds Among Brothers and Sisters Reveal About Us, and an editor and science reporter at Time, will be ou...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Having trouble paying for your fertility treatment? Are you considering borrowing money to pay for treatment? Host Dawn Davenport will be talking with representatives of the leading lending entities that lend specifically for paying for infertility treatment. You must listen to this show if you are considering taking out a loan for fertility treatment. Blog summary o...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! What are some of the ethical issues to think about before using donor sperm to create your family? How many times should a man be allowed to donate? How much screening should be done on donors? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Ole Schou, founder and CEO of Cryos International – the largest sperm bank in the world according to Guinness Book of Records. Cryos' s...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! A diagnosis of cancer is devastating on so many different levels. Often patients are so overwhelmed that the last thing they think about is getting on with their life once treatment is past. This would include taking action now to preserve their option to have children after cancer. Host Dawn Davenport talks with Dr. Michelle Ottey, Laboratory Director for Fairfax Cr...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! We try not to separate siblings in adoption when possible, but adopting siblings brings special consideration for adoptive parents. Our guests to talk about sibling adoption are Kimberly Offutt, a social worker at Bethany Christian Services and  Erin Q. Nasmyth, a licensed clinical social worker with Hopscotch Adoptions, who has spent spent the last ten years working...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Open adoption is the norm in for domestic infant adoptions in the US and becoming more common in foster care adoption and international adoption. Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Hal Grotevant and Dr. Ruth McRoy, long time researchers on the impact of openness on all members of the adoption triad, and lead researchers of the Minnesota / Texas Adoption Research...