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

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! 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. Support the show Pleas...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! 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...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! 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...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! 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...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! 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 specia...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! 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: Creat...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! 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 adopti...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! 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 ca...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! 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), a...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! 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 Di...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! 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...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! 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 i...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Infertility patients worry about the wrong embryos being transferred; their egg, sperm or embryos being mislabled; the wrong sperm being used to fertilize the egg, etc. Mistakes are rare, but infertility patients need to be prepared. What should you know to protect yourself? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr Jacob F Mayer, Embryologist at the Jones Institute for...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Raising a child with Attention Deficit Disorder is hard on kids and hard on parents. How to parent a child with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to avoid frustration for both parent and child. Host Dawn Davenport interviews the ADHD guru, Dr. Edward Hallowell, author of numerous books on ADD, including SuperParenting for ADD and Driven to Distraction. We&apos...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! How can Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) be used to treat infertility. Can acupuncture and TCM be used with western infertility medicine and  in vitro fertilization (IVF)? Will the fertility medications you are taking interfere with the effectiveness of Traditional Chinese Medicine? Host Dawn Davenport interviewed Dr Angela C. Wu, author of Fertility Wisdom: How Tr...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Should you have only one child? Is it fair to your child? Is it fair to you? Host Dawn Davenport will talk with Lauren Sandler, author of One and Only: The Freedom of Having an Only Child and the Joy of Being One. Blog summary of the show and highlights can be found here:   Blog summary of the show   Highlights   More Creating a Family resources on family size and ty...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! What happens inside an embryology lab at an infertility clinic? How important is the laboratory to the success of IVF. How do labs differ? Host Dawn Davenport will talk with embryologist Scott Kratka, senior embryologist at the Reproductive Science Center of New Jersey and Board Certified by the  American College of Embryology. Blog summary of the show and highlights...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Have you ever considered international adoption? Can you adopt from China, Korea, Taiwan, or Hong Kong? What are the requirements and how much does it cost? Host Dawn Our guests are Dana Woods, China Program Director at A Helping Hand Adoption Agency, located in Lexington, KY,  an affiliate of Nightlight Christian Adoptions; Kimberly Alls, Director of Adoption and th...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! The adoption tax credit is a great way to help fund your adoption, though it is often underutilized. Host Dawn Davenport will interview two of the leading experts on this confusing tax credit: Donald Cofsky, President of the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys and Josh Kroll, with the North American Council on Adoptable Children. adoption tax credit, adoption tax...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Should you become a single mother? What are your options? How do you raise healthy happy kids as a single parent? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Lee Varon, a clinical social worker, single adoptive mom of two, and author of two books for single people interested in adopting: "Adopting On Your Own: The Complete Guide to Adopting As A Single Parent" and &...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! What is the adoption process when adopting through an adoption attorney for those wanting to adopt a baby in the US? How do you find an adoption attorney? Who finds the prospective birth mothers? What questions should you ask before hiring? Host Dawn Davenport will interview four leading adoption attorneys: Colleen Quinn, Steve Kirsch, Jim Thompson, and Michael Golds...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Host Dawn Davenport will interview Dr. Charles Nelson, Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and one of the leading experts on how early childhood neglect, abuse, malnutrition, institutionalization, and prenatal environment affect children. adoption, adopting a child, adopting from foster care, foster care adoption, adopting a baby, international adoption...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Each expectant woman considering placing her child for adoption is looking for something special in the adoptive parent she chooses. What common factors do adoption agencies and adoption lawyers see in how birth mothers choose adoptive parents. How does age, marital status, health, and sexual orientation affect their choice? Host Dawn Davenport will interview Lark Co...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! The pain and losses of infertility and miscarriage are often not recognized by our society. It is hard to mourn a loss others do not see. This grief can hang around and impair our joy in our family through adoption, egg donation, sperm donation, or surrogacy. How do men and women process this grief in different ways. How can you resolve this grief. Our guests to talk...

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks! Egg donation, sperm donation, and surrogacy can have significant legal concerns. It is important that infertility patients considering egg or sperm donation or surrogacy think through these issues before hand. Host Dawn Davenport will interview two of the leading reproductive law attorneys on topics that should be considered by those using donor eggs, donor sperm, or...