Joseph Tito is a Canadian influencer and author of the dad diaries.  He is a happy married man and the father of two beautiful twin girls.  But life was not always this way.  

If you are interested in any of the topics discussed in this episode...

Subscribe to the YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@thecenterforfamilybuilding

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Author: Building Your Family; The Complete Guide to Donor Conception https://read.macmillan.com/lp/building-your-family/

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Oprah’s film pick, Eggs Over Easy, was directed by this week's guest, Chiquita Lockely, who is a ray of sunshine and hope.  She has created a platform for fertility treatment for women of color and has been a leader in advocacy and support in her community. 

In this episode, Chiquita dove into big issues like inequality for people of color, why black men are reluctant to donate their sperm, cultural issues that the black community faces around therapy, fertility, and more.

She hopes to continue to help educate and inspire the black community to get the resources they need to build their families, increase awareness, and garner support for inclusion, outreach, and improved access to fertility treatment.

If you have ever been interested in any of these topics, this is an episode you won’t want to miss. Chiquita has amazing insights and generously shares them with us.

This podcast helps me share good information at no cost to you.  So, if you like the episode, please give it a thumbs up and make sure to press the subscribe button.

Thank you.

If you are interested in any of the topics discussed in this episode...

Subscribe to the YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@thecenterforfamilybuilding

You can also find me and lots of great resources at https://familybuilding.net/

Join our community, We would love to have you. https://familybuilding.net/newsletter-sign-up/

Author: Building Your Family; The Complete Guide to Donor Conception https://read.macmillan.com/lp/building-your-family/

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I hope you enjoyed part one of this two-part series on surrogacy. If you have not yet seen part one, I urge you to watch it. It is full of useful information to help you have the best relationship with your surrogate. This is important for you, and for your surrogate, but it's also important to be able to have a beautiful journey that you can document for your future child to treasure forever.  For more information on chronicling your journey, please take a look at My Lifebook at ( https://familybuilding.net/product/).

This podcast helps me share good information at no cost to you. So, if you like the episode, please give it a thumbs up and press subscribe.

Thank you.

Lisa

If you are interested in any of the topics discussed in this episode...

Subscribe to the YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@thecenterforfamilybuilding

You can also find me and lots of great resources at https://familybuilding.net/

Join our community, We would love to have you. https://familybuilding.net/newsletter-sign-up/

Author: Building Your Family; The Complete Guide to Donor Conception https://read.macmillan.com/lp/building-your-family/

Follow me here:

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For two consecutive weeks, I will be talking about surrogacy.  This first episode will cover some ways to optimize your relationship with your gestational carrier. This is incredibly important.  It is important for all involved to have a meaningful journey, and those positive experiences can be documented and used as part of your child’s narrative (for more information see My Lifebook https://familybuilding.net/product/), Last, if something goes wrong (and hopefully it won’t), everyone will have the tools in place to make decisions together more productively. 

And if you like the episode please give it a thumbs up and subscribe.

Thank you for tuning in.

If you are interested in any of the topics discussed in this episode...

Subscribe to the YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@thecenterforfamilybuilding

You can also find me and lots of great resources at https://familybuilding.net/

Join our community, We would love to have you. https://familybuilding.net/newsletter-sign-up/

Author: Building Your Family; The Complete Guide to Donor Conception https://read.macmillan.com/lp/building-your-family/

Follow me here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecenterforfamilybuilding/

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Looking for My Lifebook? https://a.co/d/deSACrM

Nicole Gomez Fisher is the writer, director and producer of the feature film “Sleeping with the Fishes” and “The Good Egg” which was inspired by her fertility journey and decision to use donor eggs to build her family.  Her films have been featured on HBO and are available on Amazon Prime Video. Nicole has also acted and worked on many other films and television shows, but her favorite role, by far, is mom.

In this week’s podcast you will hear about her many struggles and circuitous pathway to parenthood.  

Sharing her feelings on social media has been difficult for Nicole.  Sadly, she has received backlash in many online communities for discussing her inner conflicts.  I applaud Nicole for her openness. Many women with infertility experience the same feelings that Nicole has felt and feel fearful about sharing them publicly.

Listen to Nicole share her journey, how she finally built her family, and why she decided to turn her heartache into a full-length feature comedy.

If you are interested in any of the topics discussed in this episode...

Subscribe to the YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@thecenterforfamilybuilding

You can also find me and lots of great resources at https://familybuilding.net/

Join our community, We would love to have you. https://familybuilding.net/newsletter-sign-up/

Author: Building Your Family; The Complete Guide to Donor Conception https://read.macmillan.com/lp/building-your-family/

Follow me here:

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Looking for My Lifebook? https://a.co/d/deSACrM

Chloe Melas is a reporter for the Today Show, an author, and an advocate.  In this episode you will hear about all of her incredible pursuits and most of all, her infertility journey, which led to her two beautiful boys.  After much heartache, Chloe decided to open up about her experiences to People magazine, CNN and now to us.

If you are interested in any of the topics discussed in this episode...

Subscribe to the YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@thecenterforfamilybuilding

You can also find me and lots of great resources at https://familybuilding.net/

Join our community, We would love to have you. https://familybuilding.net/newsletter-sign-up/

Author: Building Your Family; The Complete Guide to Donor Conception https://read.macmillan.com/lp/building-your-family/

Follow me here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecenterforfamilybuilding/

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Looking for My Lifebook? https://a.co/d/deSACrM

The gold medalist joins us on the show to share her difficulties through her five year journey to have a baby, including all of the losses and treatments she endured.  Tara reflects on how the attributes that made her an international superstar also made fertility treatment more difficult, how she and her husband Todd, struggled with their different perspectives and through their hurts, developed a greater closeness.

She opens up about her fears of pregnancy and loss and how her experiences have changed her life forever.  This journey led Tara and her husband to create their podcast, called "Unexpecting", where they chronicle their journey and speak openly about feelings and experiences they never spoke about before with the wish that their story will give others hope, and comfort in knowing that they are not alone.

Tara is brave, resilient, and so incredibly articulate about feelings that so many of us have, but so few share.  This is an episode not to be missed!

If you are interested in any of the topics discussed in this episode...

Subscribe to the YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@thecenterforfamilybuilding

You can also find me and lots of great resources at https://familybuilding.net/

Join our community, We would love to have you. https://familybuilding.net/newsletter-sign-up/

Author: Building Your Family; The Complete Guide to Donor Conception https://read.macmillan.com/lp/building-your-family/

Follow me here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecenterforfamilybuilding/

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Looking for My Lifebook? https://a.co/d/deSACrM

Most of us know that if you used a third party to help you build your family, or if you are adopting, it is essential to share this with your child. We also know that "early and often" works best for the children and the parents.  Talking to your child early and often helps your child integrate their sense of who they are from the beginning.  It has also been shown to help children have better relationships with their parents and to have a positive impact on their teen years. 

When we practice things, we get better, and sharing with your child how you built your family can feel uncomfortable or even awkward at best.  Practicing your narrative, trying on different versions of your story and getting to a place where you can craft a narrative that feels like it suits your family is an important process. Practicing that story will help you get the kinks out and help your child feel more comfortable with their story as well.  By the time it becomes natural for you to tell it, your child will begin to hear the story, or even just pick up words or phrases and those words will feel natural. This in turn can help your child feel like their story is a good story, and their story is simply the way you created your family.

If you are interested in any of the topics discussed in this episode...

Subscribe to the YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@thecenterforfamilybuilding

You can also find me and lots of great resources at https://familybuilding.net/

Join our community, We would love to have you. https://familybuilding.net/newsletter-sign-up/

Author: Building Your Family; The Complete Guide to Donor Conception https://read.macmillan.com/lp/building-your-family/

Follow me here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecenterforfamilybuilding/

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Looking for My Lifebook? https://a.co/d/deSACrM

Peter Boni was donor conceived long before 23 and Me was even an idea.  So you can imagine how difficult it was, especially when there was even more shame around donor conception, to come to terms with it and then search for genetic relatives.  As with most people, there were other issues in his life that made making peace with being donor conceived even more difficult.

Peter has written a book about his experiences and has become an advocate of rights for the donor conceived community. In this episode, he will share his journey to discovery.   

Peter will also discuss some ways to fix the problems in the industry and will offer some suggestions for putting guard rails on the process to minimize the number of people who can donate multiple times and create tens, and even hundreds of donor related siblings.

This episode is a little different from previous episodes because it focuses on the donor conception industry, rather than conceiving or parenting, but is also very important for us to understand.

If you are interested in any of the topics discussed in this episode...

Subscribe to the YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@thecenterforfamilybuilding

You can also find me and lots of great resources at https://familybuilding.net/

Join our community, We would love to have you. https://familybuilding.net/newsletter-sign-up/

Author: Building Your Family; The Complete Guide to Donor Conception https://read.macmillan.com/lp/building-your-family/

Follow me here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecenterforfamilybuilding/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FamilyBuild

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@familybuildingcenter

Looking for My Lifebook? https://a.co/d/deSACrM

If you have been up and down the fertility roller-coaster, you have spent a great deal of time, effort and money trying to have a baby, but have likely had little time to think about the pregnancy.

Or, if you are like me, you may feel too nervous to think about the pregnancy for fear of jinxing it or setting yourself up for possible disappointment. 

However, at some point, you need to turn your thoughts to the pregnancy. Whether you are getting pregnant, or working with someone who will be carrying the pregnancy for you, there is much to learn.

In this episode, Aimee Raupp will tell us what we need to know about supporting the pregnancy and the baby. She is a nutritionist and an acupuncturist and has taught hundreds of people how make changes, big and small, to support the pregnancy and have a better delivery.

She talks about helpful foods, how to remove toxins from your environment, the benefits of acupuncture, and how to decipher what is most important from the issues that are not as important. Her advice is invaluable. 

Aimee will teach us not to be so hard on ourselves and provide us with simple and easy to implement tips that can be beneficial for everyone.

If you are interested in any of the topics discussed in this episode...

Subscribe to the YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@thecenterforfamilybuilding

You can also find me and lots of great resources at https://familybuilding.net/

Join our community, We would love to have you. https://familybuilding.net/newsletter-sign-up/

Author: Building Your Family; The Complete Guide to Donor Conception https://read.macmillan.com/lp/building-your-family/

Follow me here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecenterforfamilybuilding/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/FamilyBuild

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@familybuildingcenter

Looking for My Lifebook? https://a.co/d/deSACrM