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

Can you breastfeed your adopted baby or baby born through surrogacyor gestational carrier? Yes you can! Join our guests Dr. Lenore Goldfarb, Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Founder of the Goldfarb Breastfeeding Clinic at the Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Canada, President of the Canadian Breastfeeding Foundation, and co-Author of Newman-Goldfarb Protocols for Induced Lactation. She is also a mom through surrogacy and successfully breastfed her two sons. We also have two moms through adoption who successfully breastfed. One who adopted domestically at birth, and one who adopted internationally and her son was 7 months old at adoption.

Transracial adoption “works”, but what exactly can parents do to help ensure that their children will grow up with a happy and health with a well formed racial identity. Join our guest Beth Hall, Founder and Director of PACT, a multicultural adoption organization dedicated to addressing essential issues affecting adopted children of color, and co-author of Inside Transracial Adoption. Natasha Sky is a multiracial woman and mother of four young multiracial children, who joined her family through birth and adoption. Natasha created the MultiracialSky website, a collection of resources for multiracial families.

Infertility affects millions in the US, but the cost of fertility treatment is beyond the reach of many. In this first of a three part series, we will talk about grants and loans for fertility treatment as well as programs offered by many fertility clinics such as shared risk, bundled plans, refunds, and discounts. Join our guests Dr. Camille Hammond founder and Exec. Director of the Cade Foundation, a nonprofit providing financial assistance and grants to families pursuing infertility treatment or adoption; and Dr. David Adamson a reproductive endocrinologist and Director of Fertility Physicians of Northern California in Palo Alto and San Jose, California. He is also the founder of Advanced Reproductive Care, a national network of infertility clinics innovative clinical and financial programs. ARC’s clinics are now in 40 states and currently provide approximately one-third of the in vitro fertilization services in the United States.

Infertility can rob you of so many things—including happiness. Is it possible to still be happy when in the midst of infertility. Join Dr. Ali Domar, international leader in the field of mind/body medicine and women’s health, founder of The Domar Center for Mind/Body Health, and author of numerous books including Conquering Infertility and Being Happy Without Being Perfect.

Waiting times for domestic adoption is often dependent on how open adoptive parents are to health and legal “risk factors”. Common risk factors include prenatal exposures, familial history of mental illness or depression, incest, and unknown birth father. We will talk about how adoptive parents can evaluate the common risk factors and know whether to accept this birth mother match. Join our guests Dr. Meg Hayes, an adoption medicine specialist with Adoption Health Services at Oregon Health & Science University and Denise Hoppenhauer, Adoption Case Manager with Beacon House Adoption Services, President of the SC Adoption Coalition for Education and Support, and author of Adopting A Toddler.

How in the world do you choose a country to adopt from in international adoption. We will present a systematic step by step process for choosing a country for international adoption. Our guest is Dawn Davenport, Exec. Director of Creating a Family, a nonprofit providing education and support for adoption and infertility, and author of The Complete Book of International Adoption.

Join our guest Beth Heller, a yoga teacher, a nutritionist, Co-Founder of Pulling Down the Moon Integrative Care for Fertility, and Co-Author of the book Fully Fertile to discuss of to use healing techniques like yoga, nutrition, acupuncture and community support to enhance fertility treatment.

What can you do everyday to increase your chances of getting pregnant? Join our guest, Dr. Alan Copperman, Director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, Vice-Chairman of the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science at Mount Sinai Medical Center, and Co-Medical Director of Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York.

How do we raise our kids to be resilient and self disciplined? Join our guest Dr. Robert Brooks, Psychology Professor at Harvard and author of Raising Resilient Children and Raising a Self-Disciplined Child. He is so practical and wise. I love his books.

Adoptive parents are told that they must incorporate their child's birth culture into thier life in order to raise healthy adopted children. Can you go overboard? Join our guests Mei-Ling Hopgood, adopted from Taiwan as an infant, and author of the book Lucky Girl. Joy Lieberthal was adopted from Korean at 5, and is a social worker and therapist in private practice in New York City.