How We Became A Family

Fathers Parenting Our Boys

father-son_w

This is Father's Day weekend in the US. We honor fathers with extroverted actions of affection and appreciation with handmade gifts from the heart. Yet we know that no matter what we give on Father's Day to express our feelings, it can only be an approximation.

Expressing our feelings as adults is more natural for some than others. And much of it stems from our upbringing. As parents of donor conceived children, we know that genes don't make a family; it's the feelings of love, acceptance, care, and nurturing that makes a family. We know that skin color, race or gender isn't what keeps us from this love, or from being a family.

Fathers of donor conceived children know this, because using a sperm donor or an egg donor to help create their family has had to shift their feelings and minds to move beyond the traditional concept of "family." They know deep down that it's love that matters. We show our children how to love, by the way we demonstrate our feelings of love; to ourselves, our partners, our spouses and to them.

Fathers are esential in their roles, in expressing their feelings, especially with our sons. Our children converse with us on an emotional level from the very moment they are born. They get their needs met by expressing their feelings of hunger, comfort and satisfaction on a very basic level. Either they are feeling happy or unhappy, content or non-content. So why and when is it, that they slowly stop expressing and talking about their feelings so much - toddlerhood, preteen, teenager? Why is it ok for babies to express their feelings and not older children?

Generally, when it comes to feelings, mothers seem to connect to them more readily and openly than fathers, partly because it is culturally driven. Women and mothers have more permission to be emotional. Support is more widely available to them much more so than to men and fathers. Emotions and feelings are a part of life. And a part of growing up is being able to recognize, decipher, understand and share them openly and honestly. Our feelings tell us everything about ourselves if we are willing to pay attention and listen to them. The very thing that many men, fathers and boys are not encouraged to listen to, let alone express.

As our children grow, their world becomes more complex as they navigate their feelings and see how they are either accepted or rejected by those around them in their families, in their classrooms, and on the playground. Are they being allowed to show their feelings, to simply be themselves and most importantly do they feel safe in doing so? Are their feelings of curiosity, fear and anxiety being acknowledged or negated? If their feelings get shut down repeatedly from an early age, with nonchalant responses from us such as "don't cry," what does that teach them? Does it help them or does it reinforce the message that their feelings don't matter or have value?

Fathers have generally gotten the short end of the parenting stick, as far as recognition goes but times are changing. There is more support available to them now. They are more commonly seen nurturing the young, are stay-at-home-dads and generally becoming more open and recognized as "nurturers" in our culture and we can truly appreciate everything that means on all levels of our society.

This video trailer is by Documentarian Jennifer Sibel Newsome. She created the project through her organization called "The Representation Project," as a way to show what we’re doing to boys and how it affects them as they grow into manhood. This work is hopeful, and says a lot about the challenges our fathers have faced themselves expressing their own feelings as young boys and are now courageously addressing them, especially when it comes to raising our boys. Thank you to all the fathers who are aware of this, and taking action. Please share.

"They really buy into a culture that doesn't value what we've feminized. If we are in a culture that doesn't value caring, doesn't value relationships, doesn't value empathy, you are going to have boys and girls, men and women go crazy." - Dr. Niobe Way, Psychologist & Educator
The Representation Project is a movement that uses film and media content to expose injustices created by gender stereotypes and to shift people's consciousness towards change. Learn more here.
Read more →

Doctors Humbled by Ability to Help More Families

Bear-Family-LGBT_w
We have the best job in the world, bar none. We are privileged every single day to walk alongside people pursuing what is, and will most likely always be, the biggest dream of their lifetime: creating a family. We find ourselves in the midst of a gigantic social change, if not a global movement, and

Read more →

Happy Mother's Day!

crown Give yourself a smile, a pat on the back, and try not to cry at the end of this video. http://youtu.be/HB3xM93rXbY

Read more →

Parenting After Infertility Infographic

TellYourChild-FNL
Read more →

Let's Get Rid of Secrecy Within Donor-Conceived Families

SpermEgg_ Written By Naomi Cahn and Wendy Kramer From movies like The Kids Are All Right and Delivery Man to the MTV reality showGeneration Cryo, donor-conceived children in fiction and real life are growing up and attempting to find out where they came from. But what about all of the kids who don’t know how they were conceived? As we write in our new book, Finding Our Families, a majority of married straight couples still don’t tell their children if they used donor eggs or sperm to get pregnant. Secrecy has long been intimately intertwined with donor conception. Once upon a time, non-disclosure was standard. Almost no one talked about whether they had used a donor, and the donors themselves didn’t worry that their biological offspring might come knocking. This culture of secrecy meant that many parents with donor-conceived children didn’t think about disclosure, because no one ever told them that it might be the right thing to do for their children. Most children didn’t know they were donor-conceived, so they never asked questions. Sperm banks and, more recently, egg donation programs drew on traditional adoption practices and beliefs—keeping health or genetic information private, never telling the adopted that they were not the biological children of their parents. Keeping the secret was seen as protecting the entire family from stress and pain. The adoption world moved long ago towards telling children the truth about their origins, but change has been much slower for the donor-conceived. While professional organizations now advocate disclosure, some parents still struggle with whether, when, and how to tell, and many still will not do so. Parents have a number of reasons to worry about telling, and have told us:
I don’t want to confuse my child and disrupt her normal childhood. I don’t want to revisit those uncomfortable feelings of shame about infertility. If I tell my child, then I’ll have to tell family members and friends as well. I know I probably should tell, but I fear my child will become angry and reject me when she finally finds out. She might feel more connected to her genetically related parent and not to me. I don’t think my child needs to know unless the fact of her donor conception becomes important, such as for medical reasons. My partner and I disagree over whether to disclose. I worry that telling is not the end of the dialogue or the story, and that I may be unable to answer my child’s questions about her genetics or ancestry, so better not to begin the conversation at all. I don’t want my child to think that genetics are all that important.
So, yes, the decision to talk about donor conception, even if you value familial honesty, can be hard. But according to a new study of egg-donor families by researchers at Weill-Cornell Medical College, early disclosure is best for the whole family. Researchers found that parents who told their children before they turned 10 reported no anxiety relating to disclosure and expressed full confidence that they had done the right thing. By contrast, among the non-disclosing families, there were high levels of anxiety as they waited for the “right time” to tell, and found themselves confronting the challenge of disclosing to teenagers or young adults. And in a systematic review of 43 studies on the disclosure decision-making process for heterosexual couples who had used donor eggs, sperm, and embryos, researchers found that the parents who disclosed emphasized children’s best interests, their rights to know that they are donor-conceived, honesty as an essential component of the parent-child relationship, and the stress inherent in keeping a secret. By contrast, while those parents who had not disclosed also emphasized the best interests of their children, they saw no benefit from disclosure and wanted to protect the child from stigma or other damage. In some families, of course, disclosure decisions are fairly easy. Donor conception is difficult to hide in single parent and LGBT families, and research shows that children in those families learn at an earlier age than do children in heterosexual families. It’s the increasing number of these non-“traditional” families that has helped bring much more openness to the donor conception process. As we write in our book, not telling your child does not render the fact of the conception irrelevant. Reminders about donor conception will frequently come up, perhaps as you or others try to figure out why your child is so tall, or so good at math, or so outgoing. When your pediatrician asks about your child’s medical history, you will have to lie. You may feel uncomfortable when friends talk easily about how much their children look like them, or when they share with you their struggles on how to explain to their children how Daddy planted that seed in Mommy’s belly. This secrecy around donor conception is a heavy load to carry, and the layers of deception build up. The best-kept secret can warp family life, filling children with anxiety they don’t understand, and parents with guilt. In an effort to protect kids they love from what parents perceive as the difficult truth of their origins, parents are hurting them—and the parent-child bond—instead. Naomi Cahn is the Harold H. Greene Professor at George Washington University Law School. Wendy Kramer is the co-founder and director of the Donor Sibling Registry. Original story published on Slate.com
Read more →

The Best Gift You Can Give To Your Children

self-love-illustration_w Warm holiday seasons greetings! This is the time of year we are giving and receiving gifts to and from those we love and appreciate. As parents, our love is expressed in so many ways, given to our children and family first, that we often forget to extend that same nurturing love and appreciation to ourselves. We believe with all our heart that by far, the greatest gift you can give your little people is to nurture yourself first. How can focusing on yourself be a gift for your kids? Your growing children are plugged into you. You are the physical and emotional hub that keeps them charged and regulated. If you are not going through your day feeling physically and emotionally full, the result is that they will feed off that and be out of sorts. We found that if we wanted cooperation and connection with our little ones, we had to take the time to prioritize ourselves, first. For those of us who practice this on a regular basis know that the results are immediate and habit forming. If you haven't gotten there yet, don't force it, take it in stride, and go with the flow. There will be moments throughout the day, or perhaps before getting out of bed in the morning, to make a conscious decision to mentally give yourself a warm hug, and a promise to smile at yourself when passing the mirror. Think kind thoughts and words of appreciation and encouragement that you usually give your child but remember to send some in your direction as well. You'll be nurturing your child and yourself at the same time. Begin with taking 10-15 minutes a day, to just stop, sit, close your eyes, quiet your mind, breathe deeply and plug into your core comfortable self. Let the corners of your mouth turn upward. Nothing more, nothing less. Just sit, relax, and let it all go. Love and nurture yourself first. Everything else will be there waiting for you when you return. How do you nurture yourself throughout the day?
Read more →

The Unregulated Sperm Donor Industry

spremdonorillustrationillustration by Monica Ramos
By RENE ALMELING

NEW HAVEN — The new movie “Delivery Man” stars Vince Vaughn as a former sperm donor who finds out that he has more than 500 children. Is this a Hollywood exaggeration or a possible outcome? Truth is, no one knows. In the United States, we do not track how many sperm donors there are, how often they donate, or how many children are born from the donations.

Unlike a Hollywood happy ending, however, this lack of regulation has real consequences for sperm donors and the children they help produce. The Journal of the American Medical Association published one case study of a healthy 23-year-old donor who transmitted a genetic heart condition that affected at least eight of 22 offspring from his donated sperm, including a toddler who died from heart failure. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine recommends genetic screening of sperm donors, and many banks do it, but the government does not require it. The risks become magnified the greater the number of children conceived from each donor.

How did we get to this point? Sperm donation has evolved from a practice of customized production to an industry that resembles mass manufacturing.

One of the first uses of donated sperm was reported in 1909 by a doctor recalling his days as a student observing medical practice. A 41-year-old wealthy merchant and his wife had been unable to conceive. An examination revealed that the husband did not produce sperm. The doctor requested a sperm sample from the “best-looking member of the class.” He asked the wife to come in for an examination, administered chloroform, and without her knowledge, inseminated her with the student’s sample. Nine months later, she gave birth to a healthy boy.

Several aspects of this vignette foreshadow the trajectory of sperm donation (but not the practice of inseminating women without their knowledge). The medical profession continued to play a central role. Doctors selected donors on the basis of their “superior” qualities, secrecy marked the enterprise, and sperm was produced for a particular recipient. According to one mid-century study of several hundred men, the majority of donors produced less than 10 samples.

AIDS changed everything. As doctors in the 1980s learned how the disease was transmitted, it was no longer advisable to transfer fresh samples directly from donor to recipient. Physicians began to use frozen sperm from commercial banks because it could be quarantined for six months, after which the donor could be retested for H.I.V.

Under these conditions, mass manufacturing began to make sense. A sperm program required personnel to keep track of donors, lab technicians to test samples, facilities to store the frozen vials, and distribution departments to ship the product around the world. Doctors could not handle these complexities on their own, so the procurement of sperm was outsourced to for-profit banks.

Today, the supply of sperm in the United States is concentrated in a few large companies that maintain multiple offices around the country, generally near college campuses. Recruiters write cheeky advertisements (“Get paid for what you’re already doing!”). They comb through hundreds of applicants to find the “few good men” who will pass rigorous medical screening and have sperm counts high enough to survive cryogenic freezing. Because of the large investment in finding donors, sperm banks require men to make regular deposits for months on end, resulting in large caches of genetic material that can produce tens and perhaps even hundreds of offspring.

Regulation has not kept up with the fundamental shift in how the fertility industry sources sperm. No federal agency or professional organization monitors the number of men donating, vials sold, or children conceived. The Food and Drug Administration requires that sperm banks test donors for particular diseases, but does not collect data about how many times men donate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conduct an annual survey of fertility clinics, but don’t ask about sperm donation. Sperm banks say they cap the number of offspring per donor, but have no way of compelling customers to report when they get pregnant or give birth.

Similar information gaps about the number of donors, and the number of children born, plague egg donation. But until now, the market for eggs has resembled the old-fashioned version of sperm donation: women produce a small number of fresh eggs for a particular customer. Now that scientists have figured out how to successfully freeze eggs, egg banks are being established, and the scale of production may eventually lead to the same challenges sperm banks face.

We owe it to sperm donors and the children born from their donations to gather basic data. Sperm banks should be required to report the number of vials sold per donor to the F.D.A. The C.D.C. should expand its survey to include sperm donation. These reasonable first steps would allow for an evidence-based discussion about whether there should be regulations to limit the number of offspring per donor. At the least, we would get a handle on whether the typical number is in the dozens or hundreds.

Rene Almeling is an assistant professor of sociology at Yale University and the author of “Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm.”
This Article from NYTimes.com
Do you agree or disagree? comment below
Read more →

A Thank You Letter To Our Egg Donor

©Teresa Villegas

It is Thanksgiving Day here in the U. S.. As I write this, there is a photo next to my computer of our 3 beautiful children. This is what I am most thankful for. Years ago, we made the decision after many attempts over 4 years, month after month using various methods (drugs & procedures with recurrent disappointment) to finally use the help of an egg donor to build our family.

Not a day goes by that we are not reminded of the gifts we have been given by the thoughtful women who donated their eggs to us. And this is the perfect day to thank all gamete donors (egg donors, sperm donors, embryo donors, surrogates). The people who have helped other people suffering from infertility or inability to build families and gave of themselves. Without their help our children wouldn't exist.

There's controversy in the fertility world over the use of the word "donor" because they get paid for their services. Therefore it's not really a donation. Regardless of the donors motivations, for us it was a gift. The fact that this option even exists is the same no matter what you call it and that is where the gift lies.

For all of us who've traveled down this path of infertility to family building, it's an opportunity. For the successful and fortunate ones like us –it's a baby or two. In general, throughout the whole donor process, it's not common practice for the receiving couple to have any contact with the donor. The donor service we went through did not encourage it and anonymity was the only choice at the time in 2002. This was our lawful agreement. 

But on the day when our anonymous donor was scheduled to arrive at our doctors clinic to retrieve and transfer her eggs, we could not ignore the fact that her presence was there. She was in the same city, in the same fertility clinic, in the same parking lot, in the same waiting room, with the same doctor and staff  –within 24 hours of us.

The day before, we arrived at the clinic in the morning to prepare for the next days transfer and brought with us a little gift bag of our appreciation and thanks with a card expressing our gratitude. The nurses said they would be sure to give it to her, and hopefully she received it. I remember writing a note in the card, and what a hard time I had doing so.

What can you say to someone who is giving you the gift of an opportunity at life? This little gift bag of lotions and self-care products from Origins (along with the thousands of dollars we had already previously paid her), felt like an uneven exchange. Would I still feel as grateful to her had we not succeeded? Who decides the monetary value of donor gametes, is it "what the market will bear" kind of value? And is it true that donor gametes aren't as valuable unless they are fertilized and successfully become a baby? It didn't really matter at this point. She agreed and we agreed. We both kept our word and did what we said we would do.

Because she was so close in proximity to us, we had to at least try to let her know how much we appreciated her. We don't know if she got our token gift or what happened next for her, but our growing appreciation for her will forever remain constant in our family. If we could write her a note today, it would be a little different than the first attempt, and this is what we would say:

Dear Egg Donor,
This letter is written to express our gratitude to you and to let you know how much we both admire and respect you for what you have done for us.
We know that this letter of appreciation cannot come close to the gift you have given us, but we want you to know that we are reminded every day when our children look up at us with their beautiful faces of your generosity.
Through their eyes that shine, laugh, cry and love us, we know that we could never have had this in our lives if it weren't for you. Our hope is that if you ever have any doubts about yourself, your choices, or the direction your life is taking you, you should know that you have given a part of yourself that continues to give love and joy in this world.
Being the generous and thoughtful kind of person who went through all this for us, makes us want to say thank you again and again. From the bottom of our hearts, we are grateful for everything you have done to help us fulfill our dreams of becoming a family with three beautiful children.
With gratitude, appreciation and love, Teresa and Bernard
If you were going to write a letter to your donor, what would you say to them today?
Read more →

Read With Your Children, Not to Them

Research has found that reading with young children and engaging them can make a positive impact on the child's future and their family. Bradford Wiles is an Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in early childhood development at Kansas State University. For most of his career, Wiles' research has focused around building resilience in vulnerable families. His current research is focused on emergent literacy and the effect of parents reading with their children ages 3 to 5 years old.

"Children start learning to read long before they can ever say words or form sentences," said Wiles. "

My focus is on helping parents read with their children and extending what happens when you read with them and they become engaged in the story." The developmental process, known as emergent literacy, begins at birth and continues through the preschool and kindergarten years. This time in children's lives is critical for learning important pre-literacy skills. Although his research mainly focuses on 3-5 year olds, Wiles encourages anyone with young children to read with them as a family at anytime during the day, not just before going to bed. He also believes that it is okay to read one book over and over again, because the child can learn new things every time.

"There are always opportunities for you both to learn," said Wiles, "and it creates a family connection.

Learning is unbelievably powerful in early childhood development." It goes deeper than just reading to them, as parents are encouraged to read with their children. Engaging children is how they become active in the story and build literacy skills. "There is nothing more powerful than your voice, your tone, and the way you say the words," said Wiles. "When I was a child, my dad read to me and while that was helpful and I enjoyed it, what we are finding is that when parents read with their children instead of to them, the children are becoming more engaged and excited to read." Engaging the child means figuring out what the child is thinking and getting them to think beyond the words written on the page.

While reading with them, anticipate what children are thinking. Then ask questions, offer instruction, provide examples and give them some feedback about what they are thinking.

"One of the things that I really hope for, and have found, is that these things spill over into other areas," said Wiles. "So you start out reading, asking open-ended questions, offering instruction and explaining when all of the sudden you aren't reading at all and they start to recognize those things they have seen in the books. And that's really powerful."

Wiles explains it in a scenario where a mother reads a book with her 4 year old about a garden. Then they go to the supermarket and the 4 year old is pointing and saying, "look there's a zucchini." The child cannot read the sign that says zucchini but knows what that is because they read the book about gardens.

During this time called the nominal stage, the developmental stage where children are naming things, a child's vocabulary can jump from a few hundred words to a few thousand words. The more exposure they've had through books and print materials, the more they can name things and understand.

It's the emergent literacy skills that can set the stage for other elements. The school of Family Studies and Human Services at Kansas State University is producing lesson plans to help families learn how to read with young children. These lesson plans are research-based but they have been condensed into usable and applicable lessons for families.  Source" Kansas State University Research and Extension (2013, September 12). Read with your children, not to them. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November

Read more →

Argentina Requires HMOs to Fund Fertility Efforts

argentina

BY Washington Examiner AP STAFF WRITER | JUNE 5, 2013 AT 9:32 PM BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina's health care providers must now provide fertility treatments to anyone older than 18 who wants them, be they married or single, gay or straight. The lower house of congress voted 203-to-1 Wednesday to approve the law, which applies to private medical plans as well as the public health care system. Lobbyists for the law say one in six Argentine couples suffers from infertility. The law specifies a range of treatments averaging about $4,000 each. The health ministry now must issue regulations saying how often a person can benefit. President Cristina Fernandez was pleased, saying in a tweet: "Assisted fertilization is law as of today. More rights, more inclusion, better country." From How We Became a Family: If you would like to see this happen in the US, like we would, the momentum is building, go here: pay
Read more →