Coming to Terms with Infertility Grief Before You Adopt or Foster

Are you thinking about stopping infertility treatment and trying to adopt or foster? Join us to talk with Carole LieberWilkins,a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who has specialized in reproductive medicine, adoption, and family-building options since 1986, and is the co-author of the book, Let’s Talk About Egg Donation. Carole serves on the Advisory Board of the US Donor Conceived Council, and is an active member of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine Mental Health Professional Group. She is also a mom through adoption and egg donation.

In this episode, we cover:

• Adoptive parenting is the same as, and very different from, genetic parenting. Ways in which raising adopted children is different. Ways in which it is the same.
• Fostering has some significant differences from genetic parenting, including adopting from foster care.
• What are the losses of infertility?
• How to know when you are ready to stop fertility treatments and move to adoption or fostering? What are the signs of readiness?
• The myth of needing to do everything that you can to become pregnant before moving to adoption or third-party reproduction. 
• How have the advances in infertility medicine changed the landscape of moving to adoption or fostering?
• Accepting Plan B without making the child feel like second best.
• How to know when you are ready to foster or adopt from foster care.
• How to grieve the loss of the biological child that you never had? 
• Tips for coping with the losses of infertility.
• Coping with the unknowns of adoption or fostering and lack of control.
• Adopting while staying in treatment.
• Should you go back into infertility treatment after having adopted a child?
• How to find a mental health professional that specializes in infertility.

This podcast is produced  by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

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