Welcome to your September issue of Connections, The American Fertility Association’s monthly e-newsletter. In this issue, you’ll find:

1. A Message from the Executive Director
2. Your Journey to Parenthood
3. Decisions, Decisions: To Tell or Not To Tell
4. Adoption Option: Tea and Sympathy: what to really expect from your adoption home study!
5. Advocacy Alert
6. Support Services
   1. Infertility Support Group
   2. Men's Coaching Group
   3. New York City In-Person Couples Support Group Now Forming
   4. Ovum Donation Seminar - Fall Series 2006
   5. AFA Adoption Series - Fall 2006
   6. West Coast Programs
7. Stay Connected

A Message from the Executive Director

Pamela Madsen

Dear Friend of The AFA, Autumn always seems to quicken the rhythm of daily life. Everybody’s shucking the vacation state of mind and getting into gear. Not like we ever let it rest at The American Fertility Association, but right now we’re shifting into overdrive. We’re here everyday to answer your questions, provide information and the support you expect without cost to you. At the same time, we’re operating in less visible ways to solidify and broaden fertility patients’ rights, increase access to care and secure our family-building options. Let me explain. To start with, I’m delighted to tell you that The AFA and the Centers for Disease Control have joined to make information about fertility center success rates more user-friendly. Many, maybe most of us, have turned to the CDC’s Assisted Reproductive Technology Success Rates National Summary and Fertility Clinic Reports for help in the search for the right center. Many, if not most of us, find we need a Rosetta Stone to interpret it. This project’s goal is to make sure that the data in this vital report are clear, comprehensible and easy to draw on. We’re also ramping up our education outreach to the Ob-Gyn community. With our participation in professional meetings nationwide and in intimate office ‘sit downs’, with an Ob-Gyn specific inFocus magazine issue, we’re supporting our front line providers efforts to talk to patients early about fertility preservation and protection and conception. We’re educating Ob-Gyns about patient needs when reproductive difficulties emerge so the path to appropriate treatment is streamlined and speedy. Our advocacy initiatives are pedal-to-the-metal, too. Just last month, we were quoted in the Los Angeles Times opposing a bill that would prohibit compensation to egg donors, shutting down an important family-building avenue. Like the bill’s sponsors, we vehemently oppose using exorbitant sums as an inducement. Unlike them, we believe women are capable of making rational decisions and that paying modestly for the time, effort and risk is simply fair. Naturally, there’s more. But I wanted to give you a taste of what The AFA is up to, working for you, for all of us. Cheers, Pamela Madsen Executive Director

Your Journey to Parenthood

By Kim Bergman, Ph.D.

Beginning with a Wish
Your journey to parenthood begins with the wish to be a parent. But if you are gay or lesbian, you know that this is more complicated than just wanting it. Once you declare that you want to be a parent, everything in your world starts to shift and change. You are no longer an individual or two individuals—you are already thinking of yourself as a family and what is possible in the fulfillment of your dream of parenthood. As a gay man or lesbian, there are many thoughts that might also start running through your head. Can I do this? What will people think? What do I do? What’s the best way for me to become a parent? Is it okay for gay people to be parents? All the questions you’ve ever had about your life, any homophobia you’ve ever experienced both from others and from yourself come flooding to the surface. This article will start to raise some of those questions and get you thinking about the journey ahead.

Sorting Through Your Feelings
It may be that deep in your heart for as long as you can remember you’ve always known that you want to be a mommy or a daddy. Or maybe you’ve found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and you’ve both realized that you want to have children. Although it’s something you really want, you think that it might not be possible, or certainly not easy. So what are the things to consider?

Let’s start by sorting through all of your concerns. When you figured out that you were gay that realization caused a shift in the universe for you. All of the sudden, everything made sense, and yet you knew that nothing would ever be the same. Coming out created a paradigm shift—making sense of the past and shifting your expectations for the present and future. One of the expectations that you might have grappled with is what to do with a life-long wish to have a child. And you may have dealt with the seeming incongruity of coming out and wanting a child someday, by putting having a child in the category of things that you have to give up to be true to yourself.

Now years later, the compelling drive to be a parent resurfaces and turmoil ensues. Once you start to let the wish surface it comes on strong, and you can think of nothing else but the baby you envision holding in your arms. So now you come face to face with your own internal homophobia and an opportunity to move through it to full self-acceptance and self-love. At this point there are only two things stopping you from fulfilling your dream of parenthood: Questioning whether or not you should become a parent and figuring out how to become a parent.

Should you become a parent?
In answering this question you will probably ask yourself all the usual questions that anyone considering parenthood asks. Will I be a good parent? Can I afford to raise a child? Is this a world I want to bring a child into? How will having a child change my life? You will grapple with all of the things any perspective parent struggles with. However, as a gay man or lesbian you will also be asking yourself another set of questions. Is it okay for a gay person to have a child? Will my friends and family support my choice? Will my child suffer because she has gay parents? All of these questions are understandable, and important to clarify before you have your child.

Let’s start by addressing whether or not it’s okay for a gay person to have a child and whether or not your child will suffer because she has gay parents. There is a large body of research that overwhelmingly shows that children of gay and lesbian parents are no different than children of heterosexual parents and that children don’t need two parents of different genders or even two parents at all (See www.FamilyPride.org, May 2006 Academic Symposium). Okay, so you read the research and you’re still not sure. Consider that whatever doubt remains for you, is doubt about whether or not it’s okay for you to be gay at all.

Tom and Mark talked about having a baby on their second date. Both of them had wanted children for as long as they could remember, and each of them had tried to come to terms with having to give up their dream of parenthood when they came out. Now, ten years into their relationship, their drive to be fathers is still quite strong. Mark started researching gay dads online and found out that there are actually many ways that gay men can become fathers now. He shared his research with Tom who had many misgivings and they began two years of research and soul-searching. As their quest for fatherhood unfolded, it became clear that their biggest roadblock was Tom’s own unresolved feelings of discomfort with being gay. Mark’s family had been supportive when he came out in college, while Tom’s family was still not very supportive eighteen years after he had come out. When Mark and Tom spent some time talking openly about these issues, Tom gained the clarity and confidence to confront his self-hate and come to some resolution. The men ended up choosing surrogacy and almost two years later their twin daughters were born. Having dealt with his internalized homophobia head on, Tom was able to come to fatherhood with openness and self-acceptance, which is what will be transmitted to his daughters.

Overall, your child will be born knowing that you are his parents and that your family is perfect. Children learn about what’s right and wrong from you—including whether or not it’s okay to be gay. If you have any internalized homophobia (and, let’s face it, all of us do!) that is what may get transmitted to your child. When you’re alone, you can choose to pass or to come out but when you’re with your children the choice has some consequences. So, get clear about who you are and that being gay is completely okay, and your child will feel that way as well. If you build a strong foundation of self-love and acceptance in your family and child, they will be able to deal with any homophobia cast their way. We’ll deal with how to talk to your child about their creation as well as how to talk to family and friends in a later in this article.

The most important question for anyone contemplating becoming a parent is: will my child feel loved and taken care of? For most of you the answer to that one is easy.

How do I become a parent?
Today there are many options and a plethora of resources for gay and lesbian people who want to become parents, so once you decide how you’re going to have your children finding an agency or individual to help you is the easy part. However, there are many things to consider in choosing the method that is right for you. Here are some of the things to consider: Does being biologically related to your children matter to you? If so will you use a known egg or sperm donor or an anonymous one? How will you decide which partner will carry the baby or whose sperm to use? What factors are important to you in choosing a donor? What method can you afford? In sorting through all of these issues start with what’s important to you, explore all options and then be flexible and keep focused on the eventual outcome of parenthood.

Carole and Mary, a lesbian couple, dreamed of being moms. Carole had always wanted to be pregnant and carry her own biological baby. She tried to get pregnant with donor insemination for over a year but was not getting pregnant. Eventually, the couple sought professional advice and decided to see if Mary could get pregnant. Mary got pregnant on the second attempt. Initially, Carole felt a mixture of sadness, regret and excitement. She worried that her ambivalence might interfere with bonding with the new baby, or that Mary or other people would not consider her a full parent. Once Max was born, however, it quickly became apparent to Carole that it was up to her and Mary to consider themselves both full and equal parents, and to convey this to Max and to the outside world. And—Carole was instantly in love with Max the moment he was born-despite her earlier doubt.

Ultimately, once you leap into the journey to parenthood, do your research, consult experts and then trust yourself—you’ll find the method that’s right for you and whatever method you choose know that parents are people who choose to create their family and who love and raise their child, regardless of biological connection.

Being a Family
Once you get clear for yourself that being gay and being a parent are completely compatible, and you sort out how you want to become a parent, there are a number of issues yet to be thought through. What last name should we use? How do we talk about our family? How do we talk to our kids about their conception? How much do we tell others about who the sperm donor/egg donor are? The short answer is: tell your children the age-appropriate truth, tell everyone else as much or as little as you feel comfortable sharing. There are no right or wrong answers here—the only reason you’re not sure what to tell your kids about their family creation is if you still have some discomfort with it. Remember, sort out any feelings you have about being gay and you’ll know exactly what to say. Kids always want to hear their story. They want to know where they came from. So go ahead and tell them.

Bob and Martin chose to have their family through surrogacy, and their surrogate was eight months pregnant. They became concerned about how to tell their son his creation story, and wanted to be sure they were clear before he was born. Telling your child from the very beginning is the best way to approach this. I advised them to tell him from the moment they first hold him in their arms that daddy and papa wanted a baby so much and there were a whole lot of people who helped him come into the world. Share details about your baby’s conception, birth and the first time you saw and held him. Don’t be afraid to tell the truth—remember that the only reason you worry about what to tell your child is because you’re still not sure it’s okay to be gay, to be a gay parent, or to have chosen the path to parenthood that you chose.

Conclusion
For those of us who want to be parents, having children is one of the great joys of life. And being gay has no relevance in making this choice. As gay men and lesbians, your job is to sort out any internalized homophobia you still have so that you can come to parenthood free, open, completely comfortable with yourself and ready to love and accept your children. In this state, you will be free to follow your heart, be the best parent you can be and trust your instincts as a parent. Remember, love makes a family and you are the person most qualified to love your children. When you come down to it—that’s all that matters.

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Decisions, Decisions: To Tell or Not To Tell

By Joann Paley Galst, Ph.D.

Infertility is embarrassing. It can make us feel ashamed, inadequate, and less of a woman or a man. It can put our sense of failure out there in public for everyone to have either an opinion about, give advice, or even worse, pass judgment. Navigating the family-building journey when confronting infertility involves hundreds of decisions, for example, when to see a reproductive endocrinologist, who to go to, when to try an IVF cycle, whether or not to plan a vacation for next summer, when to stop treatment, when to explore other family-building options, etc.

In addition, there are other decisions you make, not involved with treatment or pragmatic planning, but involving the other people in your life:

• Who, if anyone, should I tell about what we are experiencing? Family? Friends? People at work? My boss?
• Should I tell them of our diagnosis, our treatment, the timing of our treatment?
• Should I share the emotional turmoil? Could they understand? Would they judge me/us?
• Should I let others know of our plan to use third party reproduction/adopt?

Obviously, who you share this very personal, and, for many people, very private information, depends on both your need to have others know (e.g., to be given some leverage at work to arrive late in the morning and take a few days off during an IVF cycle), as well as your trust in the individual to exercise discretion in maintaining your confidence. This article will not be so presumptuous as to tell you what you should do. But, I would like to share some research findings with you and provide a decision model that can help you make the right decisions for yourself. NOTE: This is not an article about disclosure to your child if using donor gametes. That is covered quite well in many other articles. However, it is advised that if you have not decided with certainty to share this information with your child, you not share it with anyone so as to avoid the possibility of your child learning this important aspect of their identity from anyone other than his/her parents.

Research suggests that it’s not so easy for us to keep secrets. Rather than passively forgetting about something that feels irrelevant and unimportant, intentionally keeping a secret is an active process that requires much deliberate behavioral and mental work. Secrets require not only behavioral efforts, but cognitive efforts as well. Trying to keep a secret requires effortful mental control. This effort at thought suppression can prompt a paradoxical obsessive preoccupation with the secret. Intrusive thoughts about the secret cause renewed efforts at thought suppression and so on and so on, which can make concealing a secret a tough challenge.

Let me provide you with an example. I want to suggest the following to you:

DON’T THINK ABOUT PINK ELEPHANTS! Now, what happened? I’ll bet you thought about, imagined, or envisioned a pink elephant, perhaps for the first time in your life. As you can see, attempts at thought suppression actually appear to make the thought hyperaccessible.

Many theorists believe that disclosure of secrets reduces an individual’s level of emotional inhibition and thereby releases the individual from a constant demand for behavioral and physiological work. Revealing secrets can also result in more intimate relationships. Often it leads to the discovery of acceptance of something by others that the individual felt was unacceptable, and this can reduce a sense of shame.

If it’s so beneficial to get one’s secrets off one’s chest, why do so many people continue to keep secrets? Often, people fear that revealing the secret may upset others or elicit rejection from the listener, and that rejection may lead to further feelings of low self-worth. People often don’t realize that the consequences of this silence can be difficult in and of itself. The presence of a person from whom a secret must be kept serves as a reminder of the secret that then requires the secret holder to work strategically to insure that both their verbal and nonverbal behaviors don’t give away the hidden information. This can, and often does, put the secret holder on edge whenever there is the potential for disclosure.

Secrets are easier for some of us to keep than others. Keeping a secret because you believe it is no one else’s business and keeping a secret because you feel ashamed and embarrassed to reveal it or because you don’t anticipate receiving the support you desire are quite different. The former is more about maintaining privacy and probably not so tough to do. The latter is about shame and your shame may not subside without either finding compassion for yourself or receiving validation from others that they can learn of your shameful secret and continue to think well of you.

How to Decide Whether or Not to Reveal Your Infertility?
It may be helpful to you to reveal to others if:

1. Keeping the secret is causing you internal stress (i.e., you find yourself ruminating over the secret and are upset by such intrusive thoughts, or you feel isolated).
2. It is likely you will receive positive feedback from the confidante.
3. You feel the need for personal support or understanding from others. (e.g., at work, weigh the pros of receiving understanding from a boss and the cons of the knowledge you plan to start a family with its potential impact on career advancement).
4. You find yourself experiencing depression, ulcers, headaches, or other physical symptoms that may indicate that bottling up your feelings is difficult for you.

How to Decide To Whom to Reveal Your Infertility?
There are several features of helpful confidants. A good confidante is:

1. Discreet. They can be trusted not to reveal a secret. To help determine this, pay attention to whether this person reveals personal information about other people and whether others consider this person trustworthy.
2. Nonjudgmental. You believe they will accept you no matter what you reveal to them.
3. Able to offer you new insights. They may be able to offer you a new perspective on your infertility. For example, if you tell them that you are feeling angry and jealous of your pregnant sister-in-law, they may respond with, “Of course you are. Look at what you are dealing with.” The guilt you may be feeling often reduces in the face of such an affirmation.

If you don’t know the potential confidant well enough to evaluate these criteria, you can float a trial balloon. For example, you could say something like, “I’ve been reading a lot about in vitro fertilization in the paper lately. It sure seems like a tough way to have a child.” See how they react to this. Also, if the secret (your infertility) has negative implications for others (e.g., future grandparents), it is important that you be prepared for their having an emotional reaction to your revelation. Your parents and in-laws hopefully love you, and probably also look forward to becoming grandparents to your children. Your situation and unhappiness may feel like a sadness to them, as well.

It often helps to reveal a secret to a listener in such a way that the listener perceives some way in which they can help you. For instance, informing your confidante that what you really need is for them just to listen to you and to accept and support you may keep advice givers from automatically making suggestions of what you can/should do.

Many people feel a need to share their infertility with others early in their journey – needing immediate support and believing their journey to a child will be a short one. Many of my clients have wished at a later point in their too-long journey that they hadn’t told anyone because it appears their sense of embarrassment, as well as the intensity of their grief, grows with time. They become irritated with other people’s questions about their cycles, or even inquiries as to how they are doing. For these individuals, I suggest they talk to their confidantes and explain their feelings, perhaps suggesting in an empathically assertive way, “I know you really care about me/us, but it’s getting harder to talk about our treatment now. Could you follow my lead? If I feel like talking about it, I’ll raise it. Otherwise just assume everything is status quo and I’m not feeling like talking just now.”

I offer you the following decision tree to help you make your own reasoned decisions about sharing information about your family building journey.

Decision Making Model for Revealing the Secrets of Infertility
Is the secret troubling? Are you ruminating about it? Are you feeling isolated and alone? Anxious or depressed? Have you developed physical symptoms (ulcers, headaches, back pain)? Because of your own psychological make-up, is it hard for you to keep this secret and go it alone without the support of others? Do you need someone to understand your behavior at work (lateness/absences)?
If yes: Is an appropriate confidante available? Discreet? Nonjudgmental? Able to offer support or a unique perspective?		If no: No need to share secret
If yes: Float a trial balloon Reveal secret Consider journaling (writing about your infertility, along with your feelings about it). Join an AFA Support Group or Telephone Coaching Group-find people who understand how tough this journey can be.	If no: Don’t share secret

Joann Paley Galst, Ph.D. is a psychologist in New York City who works with couples, individuals, and groups, combining a cognitive- behavioral and mind-body approach to infertility, pregnancy loss and reproductive health. She is co-director of support groups for the American Fertility Association and is a past chairperson of the Mental Health Professional Group of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. She can be reached at (212) 759-2783.

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Adoption Option
Tea and Sympathy: what to really expect from your adoption home study!

By Kathy Ann Brodsky, LCSW

Kathy Ann Brodsky is the Director of the Ametz Adoption Program. The Ametz Adoption Program is a licensed adoption agency in NY & NJ. Ametz conducts home studies for domestic and international adoption, holds educational workshops and runs support groups for parents, children and extended family members, as well as provides a Training Institute for Professionals. For additional information on these and other Ametz services, call 212-558-9949, email ametz@jccany.org or visit www.jccany.org.

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By Melissa B. Brisman, Esq.

In 2004, a suit was filed by same-sex male and female couples precipitated by the State’s refusal to issue marriage licenses to the gay couples. The State claimed that, pursuant to the adoption of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), which defines marriage as a privilege solely reserved for couples of the opposite sex for the purposes of procreation, they were well within the law to deny the same-sex couples the right to marry. The couples acquired legal assistance from both the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal to pursue their action, claiming that DOMA and the State’s ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. The attorneys for the complainants based the crux of their argument on the language contained in Washington State’s Constitution which states that “No law shall be passed granting to any citizen….privileges or immunities which upon the same terms shall not equally belong to all citizens”. The complainants’ arguments were successful in the lower courts, which determined that DOMA was in fact unconstitutional; however, the decisions issued in the lower courts were appealed and brought before the State’s highest court in early 2005.

On July 28, 2006, in a very close decision (5-4) the Justices of Washington State’s Supreme Court decided that the present ban on same-sex marriage as stated in DOMA was constitutional. Chief Justice Gerry Alexander, who signed the ruling, had the following to say regarding the decision, “We see no reason, however, why the legislature or the people acting through the initiative process would be foreclosed from extending the right to marry to gay and lesbian couples in Washington….It is important to note that the court’s role is limited to determining the constitutionality of DOMA and that our decision is not based on an independent determination of what we believe the law should be.”

The New York State Court of Appeals recently rejected the argument from gay and lesbian couples to allow same-sex marriage in the State of New York. This ruling represents a major set back for gay rights advocates.

In both the New York case and the Washington case, a majority of the justices pointed to the state legislature, instead of the courts, as the appropriate branch of government to address this issue. In addition, the majority of Justices ruling in New York, Washington, and Nebraska (see below) concluded that the state had a “legitimate” and “compelling” interest in promoting procreation by only allowing heterosexuals to marry. The gay community continues to argue against the views promulgated by these Courts.

Courts at the Federal level chimed in from Nebraska where, in July, 2006, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated Nebraska’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage (70% of the voters approved the ban in 2000) resulting from the State’s adoption of the Defense of Marriage Act which affords only heterosexual couples the right to marry, based on their ability to procreate. The ruling states “…and other laws limiting the state-recognized institution of marriage to heterosexual couples are rationally related to legitimate state interests and therefore do not violate the Constitution of the United States.” The amendment was initially struck down in May 2005 by a federal judge who ruled the measure went beyond banning marriage and denied couples fundamental rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. Nebraska’s amendment goes further than most state bans in that it also excluded gay couples from other protections, such as shared health insurance and other benefits. The appeals court found no federal "fundamental right" to same-sex marriage exists.

The Tennesse Supreme Court issued a ruling in July, 2006 deciding that voters should have a say on the ability of same-sex couples to marry.

The ban on same-sex marriage in Georgia remained when the highest court in the State in July, 2006, reinstated a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

To date, 20 states have drafted prohibitions on same-sex marriage and have amendments in their state constitutions which ban same-sex marriage. The most recent was Alabama on June 6, 2006. A majority (80 percent) of voters approved the amendment in a statewide referendum. Arizona, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin are planning to hold statewide votes on same-sex marriage bans in November 2006. There are only a minority of states that do not have laws which explicitly ban gay marriage; however, with the exception of Massachusetts, these states still refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Effective as of October 1, 2005, Connecticut’s legislature passed Public Act No. 05-196 (the “Act”) titled AN ACT CONCERNING HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR INFERITILITY TREATMENT AND PROCEDURES. The Act requires health insurance companies to provide coverage for medical expenses deemed necessary for the diagnosis and treatment of infertility. The Act requires coverage for procedures such as ovulation induction, intrauterine insemination, IVF, uterine embryo lavage, embryo transfer, GIFT, ZIFT and low tubal ovum transfer. There are coverage limitations and requirements which must be met in order to qualify for the coverage. The Act also provides a religious exemption for employers who, because of their religious beliefs, may offer benefits to their employees which exclude the infertility coverage afforded in the Act. It also permits the policy to limit coverage to people under 40 and to people who have been covered for at least twelve months.

Support Services

In New York City:

Infertility Support Group
Start: October 12th (sign up now)
Thursdays 7:30 to 9 pm
174 E. 74th Street, NYC
Runs for 5 weeks @ $ 30 per session
Contact: Emily Laitmon LCSW
laitmon@aol.com 914 633 4224 (after 9/10/06)

Here's an opportunity to meet with other women who are also challenged in their attempts at a successful pregnancy. You are invited to share emotions in a safe, confidential environment (frustration, sadness, anger, anxiety) while also exploring changes in relationships with family, friends, work and friends. Current techniques plus alternative treatments will be discussed with coping strategies to offer maximum benefit to you. PLEASE JOIN US! You are not alone!

Men's Coaching Group (TELEPHONE COACHING GROUP - for men only - NO FEE)
Start: Wednesday, September 27th
Time: 9pm-10pm (EST)
Facilitated by Bob Bamman, LCSW
Contact: BobBmmn@aol.com
Registration Deadline: September 25th

Participants will have the opportunity to learn strategies for helping themselves and their partners handle the emotional and decision-making process as well as explore the typical male/female relationship issues found a couple navigates the infertility road. This phone group is NOT male-factor specific, but is open to all men where infertility exists in their committed relationship (male, female, unexplained infertility).

New York City In-Person Couples Support Group Now Forming

This group will focus on how during fertility treatments couples are often at "different places" on what paths they are ready to pursue during their decision making process. The participatatnts will learn techniques in helping them resolve their differences, even when partners are in disagreement in how they desire to pursue parenthood.

Facilitated by Joan Winograd, LCSW, and AFA Support Group Leader. Space is limited.

Contact Joan at 212-362-4003 or e-mail at Joanwino@aol.com with your contact information.

OVUM DONATION SEMINAR
FALL SERIES 2006

The American Fertility Association is sponsoring a six week Ovum Donation Seminar Series beginning Tuesday November 7th and continuing weekly on Mondays for a total of six consecutive weeks. Topics that will be discussed by our distinguished faculty will include:

AFA ADOPTION SERIES
FALL 2006

The American Fertility Association is presenting a 5-week series of workshops designed for people who are considering adoption and want to learn about their options.

Topics to be discussed by adoption experts include:

West Coast Programs

Four Seminars Offered

• EGG DONATION: WORKING WITH A THIRD PARTY
• CHOOSING SINGLE PARENTING
• CREATING A SUCCESSFUL SURROGATE ARRANGEMENT
• GAY AND LESBIAN PARENTING

The American Fertility Association is sponsoring separate discussion groups for patients considering alternative family building options. The emotional, medical and practical aspects of each of these arrangements will be explored, such that prospective parents can make an informed decision about whether these plans are the “right” choice for them.

Elaine R. Gordon, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist with a specialty in reproductive medicine. She has worked in the field for twenty years helping individuals and couples build families through non-traditional options. She is the author of “Mommy, Did I Grow in Your Tummy? Where some Babies Come From”.

Ellen Speyer, M.A., M.S., MFT. is a psychotherapist with twenty years with working with assisted reproduction, pregnancy loss, surrogacy, and adoption. She is a retired Chair of the Education Committee for the Mental Health Professional Group of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

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Online Education Session Schedule—September-October 2006