Supporting Adoptive, Foster, & Kinship Families

Strengthening and Inspiring adoptive, foster & kinship families and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family is the national infertility, adoption, & foster care education and support nonprofit. Our mission is to strengthen families through unbiased education and support for infertility patients, adoptive parents, foster parents, and allied professionals.

We began in 2007 because we saw a need for accurate information online about infertility, infertility grief, moving to adoption from infertility, and all types of adoption options. We also have a large and active online support group. Creating a Family Facebook Support Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/creatingafamily/) It’s a closed Facebook group so that only those in the group can see the posts.

Creating a Family provides extensive resources on all types of adoption and all aspects of infertility (medical and emotional).

Adoption

Adoption is a wonderful way to create your family. Creating a Family covers all adoption options, including domestic infant adoption, baby adoption in the US, international adoption, foster care adoption, embryo donation (sometimes known as embryo adoption). Check out our Adoption Resource Guide. We also strongly believe that education and support should not end once the adoption is finalized. Post adoption education and support are crucial for adoptive families and adopted kids to thrive. Creating a Family has an extensive post adoption education and support section.

Creating a Family, the national adoption education and support nonprofit, includes extensive resources on the following adoption topics in our Adoption Resource Guide:

Infertility

There is much misinformation online for those trying to conceive or those who are infertile. Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support nonprofit, provides an Infertility Resource Guide, provided medically accurate information on all aspects of infertility, including: female infertility, male infertility, unexplained infertility, PCOS, endometriosis, IVF, and other forms of fertility treatment.

The emotional aspects of infertility are just as challenging as the medical aspects, and Creating a Family has extensive resources to help those struggling with infertility cope with this disease.

Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support nonprofit, includes extensive resources, including archived radio show/podcasts, blogs, fact sheets, research summaries, videos, and Expert Q&As in our Infertility Resource Guide:

Domestic Infant Adoption

It is possible to adopt a baby in the US. Creating a Family provide resources on how to adopt a baby in the US, the cost of adoption, how to prepare an adoptive parent profile, how to assess risk factors, such as prenatal alcohol and drug exposure and mental health issues with birth parents and expectant parents, and how to select an adoption agency or adoption attorney.

In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

Many infertility patients will need to use IVF to get pregnant. Creating a Family provides resources on in vitro fertilization, how to select a fertility clinic, cost of infertility treatment an IVF, how to save money on fertility treatment, and what is the usual IVF procedure.

Foster Care Adoption

Many children are available for adoption in US foster care system. Creating a Family provides resources on foster care adoption, including the different ways to adopt from foster care, how to choose an adoption agency, the cost of adopting from foster care, how to negotiate for an adoption subsidy, and how to assess risk factors for children being adopted or fostered from foster care.

Coping with Infertility and Miscarriage Grief

Infertility is a painful and often lonely journey. People often do not understand the loss of miscarriage and do not know what to say or how to offer support. Creating a Family provides information and support for infertility grief, surviving the emotions of infertility, miscarriage, and trying to conceive.

International Adoption

It is possible to adopt from abroad. Many countries have international adoption programs allowing Americans to adopt. Creating a Family provides resources on how to adopt internationally from a foreign country, the cost of international adoption, how to prepare a dossier, how to find an international adoption agency, how to choose a country, how to assess risk factors in children available for adoption, issues to consider when adopting a toddler or older child, and much more. Creating a Family also has the most extensive Adoption Comparison Charts allowing adoptive parents to compare the top placing countries to the US for 25 factors they should consider when choosing a country to adopt from.

Causes and Prevention of Miscarriage

It is amazing how little good information is available on recurrent miscarriages. This is partly because there is no medical specialty in miscarriage prevention and treatment.

The good news is that recent advances in chromosomal testing of embryos and miscarried fetuses are helping prevent more miscarriages. In the meantime, the following statistic should give you some peace: 70% of woman that have had up to four miscarriages will successfully carry a baby to term.

Check out the Creating a Family blogroll of bloggers who talk about miscarriage and pregnancy loss.

Two great places to begin to understand the causes, treatments, and coping with recurrent pregnancy loss are these Creating a Family radio shows with interviews with leading doctors and therapists.

Latest Development in the Cause & Prevention of Miscarriage (1 hour radio show with experts)
Suggested Books about Miscarriage and Pregnancy Loss

Books for Those with Infertility

Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support nonprofit, has a list of the Best of the Best Books for those suffering from infertility. We a review of each book and cover the following topics:

Best Adoption Books for Kids and Parents

Creating a Family has an extensive list of adoption related books for kids broken out by type of adoption and age of the child. We also have a book list for adoptive parents.

Deciding on a Country to Adopt from for International Adoption

Creating a Family has comparison charts to help prospective adoptive parents decide on which foreign country they should adopt from. We analyze 25 factors we think parents should consider before choosing a country for international adoption.

Emotions of Loss and Grief when you are Infertile

One of the reasons that the pain of infertility is so hard to deal with is that it is often unrecognized by our society. Therapist and scholars have a name for this type of grief: disenfranchised grief or ambiguous grief.

The lack of recognition for the loss makes it easy to feel that you aren’t entitled to mourn, but mourning is crucial to healing. It is hard to grieve a dream and harder still when others don’t even see that there is a loss.

You do not have to cope with the pain and grief of infertility alone. Many people have been helped by counselors, but it is especially helpful if the therapist is trained in the realities of infertility.

Creating a Family has done a number of shows that include a discussion of how to find a good therapist that is knowledgeable about infertility issues. Listen to a few, such as How to Survive Infertility without Losing your Mind, Your Marriage, or Your Friends, Coping with Infertility, and Psychological Issues with Infertility.
Ask your infertility clinic if they have mental health professionals on staff or can recommend one.
The American Society of Reproductive Medicine lists members that are mental health professionals.

Post Adoption Depression

Every adoptive parent expects that after working so hard to become a parent, they will feel nothing but joy and thankfulness at the gift that is their child. More often these feelings of joy are mixed with feelings of being overwhelmed and worry about not “falling madly in love at first sight”. Throw in the exhaustion of any major life change, and you have the makings for post adoption depression.

We have seen no research on how many adoptive parents experience post adoption depression, but anecdotally from our post adoption support group, we believe that it occurs more often when:

Parents have unrealistic expectations of what the transition period will be like.
Parents do not have people with whom to confide their fears and concerns.

If you are struggling post adoption, you are not alone . This is not a reflection on you, or your child, or your eventual adjustment. Talk with your adoption social worker. She will not judge, and she can help.

About Creating a Family

Creating a Family is the national adoption & infertility education nonprofit. Our mission is to provide support and unbiased information before, during and after adoption or fertility treatment to help create strong families. Check out our Five Core Values that we use to guide every decision. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and you can check out our financials and IRS Form 990 at GuideStar.

Creating a Family, the National Infertility & Adoption Education and Support Organization

Creating a Family has the most extensive and diverse collection of resources for those struggling with infertility and for pre and post adoptive families. We are constantly creating more resources and average adding four new resources every week. Since 2007 we also have our weekly radio show where we interview the top experts on every aspect of adoption, adoptive parenting, and infertility. For those folks that want one on one education to get help with a specific decision, we can do that as well through our Individual Education option. While education is important to helping you make decisions on this often painful and confusing journey to creating a family, support is equally important. We have created an incredibly strong online support network via a private Facebook group, Pinterest, and Twitter. Our mantra is ‘Information is Power’. We aren’t promoting one way of family building over another. We trust that with the right information, every family will find their right path to parenthood. We’ll freely admit that we would love for every child in this world to have a family. We would especially love to help find homes for older kids and kids with special needs, but we know that this is not the right decision for every family, and our goal to help every family find their right path to parenthood.

Statement of Core Values for Creating a Family, the national infertility & adoption education and support nonprofit

Creating a Family uphold these core values in our work. They represent what we believe in, what we stand for, and how we approach everything we do.

There is no “best way” to create your family.
With education and support families will be able to choose the best way for them.
Our education and support will be unbiased and accurate.
It is in a child’s best interest to have parents that are educated and supported before, during and after infertility treatment or adoption.
We will attempt to bridge the gap between the academic and research communities and the infertility patient community and the adoptive parent and adoption professional community by making research findings available and offering researchers access to our audience to publicize their studies and solicit participants.

Bit of Bragging

Of course we’re proud of what we do, but what matters most is what our audience has to say. Here’s a sampling:

Creating a Family and in particular your radio show has been a lifeline to me over the past 2+ years. In the privacy of my home/car I have been connected with others whose family-building has been challenged and I have had access to invaluable information from experts that have helped us make better decisions. Thank you! ~ S. Potter

I wanted to thank you for all of the wonderful things you do. We brought our beautiful baby boy home from the hospital on April 2nd. While we waited for an adoption match and then waited for his birth, your podcast and website were a continuous reminder that we were part of an amazing adoption community. It really helped us not feel alone. ~Sarah S.

I just felt like I should say Thank You this morning! Your website and e-mails have consistently been a “touch stone” for me through this whole process – sometimes reaffirming what I already believe, sometimes giving me a different perspective, but always being something that I can respect and learn from. Thank you for this!!! ~ L. Adams

Creating a Family has made a big difference to the quality of information that we can share with our adoptive community. We sometimes use your podcasts as the basis for roundtable discussions or our monthly Parent Support Meetings. ~ Louise Garnaut (Adoptive Families of Hong Kong)

Bit of History

Creating a Family started in 2007 as a labor of love. We saw the huge need for unbiased accurate information online about infertility and adoption. We knew people were getting most of their “education” online, but much of what was available was inaccurate junk, slanted towards one form of family building or one type of adoption over another, or was being provided by for profit organizations that were anything but unbiased. We knew that in order to educate and support, we needed to be where the folks were, so we readily embraced all forms of online media (audio, video, social networks), but set out to be the anti-junk and the anti-bias.

Our Leadership

Dawn Davenport is Executive Director of Creating a Family, and the “Official Voice” of Creating a Family since she also hosts of our weekly national radio show and is a frequent speaker at conferences. (We try to not let that title go to her head.) We also are proudly led by a terrific Board. You can check out their bona fides if you’re so inclined.

Dawn Davenport, Executive Director Our Board

Our Staff

We have some of the best, brightest, and most dedicated folks helping out around here to help us provide support and unbiased information before, during and after adoption or fertility treatment to help create strong families. Check out their pretty/handsome faces and a bit about them. Our Staff

creating a family

Creating a Family is the national adoption & infertility education and support nonprofit providing resource and support on all types of adoption and infertility treatment

support@creatingafamily.org

Adoption Resources

Foster/Kinship Care Resources

Infertility Resources

Radio Show

Parenting Tweens and Teens

Blog

Parenting the challenging child can make you doubt your ability to parent at all. 5 Tips to help you parent the challenging child.

5 Parenting Tips When You Have a Challenging Child

Online Courses

Content created by Creating a Family. And remember, there are no guarantees in adoption or infertility treatment. The information provided or referenced on this website should be used only as part of an overall plan to help educate you about the joys and challenges of adopting a child or dealing with infertility. Although the following seems obvious, our attorney insists that we tell you specifically that the information provided on this site may not be appropriate or applicable to you, and despite our best efforts, it may contain errors or important omissions. You should rely only upon the professionals you employ to assist you directly with your individual circumstances. CREATING A FAMILY DOES NOT WARRANT THE INFORMATION OR MATERIALS contained or referenced on this website. CREATING A FAMILY EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS LIABILITY FOR ERRORS or omissions in this information and materials and PROVIDES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, implied, express or statutory. IN NO EVENT WILL CREATING A FAMILY BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES, including without limitation direct or indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages, losses or expenses arising out of or in connection with the use of the information or materials, EVEN IF CREATING A FAMILY OR ITS AGENTS ARE NEGLIGENT AND/OR ARE ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

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