Your Future Family: The Essential Guide to Assisted Reproduction (What You Need to Know About Surrogacy, Egg Donation, and Sperm Donation)

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From one of the world’s leading authorities, a practical resource guide filled with the essential information you need to know about assisted reproduction

Third-party reproduction is now easier, more accessible, and more successful than ever before, yet it is still a complex process. Before you start down this path to parenthood, there are important questions to consider such as, “How are sperm, eggs, and embryos screened?”, “How do I find a donor?”, or “What are the legal issues surrounding surrogacy?” Here, psychologist Kim Bergman—an expert in the field and a mother herself through assisted reproduction—provides the answers you need and more.

Your Future Family provides a roadmap for navigating the journey of building a family through assisted reproduction. It outlines the very first steps you should take, the options available to you at each turn, and includes essential advice and tips to help set you up for success. Filled with personal anecdotes from Bergman’s own life, as well as the lives of her clients, this book brings the human element of creating a family this way to life.

The definitive primer on assistant reproduction,Your Future Family provides a foundational knowledge of the entire process, includes essential facts, as well as a list of resources to help you along the way. Kim Bergman’s expertise and her open, honest approach will inspire confidence to fulfill your dreams of creating a family.

From the Publisher

A Clear Road Map for Navigating the Journey of Assisted Reproduction

If you picked up this book, you’re probably thinking about building a family. You’ve been dreaming about your baby, first smiles and first steps, family vacations and holidays spent together. As with any dream, you might need some help to fulfill it. Thanks to advancements in medical technology, assisted reproductive technologies (ART) can help make your dream a reality. In these pages, I will walk you through the essential aspects of assisted reproduction, review your options, and offer you guidance on what can seem like a daunting, complicated, and mysterious process. While the journey is complex, with thoughtful planning, it is entirely doable. We’ll cover not only the people you will need by your side to help you create a baby but also the professionals who will help you navigate the process. I’ll discuss how donors and surrogates are screened, and how to choose one, and share stories of people I have helped through the process.

Creating Families Through ART Is Beautiful and Healthy

I have written this book to help anyone who is contemplating having a baby with the help of others. It’s also for family members, friends, employers, neighbors, and anyone else who knows someone who is either contemplating or building a family through third-party assisted reproduction. In particular, grandparents, aunts, and uncles will find this book useful as it both explains the basic process and helps one talk about it with other people. Society has made great strides in overcoming bigotry, especially recently, but confusion and ignorance still breed hatred. The vast majority of the world’s population is confused by or ignorant about alternative methods of procreation. This can lead to misunderstanding and judgment, which can affect how policies and legislation dealing with assisted reproduction are created. Creating families through ART is beautiful and healthy. It is about love, collaboration, and a desire to raise a child.

There Is No Shame in Needing Assistance

There is nothing more rewarding than building a family, and these days almost anyone can do so. If you are truly committed and you are willing to be patient, your wish can come true. I must warn you, however, that having a baby through assisted reproduction is a marathon, not a sprint. You’ve got twenty-six miles to run, and no two miles are the same. And the marathon starts long before you start the race. You’ve got a whole lot of planning, training, and commitment ahead of time. You have to keep your eyes on the finish line even when things are really tough. Some miles are easy, others are excruciating, some are euphoric, and some are boring. That’s exactly how having a baby through assisted reproduction feels.

There are four key players in your assisted reproduction journey:

A medical specialist, your reproductive endocrinologistA reproductive attorneyA mental health professional specializing in fertility and ARTA fertility insurance expert

While some hopeful parents choose to go it alone, or go it partially alone (enlisting the help of a few but not all of these people), I would advise against that. For a life decision as major as this one, you’ll want all the support you can get. And it’s very likely that at some point you will need—yes, need—these experts to guide you through the legal, medical, and psychological aspects of third-party assisted reproduction. With that strongly worded advice out there, let’s dive into how these four professionals can help you on your journey.

There are many, many people who have a child in a nontraditional way, but if you think there is something wrong with or shameful about having a child through assisted reproduction, then you shouldn’t do it. A shred of doubt or uneasiness can grow. You are using exceptional means to bring a life into the world, and you need to be completely sure where you stand. Otherwise your choices can affect your ability to parent, your relationship with your child, and your relationship with your partner if you have one. If you feel embarrassed, or if you have moral or ethical concerns, then it is important to sort those out before you begin. Sometimes just a few conversations with a mental health professional can really help.

The Kids Are Definitely Alright

Should you choose to build a family through assisted reproduction, you may be wondering how your children will fare in life. There is a lot of research on this subject, and that research overwhelming supports the idea that kids born through assisted reproduction tend to do just fine. For instance, kids born to LGBTQ parents do as well (or better) on every measure of mental health and social adjustment.2 Single parents also do a great job as parents.3 And research shows that kids born through ART are healthy and well adjusted.4 Moreover, the vast body of adoption5 and ART literature6 makes it crystal clear that openness and honesty lead to the healthiest outcomes. I hope that knowing about all this research will help to reassure you about your choice to create your family through third-party assisted reproduction and help you know that being open and honest with your kids from the start will always be best.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Red Wheel (May 1, 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 160 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1573247464
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1573247467
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches