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The American Fertility Association Blog
A Love Letter from San Francisco
February 13, 2008 - Wednesday
Posted by Corey
Happy Valentine’s Day. I wish all of you love. Love from your partners, from your children, and most especially, from your children to come. Love of self. Love of life.
Valentine’s Day and all that it represents was heavy on my mind last Sunday, at The AFA’s first Family Matters Conference in San Francisco. I didn’t know if I would be writing a love letter today, or my own obituary! But the Conference was a smashing success, far beyond our own expectations. People poured out of their homes and drove into the beautiful national park which is the Presidio.
Truly, our faculty, comprised of compassionate, knowledgeable physicians and attorneys, as well as other reproductive health professionals, changed people’s lives on Sunday.
For me, the seminal moment came at the end of the day. A young couple; beautiful, polished, in fabulous clothing (you know them, right? The kind that you see walking down the street and you just know that they have it all? That couple) came up to me and said that they had been trying to have a baby for two years, and couldn’t. They just couldn’t. They said that they had learned more in that one day at the Presidio than they had in the past two years of trying. And I remembered. Oh that’s right, this is why I do this work. This for me, represents one of the greatest loves of my own life. Love of purpose.
Please know that like the rest of the staff of The AFA—Ken, Melinda, Anne and Lisa, my purpose, our collective purpose, is to support you, in making your fondest dream come true.
Love always,
Corey
Categories
Adoption •
Family Building
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Continuing
February 12, 2008 - Tuesday
Posted by Pamela
Some of you that are reading this message have been with this organization almost as long as I have. But many of you don’t have the historical perspective of the years of work that has created the body, soul and heart of this organization that is now known as The American Fertility Association. I do believe the past is as important as the present and the future. We need to remember and celebrate all that was, as well as what will be, for The American Fertility Association.
It is in that spirit that I have decided, along with my family that the time is ripe for me to leave this garden of The AFA and start tilling the soil elsewhere. I need the room to grow in other directions and so does The AFA.
It is in this loving spirit that I have resigned my position as the Executive Director of The American Fertility Association.
But I also believe that there will be growth for me and for this organization to which I have given most of my life. This decision has not been an easy one to make. My whole family had a say because they have all given so much to The AFA.
I have looked back over the last twenty years of working in the field of assisted reproduction and I feel nothing but pride. Through my leadership and the dedication of the staff and board members, we grew the AFA from an organization that had perhaps 3,500 members to one that serves over 40,000 people today.
Since 1999, we took The AFA from a regional organization to an international association. Our budget grew from $16,000 to well over a million dollars a year. I was proud to lead The AFA through the easy times and the more challenging times.
During my tenure, we provided top notch services to patients and we educated the community at large. I worked to remove shame from infertility by sharing my family with the world. Whether it was The Madsen’s on 60 minutes talking about Stem Cell Research or speaking out and advocating for our constituents to the President’s Council on Bioethics, I always stood tall for this organization. I gave everything I had to give.
And perhaps, that is it. I have given everything that I had to give. Now it is time for me to say goodbye. Yes, my heart is heavy. The AFA has been in my blood twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for eight years. I have only felt love for this organization and in truth—I only gave the best I had to offer.
I know that the Board and Staff of The AFA will continue to lead with inspiration and compassion. It is my hope that The AFA, which launched from my heart, and the hearts of many others, will live in yours. I pass it to each and every one of you for safe keeping.
I will always be available to help The American Fertility Association in whatever capacity needed.
And all of you should know this truth as well—I will not be leaving this world of Reproductive Medicine. I will not be silencing my voice on behalf of the millions of people who are coping with reproductive difficulties. Listen. I am sure that you will hear me.
My Best Wishes,
Pamela Madsen
Categories
Adoption
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Of Winter in Paris and Freezing Sperm
February 5, 2008 - Tuesday
Posted by Ken
It’s a cold winter’s day in Paris, and I’m talking to an old grade school buddy that I hadn’t seen in 25 years. We were there for an amazing home design show called Maison et Objet. My partner, after 21 years of teaching elementary school (his mother’s occupation) is transitioning careers to become a designer (his dad’s occupation.)
As I’m discussing my work with the AFA, my buddy—we’re both 48—says to me, “you need to talk to me about the whole sperm freezing thing.” Corner café, a delicious croissant, a café créme, and freezing sperm.
Seems my pal is hoping to create a family sometime in the future. So talk we did.
As I thought about my 2+ years with the AFA, I realized that the conversation, barring the location, was not all that unusual.
A workman, coming into my home office for payment on yard work sees the CDC’s ART Success Rates Report and begins to tell me about the time and expense and anxiety and guilt that he and his wife are experiencing in their journey to create family.
After Mass one Sunday, a friend pulls me aside and asks for assurances that “this” happens to other people, too, and that she’s really still fully a woman.
It made me think about the work that we do and the opportunities that the AFA provides for people to ask their questions in a safe place and to hear from the leading experts in fertility and related fields.
Take this coming Sunday. We’re excited about our first ever conference in San Francisco. We’ve done them on the east coast and they are fantastic. I’m sure the west coast version is going to be just as great. We’re taking a fresh approach, with something for everyone, including a full track for the LGBT community. The day is chock full of brilliant presenters discussing everything from infertility to 3rd party reproduction to adoption.
The day ends with wine and cheese and a chance to hear the real story about the environment and fertility. The lovely and talented Brenda Strong, the AFA’s national spokesperson and star of Desperate Housewives, will be keeping everyone in check.
Whether you’re straight or gay, single, partnered or married, younger or older, just considering family building or in the thick of it, we want you to be there.
Call 888-917-3777 to register.
I’m sure there will be more conversations in Paris and in my office and at church, but for this one day, we can have the conversation together, as family. Please join us.
Ken Mosesian
Acting Executive Director
Categories
Adoption •
Family Building •
Fertility •
Frozen Sperm
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Super Tuesday - Are You Voting For Your Family?
February 4, 2008 - Monday
Posted by Stuart
Today, when voters from 24 states go to the polls to select the candidates who will represent the major parties in the next election, I’m thinking about how direct our democracy is. I’m thinking about how I voted by absentee ballot for the people who represent my family’s best interests. Not just the family I have at this moment, but the one I’ll have in three weeks when my son is due to be delivered, and the one I reserve the right to have in the future.
As one-half of a gay couple with our first child ready to be born through the amazing assistance of an egg donor and surrogate, I’m keenly aware of the huge strides we’ve made in legalizing many types of family formation. At the same time, I’m acutely conscious of how all that progress could be taken away with the stroke of a pen or the judgment of a court.
That’s why I know deep in my bones that my vote makes a difference. Yours does too.
I suppose it all came home last week I was at lunch with a friend who told me she was voting for one of the candidates who I think is probably the worst on many of the issues that the AFA stands for. I was a little upset at my friend, the mother of two children via surrogacy, for not factoring in reproductive and family building rights into her candidate selection criteria.
Now while I’m gay, and she’s straight, I realized then and there, this isn’t about the politics of sexual orientation. This is about the threats to the basic human right to have family. This is about the threat to assisted reproductive medicine that could wipe out our choice to freeze embryos and to dispose of unused ones according to our individual moral codes. This is about fending off constant challenges to selective reduction, egg donation, genetic diagnosis, surrogacy and gamete donation. And we’ve got to be alert and educated because sometimes the assaults are obvious and sometimes, as in the Colorado push to confer the legal rights of personhood on a fertilized egg, stealthy. We take many of these rights for granted but each of these has come under attack in the last few years.
When I read the papers, listen carefully to the platforms of various candidates, I do know we’ve got to be grounded enough to vote for those who will stand up for the essential right to create family in the ways that are suitable to us. Not according to the ideological dictates of a given administration. But according to our individual hearts.
Knowing just how fragile our family buiding rights are, I believe that this next election is crucial. The results will have a profound impact on our future and that of succeeding generations. I’m voting with all of that in mind. All I can say is I hope you will too.
Stuart Miller
Co-Chair
American Fertility Association
Categories
Adoption •
Egg Donation •
Family Building •
Surrogacy
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Tyra Update - Part Deux
January 23, 2008 - Wednesday
Posted by admin
To our extraordinary members:
We wanted to share our experience of you in the wake of our response to the calls, emails and blog entries we received about the taping of the Tyra Banks Show segment on infertility. The whole episode obviously struck a chord deep within this community. The blizzard of cyber-notes sent to us about our stance regarding the show’s alleged mishandling of the issue has been overwhelming. Thank you!
Thank you for your letters, both affirming and critical of our actions. Because what’s most important in all this is that you’ve spoken up, engaged with us and your peers about topics as sensitive and critical as fertility, infertility, assisted reproductive technologies, family-building, individual choice and public perception.
What can we say? You are remarkable.
Just to update you: Like you, we’re awaiting the airing of the show. We do believe in their right to produce whatever they want. We also believe in our right to respond. Now, everything we know comes from people who’ve told us what they witnessed at the toping. The reports were infuriating. So in the interest of getting a clear picture, we phoned the producers, hoping to hear their perspective. We’re still waiting for a return call.
Now, perhaps, as two of you have written, we jumped the gun with our open letter of protest to the show’s senior producer. If we did—great! Nothing would make us happier than to be mistaken about the Tyra Banks Show. We’d gleefully offer an apology. All we’re after is fair and intelligent treatment by the media. There’s no question but that we’ll fight for that and fight hard. (We’ll keep you posted as the situation unfolds.)
By the sheer volume of your correspondence to The AFA, it’s clear that you want the same. Your activism and input are essential to keeping the media, politicians and regulators on the ball and honest. So we want to take this unique opportunity to urge you to continue this dialog with and through The AFA. It’s so important that we communicate among ourselves, a kind of de facto think tank. To that end we’ll be publishing as many of your notes as we can fit in the next issue of Connections and putting all of them up--pro and con--on our blog.
It’s your voices, your opinions, ideas, experiences and observations that help The AFA shape its perspectives, educational initiatives and policy agenda on everything from compromised fertility, access to health care, treatment affordability and insurance to sexual and reproductive health and the pursuit of family-building. It’s your insights that make the difference.
Yes we are an educational organization, full of top-notch information free to everyone. But The AFA is also an energetic advocate for enlightened policies to guarantee the basic human right to have family. That means that we not only work on infertility and its ripple effects, we also tackle social, legal and political issues through the lens of fertility preservation and prevention. That includes, but certainly isn’t limited to, access to scientifically based sex education, an environment free of fertility-damaging toxins and efforts to promote all forms of family-building. Our goal is to elevate our issues into the mainstream national discussion about reproductive health and rights. Our goal is to be in the room when policy is made, not merely to respond after the fact.
So tune in and jack in. Ask questions. Send your personal stories for The AFA blog or our publications. Share your take on the medical, social, political aspects of infertility, fertility, third-party reproduction, adoption, foster care. After all, it’s about creating a family. It’s what you’re about. It’s what we’re about. We’re in it together. Let’s keep the connections open.
With warm regards,
The AFA Staff
Categories
Fertility •
Infertility •
Reproductive Technologies
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