News & Updates from I Want To Put A Baby In You!

Stephanie is the Founder & President of Family Match Consulting–a world-renowned fertility consulting firm specializing in finding egg donors, sperm donors, and surrogates for clients. Stephanie, the first of her parent’s three adopted children, long carried the desire to help other hopeful parents start their families; a call that intensified when she found herself in the throes of infertility. Ultimately, it was IVF that helped Stephanie achieve her dream of becoming a mother to two children. With more than 20 years of experience in the industry she’s so passionate about, Stephanie has given the gift of family to more than 3,000 parents who were struggling with infertility themselves.

Because of her personal background and decades-long experience working in the field, parents often ask Stephanie for guidance when talking to their children about their birth stories. Born from the desire to give parents the tools to talk to their children about the many ways families can be made, Stephanie teamed up with Alana Weiss, her best friend of almost 25 years and a mother through IVF, to co-author the children’s book, “From the Start: A Book About Love and Making Families.”

From the Start is an inclusive and heartfelt love letter to children born through the help of adoption or fertility treatments such as IVF, sperm/egg donation, or surrogacy.

Through age-appropriate language and sweet rhyming prose, Levich and Weiss weave together themes of hope and gratitude to highlight the special roles fertility doctors, donors, surrogates, and adoption play in helping hopeful parents start or grow their families.

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Kathryn J. Go, PhD earned her doctoral degree from the University of Pennsylvania in molecular biology and has been the director of a laboratory for assisted reproductive technology since 1984. She has been on the faculties or an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania, Medical College of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson Medical University, the Experimental College of Tufts University, the University of Massachusetts and is currently a teaching associate at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Go is the director of the In Vitro Fertilization Laboratory at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and is happy to be contributing to both patient care and the education of the next generations in clinical science in the company of a terrific team of embryologists, nurses, physicians, and administrators at the Brigham.

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Lauren Makler is the Co-Founder and CEO of Cofertility. She previously founded Uber Health, a product that enables healthcare organizations to leverage Uber’s massive driver network in improving healthcare outcomes through patient transportation and healthcare delivery. Under Lauren’s leadership, the business helped millions of patients get to the care they needed. Prior to that, Lauren spent the early years at Uber launching the core business throughout the east coast and led the company’s first experiment in healthcare, national on demand flu shot campaigns. Lauren’s winding road of a fertility journey led her to believe that everyone should have the opportunity to freeze their eggs –and that there should be better access to egg donors. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and their miracle baby girl.

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Jessica is the past Chair of the Walk of Hope in Colorado, a fundraiser for RESOLVE: the National Infertility Association, which raises awareness and provides support for those experiencing infertility. Jessica has personally walked that long road and shares an update regarding her journey to parenthood… five years after our initial podcast recording with her.

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Diana Thomas is the Founder and CEO of The World Egg and Sperm Bank. After having to find her own egg donor in the early 1990s, and successfully becoming pregnant, fertility specialists began approaching Diana asking for her help in finding egg donors for their own patients, at a time when only one other egg donor agency existed in the U.S. She quickly discovered that there was a desperate need for a company that understood empowering recipients with information about egg donors, and the emotional sensitivity to navigate through the process of involving another person in their reproductive life.

Through her own personal experience, she created a company that catered to the needs of intended parents as well as brought the best quality of care to egg donors. For over 25 years, Diana’s egg donor agency, that evolved into The World Egg and Sperm Bank, has matched thousands of donors and couples nationwide and internationally. In 2004, she was one of three partners to start the first “frozen” egg bank in the world. Since then, The World Egg and Sperm Bank has increased egg donor options by shipping vitrified (frozen) eggs and sperm to recipients’ doctors around the globe, and as such, removed many geographic and emotional barriers for those who hope to one day have a child of their own.

The World Egg and Sperm Bank is the only egg bank worldwide that focuses solely on egg and sperm donors, and the only bank that has full operational control in its own state of the art facility to manage all donor cycles, retrievals and egg and sperm freezing from one lab, and one location. This is a unique powerful benefit in managing quality control, and the data outcomes reflect the focus and efforts to continually improve pregnancy outcomes.

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Meet Brian Rosenberg, founder of Gays With Kids and creator / head coach of GWK Academy, the only-one-of-its-kind App designed specifically to help gay and queer men become dads. 

Brian has more than 25 years of sales and marketing experience, but his real passion has been the creation of Gays With Kids, the one-stop destination for gay, bi and trans dads and dads-to-be.

Brian and his husband Ferd became first-time dads in 2009, creating their family through adoption and surrogacy. At the time, there were few resources available to help queer men become dads, and even fewer for those who already were, so they launched GWK in March 2014.

Together since 1993, the secret to this couple’s longevity is Ferd’s prowess in the kitchen and Brian’s great appreciation for anything his husband cooks!

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Ryan Ferrante is a Reproductive Law attorney with a unique perspective on the intersection of infertility, gestational surrogacy, and the law. His practice is focused on the representation of intended parents, gestational surrogates, and donors in all collaborative reproduction matters. Twice an intended father himself in a gestational surrogacy arrangement, Ryan has intimate awareness of the challenges each one of his clients faces when trying to have a family. His own family’s infertility experience led him to RESOLVE for support, which he found in the collective voices of volunteer advocates, from all walks of life and every corner of the country, asking for help in the form of real change. Ryan is among the hundreds of volunteer advocates who speak to the U.S. Congress about the need for increased access to care for infertility. He currently serves as Co-Chair of the Volunteer Committee for Federal Advocacy Day with RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association (“RESOLVE”).

Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Ryan is a proud graduate of Ohio University and earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law. Ryan resides in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, with his wife Lyndsie, son Eddie, and daughter Josie.

Lisa Rosenthal has over thirty years of patient advocacy experience in the fertility field. After her personal infertility journey of six and half years, she wanted to give back to the community and help improve accessibility of affordable, comprehensive services. She was determined to help others undergoing fertility treatment and has done so through working for Patient Advocacy groups. Lisa serves as Treasurer on the Board of Directors at Resolve New England and is a member of the Affordable Families Coalition and the American Society of Reproductive Medicine (ASRM).

 Lisa is also the teacher and founder of Fertile Yoga, a research-based program (lead author on research accepted by ASRM), designed to support all people on their quest for their families through gentle movement and meditation, Ladies Night In, and other peer support groups. Lisa has authored over 1,400 blogs on the topic of reproductive health. She also was lead author on a research paper on the effects of COVID on fertility patients, accepted by ASRM in 2021.

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Adrienne Black is passionate about surrogacy and helping grow families in a heart-based, ethical, and exceptional way. Adrienne has been involved in surrogacy for over 20 years. Besides her original profession as a midwife, she has also been a surrogate (four times for three families, resulting in six babies!), a legal assistant in a surrogacy law firm, and the last 11 years as an agency owner.

Adrienne founded and runs the largest online group for surrogacy professionals in the world, and is actively involved in the Society for Ethics in Egg Donation and Surrogacy, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association, and other local family-building organizations.

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Lila Newberry Bradley is a partner in the law firm of Claiborne|Fox|Bradley|Goldman, which focuses its practice on family building through adoption and assisted reproduction. Lila is a Fellow in American Academy of Adoption Attorneys and the Georgia Council of Adoption Lawyers. Lila attended the University of Georgia for both undergraduate and law school. 
Lila is the former director of the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation’s Children’s Law Programs where she worked with volunteer lawyers to provide pro bono legal representation for children who were in foster care or were the subject of high-conflict custody disputes. Lila continues to have a special interest in the legal issues surrounding children in foster care, and she provides training to foster parents on how the law and the court process can ensure that children’s rights and interests are protected.

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Eric Mobley, 28, is donor conceived. He resides in Louisville, Kentucky with his husband, Jeremy, and 1 year old Yorkie, Ellie. Eric did not discover he was donor conceived until he was 26 years old and received a 23&Me kit for Christmas. Eric works in higher education admissions and loves anything Disney related.

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Mark Mellinger handles all marketing and public relations functions for the NEDC and is also in charge of development efforts. His background consists of almost three decades in broadcast journalism. From 2011 to 2018, Mark served as a contributor to The Gospel Coalition, one of the world’s largest Christian websites, where he helped start TGC’s podcast operations.

The National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) has facilitated more embryo donations, and births from embryo donation (nearly 1250), than any organization in the world. NEDC’s mission is to protect the lives and dignity of human embryos by promoting, facilitating, and educating about embryo donation.

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Sasha became a mom at the age of 19 and a single mother at age 23 after leaving a toxic situation. She met the love of her life in 2018 and is now happily married. Sasha and her husband have been struggling to grow their family for a few years and her daughter is impatient, asking for a sibling. Their family of three humans and two dogs enjoy traveling, trying new restaurants, and spending time with family. Her fertility journey includes everything from teen pregnancy to egg donation, and now infertility.

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Born and raised in Texas, Nikki Wehmeir now lives in California -- though is very eager to move back closer to her family at some point! Nikki is an incredibly proud mother of two (an almost 22 year old daughter, Hayli, and a 13 year old son, Kaden). Nikki is completely obsessed with animals -- especially dogs. Her career has been built around the infertility field, specifically egg donation and surrogacy. She truly can't imagine doing anything else.

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Courtney Johnson is a surrogacy and assisted reproductive technology attorney practicing in Jacksonville, Florida. Courtney’s and her husband Matt’s son was delivered by a gestational surrogate after their 6-year journey with infertility and multiple miscarriages. After three transfers with their amazing surrogate, their son was born in March 2020. Going through surrogacy inspired Courtney to make that the focus of her law practice, as she knows firsthand the struggles, heartbreak, and also immense joy that comes to parents building their families in this way. Courtney and her family remain very close with their surrogate Kayla, who lives in Las Vegas.

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Emmy-winning host and TV personality Lilliana Vazquez is a trailblazing interviewer, style expert, and author. Capturing an audience’s attention behind the microphone, the enterprising star has curated a career that began from a small blog to being seen by millions daily on numerous platforms.

Liliana opens up about her fertility experience and the struggles through IVF while navigating work, life, family, and everything in between. After years of her life going towards fertility treatments, she achieved her dream of becoming a mother. Now she prioritizes moments with her son and continues to feed her audience and entrepreneurial spirit by collaborating with select media and brand partners.

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Larry lived in Philadelphia for most of his life before moving down to Florida in 2018. He graduated from Rider College (later Rider University) in 1967 with a BS in Commerce in Accounting. Larry was a practicing CPA from 1970-2015. He is currently living in Bradenton, Florida with his partner.

While in his later years, he came across the unexpected discovery that his biological father was not who he expected. Without his parents to turn to, he sought support from his newly discovered half-brothers and sisters, finding a true family along the way.

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Amy Klein is the author of The Trying Game: Get Through Infertility Treatment Without Losing Your Mind, based on her New York Times "Fertility Diary" column. It took her four years, ten doctors, nine rounds of IVF and three miscarriages to have their daughter.

Don't feel bad about "baby envy," or more accurately, "pregnancy envy," that ugly green monster of jealousy that rears its ugly head every time you hear that another friend, frenemy, or family member is pregnant. Amy has gone to every baby shower, every baby naming party so that you don't have to. She discusses how to set boundaries with others and for yourself, and how not to feel bad about not feeling good for everyone else.

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Megan's professional experience includes health care marketing and non-profit management. She left her most recent role with Baxter Healthcare to focus full-time on the Recurrent Pregnancy Loss Association (RPLA). She holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management. She blogs about her personal experience of recurrent miscarriage at MisbehavingUterus.com. Megan lives in Seattle with her husband and her daughter who was born via gestational surrogacy.

RPLA is dedicated to eliminating recurrent pregnancy loss through the advancement of research into causes and treatments; to providing support and resources to those affected; and to increasing awareness of the impact of miscarriage and fertility challenges on women and families.

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