Pregnancy and Adoption Resources

Author Linda Howard Urbach recounts the life of the young girl orphaned by Madame Bovary in a recently released book that will be introduced at several local book readings featuring actress E. Katherine Kerr.

EmbryoAdoption.org Adds More Web Videos to Raise Awareness About Family-Building Through Embryo Adoption and Donation

FULLERTON, Calif. – (September, 2009) – To raise awareness about the relatively new process of human embryo adoption and donation, the one-stop informational Web site EmbryoAdoption.org launched three new Web videos.

The first video, “A True Story of Embryo Donation & Adoption,” reveals a compelling story of two families brought together by their common desire to become parents.  Two additional videos share embryo donation and adoption testimonials from couples that struggled with infertility and found hope in the embryo donation and adoption process.

“There are just so many couples that just don’t know what to do with their embryos,” says embryo donor Jennifer Spohr, as she tells her story in the first video.  “They have many frozen [embryos] and if they don’t do something, they’re going to stay frozen forever.”

Hundreds of thousands of frozen human embryos in the United States alone remain in storage and in limbo, while couples grapple with the difficult decision of what to do with their remaining embryos after completing their family building efforts.  As couples weigh their options, many learn about embryo adoption and donation through the site’s fact sheets, testimonials, adoption stories, news archive, service providers and much more.  In fact, site traffic amounts to about 5000 visitors per month.

In addition to the three new Web videos posted this year, EmbryoAdoption.org features eight videos posted in past years.  Among these videos, visitors to the site will find perspectives from the medical community, background about where frozen embryos come from, and footage of special moments in the lives of children born through embryo adoption.

These videos also have an active viewership throughout the Internet. Users of video viewing sites such as YouTube, Tangle and UVouch have accounted for more than 50,000 views over the past twelve months.

EmbryoAdoption.org is maintained by Nightlight ^® Christian Adoptions as part of its Embryo Donation and Adoption Awareness Campaign.  Nightlight provides adoption services through the Snowflakes^® Frozen Embryo Adoption program (Snowflakes).  Snowflakes started in 1997 as the only organization of its kind to facilitate the donation and adoption of frozen embryos for family building.

Nightlight’s Embryo Donation and Adoption Awareness Campaign is supported by grant number

5 EAAPA081009-02-00 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Department.

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 EmbryoAdoption.org Adds More Web Videos to Raise Awareness About Family-Building Through Embryo Adoption and Donation

FULLERTON, Calif. – (March 25, 2011) – To raise awareness about the relatively new process of human embryo adoption and donation, the one-stop informational Web site EmbryoAdoption.org launched three new Web videos.

The first video, “A True Story of Embryo Donation & Adoption,” reveals a compelling story of two families brought together by their common desire to become parents.  Two additional videos share embryo donation and adoption testimonials from couples that struggled with infertility and found hope in the embryo donation and adoption process.

“There are just so many couples that just don’t know what to do with their embryos,” says embryo donor Jennifer Spohr, as she tells her story in the first video.  “They have many frozen [embryos] and if they don’t do something, they’re going to stay frozen forever.”

Hundreds of thousands of frozen human embryos in the United States alone remain in storage and in limbo, while couples grapple with the difficult decision of what to do with their remaining embryos after completing their family building efforts.  As couples weigh their options, many learn about embryo adoption and donation through the site’s fact sheets, testimonials, adoption stories, news archive, service providers and much more.  In fact, site traffic amounts to about 5000 visitors per month.

In addition to the three new Web videos posted this year, EmbryoAdoption.org features eight videos posted in past years.  Among these videos, visitors to the site will find perspectives from the medical community, background about where frozen embryos come from, and footage of special moments in the lives of children born through embryo adoption.

These videos also have an active viewership throughout the Internet. Users of video viewing sites such as YouTube, Tangle and UVouch have accounted for more than 50,000 views over the past twelve months.

EmbryoAdoption.org is maintained by Nightlight ^® Christian Adoptions as part of its Embryo Donation and Adoption Awareness Campaign.  Nightlight provides adoption services through the Snowflakes^® Frozen Embryo Adoption program (Snowflakes).  Snowflakes started in 1997 as the only organization of its kind to facilitate the donation and adoption of frozen embryos for family building.

Nightlight’s Embryo Donation and Adoption Awareness Campaign is supported by grant number 5 EAAPA081009-02-00 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Department.

Contact:   Leisa Brug Kline, (949) 413-4447 or leisabrug@aol.com

What if Mom and Dad had never met?

What if adoption was not an option for a birthmother who is “in trouble?”

What if New Beginnings wasn’t available to offer HOPE through ADOPTION?

And, most importantly, what if Jesus hadn’t been born?

Tuesday, November 30, 2010 – The Red Thread: An Adoptive Family Forum by Andrea Poe

NEW YORK, N.Y. - UNICEF has undergone worldwide scrutiny in regard to its position on inter-country adoption.  And for good reason.   Its position that a child’s birthplace and culture is superior to a stable home in any other place or culture has had dire consequences on some adoptees around the world.

In recent months there’s been some effort on the part of UNICEF to temper some earlier pronouncements, but the fact remains that the organization is fundamentally misguided when it comes to inter-country adoption.

There’s a disconnect between UNICEF’s position and the welfare of children. (Photo: Andrea Poe)

UNICEF claims that international adoption robs children of their heritage and culture.  The organization’s has staked out a firm position: children must be given to birth parents, regardless of the circumstance.  In lieu of that, children should go to extended family.  Next, to his or her “community.”  Finally, domestic adoption should be explored.  Inter-country adoption is “one of a range of options” according to UNCEF and should be turned to as a last resort.  The organization goes so far as to claim that international adoption must be “subsidiary” to in-country adoption, at all costs.

UNICEF declares that inter-country adoption “is not as a good as being raised in their families of origin but better than staying in orphanages.”  That would make sense if the world was a perfect place and this Polly Anna viewpoint had any basis in reality.  But that’s not the world, nor is it the reality of millions of orphans around the world.  Shared DNA does not make for the best families, contrary to UNICEF’s claims.  Children wind up eligible for adoption for myriad reasons, ranging from poverty to abuse to neglect.

In some cases, UNICEF’s positions border on racist.  In a position paper on inter-country adoption the organization states, that every effort should be made to keep a child “within his ethnic group.”  Huh?  Some vague notion about cultural ties should trump the basic human rights of children?  For what end UNICEF does not say.

There’s a disconnect between UNICEF’s position and the welfare of children.  Somewhere along the way the behemoth organization lost track of advocating for children and began abstracting the issue.

You can even hear it in the language used in the organization’s Innocenti Digest entitled “Impact of International Legal Standards and the Safeguards of The Best interest of the Child in Domestic and Intercountry Adoption,” where “different stakeholders” in intercountry adoption are mentioned.   Stakeholders?  What about the children?

To promote its agenda, UNICEF points out that abuses have taken place with inter-country adoptions.  They are right.  They have.  Just as they have and do with domestic adoptions, which UNICEF advocates. The Hague Convention was developed to provide guidelines for inter-country adoption with the hope of reducing abuses of the system and reducing the risk for child trafficking and profiteering from orphans.  This issue so often raised by UNICEF is a canard.  C’mon.  Who isn’t against corruption and abuse?

What’s so disappointing about UNICEF’s position is that for years the organization has been a leader in child welfare around the world.  The work that they do to help feed and immunize children is unimpeachable.  And perhaps this is the problem.  The organization’s success in this area has jaundiced UNICEF’s view on adoption.

Arbitrary national borders on a map have become a greater priority to UNICEF than the complicated issues of placing children with safe, loving families wherever those families may be.

UNICEF has repeatedly stated that it prefers the expansion of social welfare programs for poor families within countries, so that children can stay in kinship groups.  The practical outcome has been that unparented children are being denied the best homes so that UNICEF can score cheap points in the international arena about the insufficient aid poor countries receive.  The pawns here are the children.

Harvard Law School’s Elizabeth Bartholet, an adoptive parent herself and a well-regarded child advocate, has publicly stated that “international adoption is under siege,” largely because of UNICEF’s unrelenting assault on inter-country adoption.

In Batholet’s paper International Adoption: The Human Rights Position she writes, “Preferences for what UNICEF calls permanent family or foster care [in country] are dangerous. UNICEF’s argument is that such care could preserve children’s birth and national heritage links. But foster care doesn’t exist as a meaningful option in most sending countries – unparented children are instead relegated to orphanages. UNICEF wants foster care expanded, but denying children adoptive homes now because in the future foster care might exist is unfair to existing children.”

The influence of UNICEF on the world community cannot be overstated.  It has used its reputation as a leader in children welfare to lobby countries, including the United States, to reduce the number of inter-country adoptions.  The results have had dire consequences for children around the world.  International adoptions have plummeted and most countries are now closed to American parents.

The dark and highly influential shadow that UNICEF has cast on intercountry adoption has left millions of children around the world stranded, without homes and without hope.

Link to article: click on the source line or the first two paragraphs of the article to link to the source article which was written by Andrea Poe.

1.      I’m thankful that Jesus Christ adopted me into His kingdom when I was nine years old.
2.      I’m thankful that I was raised in an intact, two-parent household by my natural parents. Part of my motivation and endurance as it relates to my work with New Beginnings comes from the belief that every child deserves to have what I had. Loving grandparents, loving parents, and a loving family. No…they weren’t perfect and I’ve never said they were. But, they were THERE.
3.      I’m thankful that Mom and Dad were married for over 51 years and that only death could separate them. Did they ever fight? You can’t imagine–and I smile when saying that. But, they taught us that you work things out and grow through the process.
4.      I’m thankful that Dad and Mom stood up for their three kids when we messed up. And, when we did, “it was our fault.” We were never allowed to blame someone else, ask for a handout from the government or whine about life being unfair.
5.     I’m thankful for two beautiful daughters and two wonderful grand-children…all the byproduct of adoption.
6.     I’m thankful for the pastors, men of God, who have stepped on my toes through the years. They’re simply doing their job.
7.     I’m thankful a great team of workers at New Beginnings. Everyone truly cares about birth mothers, babies and the value of human life.
8.     I’m thankful for the models of manhood that I witnessed in my grandfathers, father and uncles. They were/are honest, hard-working and God-fearing.
9.     I’m thankful that New Beginnings is supported by so many great people who care about the values of family, human life and caring for others.
10.     I’m thankful, in advance, for someone who is listening to God’s voice and who will help bless the adoption ministry of New Beginnings…and others like us in America.

Tom Velie, LMSW

President

Cori and Shaina were adopted from South Korea over 20 years ago, and I’ve never witnessed a live human birth. Well…I’m not sure that I’d want to. . However, as President of New Beginnings, our female social workers tell us story after story about the humbling beauty of the birth process. Many allusions and referrals are made to the “sanctity” of the moment and the awesome wonder of birth. 

Come to think of it, I’ve never heard an atheist rejoice over the same experience, but I’m certain that some could put the glory of human birth into some sort of scientific (so called) babble. Go for it! I’ll stick with the divinely inspired and created version of things. 

And…for company, I’ll stick with Mr. Einstein. Birthmothers, who choose life and then are strong enough to choose God’s plan for children–the two-parent family, hats off to you!

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a

miracle. The other is as if everything is” Albert Einsten.

Have you heard about PREP4YOUTH?

PREP4YOUTH is the New Beginning’s combined training program which includes the Decisions, Choices and Options curriculum and the Genesis curriculum. This package provides a broad range of materials for young people who are searching for answers about the moral challenges of this day. And…for the young person who may have found themselves in a crisis pregnancy situation, hope and help is on the way.

Call Rachel or Tom at 662-842-6752 for more information.

  UPDATE – MARCH 26, 2010

New Beginnings Children’s Home of Nepal

Our fourth report…and the “good work” goes on.

The bulk of our work on the Children’s Home has been completed, but there is much more to be done in future trips. We’ve exhausted our budget, and we’re extremely grateful to some special donors who completely supplied the unfinished portion of the work. What a blessing and a great thank you is owed-I haven’t received permission to publish the name so we simply say “Thank you.”

The Kathmandu Resort Hotel in Thamel has been our home for the past week. The service is excellent, the rooms are comfortable and the breakfast on the Rooftop is very nice. Overall, we’re pleased with our lodging and recommend this hotel for future travelers.

Tom has met with individuals who server the adoption community on three occasions, and on Friday night he enjoyed meeting with his friend, Mr. Paudel, who visited Tupelo in 2008. Together, they enjoyed a delightful traditional Nepali dinner-Tom skipped the Dhedo.

We’re having a wonderful time! George “Fly Paper” Miller has become a legend on streets of Thamel. The local vendors know an “American Banker” when they see one. He has more followers than Joel Olsteen. If you don’t like the Fly Paper nickname, how about “Big Laughing Buddha?” In case you don’t understand, this is quite a compliment in Nepal.

In the next edition…cold showers, airport “bombings” and whatever.

Top of the World – Nepal – March 23, 2010

By Amber  Corey

It’s hard to believe that we have only been working at the orphanage for 2 days. So much has been accomplished! 

The orphanage consists of an extremely nice building with drab décor and a long list of needed repairs. Our team jumped right in with both feet. A group of men headed out to find the needed materials (quite a feat in a country that appears to be stuck in the 70s) while the ladies did what we do best…take over! =)

We began cleaning, painting and loving on the 5 beautiful children that are currently living at the home. In the two days we have been here, we have almost completely finished all of the background painting for 5 rooms.  We have even started on the next step…the murals! The kids’ school room now has ABC, 123, colors, and a chalkboard painted on the fun blue walls. Talk about an improvement from the dirty, dingy grey we started with!

The guys have had many unexpected obstacles. Paint is not readily available…and what we found is more of a plaster consistency that is mixed with water to form a white wash. The power goes off right in the middle of the day. Yesterday, that meant they were unable to sand, saw, or even fill the new water tank we purchased with water!  These obstacles have really us pull our knowledge and resources together to think outside the box.  Sure, we can cut the tops off of water bottles and use them as paint cups.  Yes, sticks from the yard work perfectly for stirring paint. Of course, we can build our own scaffolding out of lumber.

These first days have been enlightening, to say the least. Our eyes have been opened to a culture very different than our own. Never will we walk in Lowes or Home Depot with the same mindset! Once again, through seeing poverty first hand, God has reminded us of His blessings in our lives and how He intends for us to use them…to be a blessing to others.