Surrogacy 101

Love & Infertility: Survival Strategies for Balancing Infertility, Marriage and Life by Kristen Magnacca: A LaMothe Book Review

Love & Infertility: Survival Strategies for Balancing Infertility, Marriage and Life by Kristen Magnacca  is a must read for those experiencing infertility and are also noticing the toll it has taken on marriage and relationships. Kristen offers tips on dealing with stresses caused by infertility and offers suggestions and practical techniques to help couples to become better communicators. She reminds each of us that we are not alone and that we need to celebrate each victory and take time for ourselves. Not to mention the most important fact of all, that a couple is already a family no matter if they have a child or not. 

 

Here is a little information about Kristen Magnacca from her bio located on Amazon.com:

 

Kristen Magnacca, is an author, speaker and consultant who over the last decade has had a wide range of experiences with both individuals and organizations. Kristen has developed the reputation as a valued resource and an expert on helping companies, individuals and couples clarify what matters most to their success and then creating the plan of action for achievement.

As a presenter, Kristen brings a unique message focused on distilling an extensive range of information into easy-to-use strategies. She speaks with candid insight and a well-developed sense of humor from her own personal life experiences.

Prior to founding her consulting practice, Kristen's entrepreneurial spirit helped her create Crickets Corner Learning Center. Over a 10-year period, she and her staff of 18, favorably impacted the lives of more than 500 children. Some of her best ideas were developed while interacting with a room full of 5-year olds.

In 2000, Kristen wrote "Girlfriend to Girlfriend: A Fertility Companion" followed in 2003 by "Love and Infertility: Survival Strategies for Balancing Infertility, Marriage and Life". Kristen has a passion for understanding the mind, body connection and has spent the last ten years investigating and learning about different mind/body enhancing modalities.

Kristen has appeared on the Today Show and testified before the United States Senate regarding the importance of the mind-body connection regarding fertility. In 2006, Kristen wrote "Everyday Certainty, Identifying Your True Life Plan" to bring her proven concepts to a broader audience.

Her work has been featured in both print and television media including The Boston Globe, Conceive Magazine, Women's World as well as FOXTV, PBS Health Week and Chronicle.

Kristen is Vice President and a Board Member for RESOLVE of the Bay State. She is a graduate of Westfield State College where she majored in education. She resides in the Boston area with her husband, Mark, and two children, Cole and Grace. Her favorite celebration ritual is dancing each night to 70's music in their kitchen after eating dinner.

 

Sharon LaMothe
Infertility Answers, Inc.
http://infertilityanswers.org/
LaMothe Services, LLC
http://lamotheservices.com/

 

LaMothe Services, LLC is Announcing the Launch of the Redesigned Blog, The Business of A.R.T.

LaMothe Services, LLC is announcing the launch of the redesigned blog, The Business of A.R.T. Found under the URL http://theagencyangle.blogspot.com/, the Business of A.R.T. is aimed at professionals in the Assisted Reproductive Technology industry who don't have the time to scour the internet looking for ways to improve their visibility within the current market.


Not only does The Business of A.R.T. blog share articles regarding social networking, branding, marketing and self promotion written by some of the top gurus in the marketing industry, Sharon LaMothe also writes about her own experiences as a surrogacy agency owner sharing tips on starting an agency, working from home, and business structure just to name a few of the more informative posts.

" Whereas LaMothe Services, LLC is designed for clients who desire to hire an assistant, of sorts, who is an expert within the infertility industry to guide and advise them, the blog, The Business of A.R.T. is a perfect compliment for those who simply need to catch up with the newest marketing and networking opportunities available." says Sharon LaMothe

For those not familiar with Sharon LaMothe, she is the Past Owner of Surrogacy Consultants of Florida, LLC and most recently the Owner of Infertility Answers, Inc. (http://infertilityanswers.net/) and is the author of the blog(s) Surrogacy 101 (http://infertilityanswers.typepad.com/surrogacy_101 and http://surrogacy101.blogspot.com/).

Sharon's responsibilities as an agency owner included interviewing new Surrogates, educating and assisting Intended Parents and Surrogates, managing relationships, writing packet forms, intake sheets, brochures and website content, marketing and advertising. Prior to owning SCF, Sharon worked with an adoption/surrogacy attorney. Sharon has also been a Gestational Surrogate, giving birth to twin girls in March of 2000 for a Florida couple, and in January 2005, gave birth to girl/boy twins for a New York couple.

Sharon's educational background includes a Social Services major which encompassed classes in Crisis Identification and Intervention, Interviewing and Counseling, Communication in Groups and Organizations. Sharon's continuing education classes include Total Quality Management (TQM) and Shared Decision Making. She has offered her unique perspectives and expertise by holding round table discussions and speaking on the topic of Surrogacy for SMART ART, RESOLVE, American Fertility Association, Fertile Dreams and by arranging staff development luncheons and meetings with various clinics, hospitals and law offices. Sharon is married with two children and currently resides in Seattle, WA.

Says LaMothe "I encourage anyone who is interested in growing their company, especially in our current economy, to subscribe to The Business of A.R.T. at the http://theagencyangle.blogspot.com/. This blog will most certainly save you time and money and will most likely motivate you to try out new marketing and networking opportunities."

The Census Time Line

 

As promised, here are the time lines from the beginning of our country's census-taking days! Again all the credit goes to the Readers Digest.

(To the right is a cartoon from the late 1800's called the 'census man' for those of you wondering!)

The Time Line

1787 / The U.S. Constitution mandates that a national census be conducted every ten years to determine seats in the House of Representatives and to guide tax policy.

1790 / The first census records the head of household’s name and counts occupants (slaves are tallied as three fifths of a person). Total cost: $44,000.

1810 / To get a sense of the national economy, Congress orders census takers to tally manufacturers too.

1830 / Census-taking marshals and their assistants are finally given officially printed census forms so they won’t have to use whatever blank paper they find handy.

1840 / Census grows to more than 70 questions, including the number of “insane and idiotic” in each household.

1850 / All free household residents are now recorded, in addition to the head.

1860 / The census, especially its industrial statistics, will prove useful in assessing the relative strengths of the North and South during the Civil War.

1880 / The government gives federal marshals a break and hires “enumerators.”

1890 / Hands-free! Electronic punch-card machines are introduced.

1930 / Census takers begin to mea¬-sure unemployment. Jobless respondents not hard to find.

1950s / Gigantic UNIVAC I computer helps tabulate results; still relies on punch cards to do so.

1980 / The ever more exact census becomes ever more politicized: States, local governments, and civil rights groups file lawsuits challenging the results.

1998 / Cities and states that lost funding after the ’90 census support a suit to use statistical sampling to adjust for under- and overcounts, with President Clinton’s endorsement. The Supreme Court rules against them 5 to 4 in 1999.

2010 / In March, more than 120 million census forms will be mailed out. If you don’t reply, expect to hear from one of the Census Bureau’s 1.4 million temporary hires.

Sharon LaMothe
Infertility Answers, Inc.
http://infertilityanswers.org/
LaMothe Services, LLC
http://lamotheservices.com/

Are you ready for the 2010 Census?

 
While we are all talking about HOW to add babies into our world the politicians are working out how to COUNT all of us here in the good ole US of A! I thought that I would share a few Census facts with you. You can be sure that you will be a little more informed when one of these census takers knocks on your door! Thanks to the Readers Digest for the following information:

Every ten years, the U.S. government essentially takes attendance, using results to distribute seats in the House of Representatives and $400 billion in federal aid. Will this year’s census make some people angry? We can count on it.

Flash Points

Winners, losers: The 2000 census results were good news for Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Texas: Each state gained two seats in the House of Representatives, thanks to population gains. Illinois, Ohio, and New York lost seats. For 2010, experts predict that the Northeast will lose four congressional seats and the Midwest will shed six, with five seats apiece heading to the South and West.

No citizen left behind? Accuracy is a big issue. In one study, the U.S. Census Monitoring Board used projections and statistical sampling of the 2000 census to determine that the final tally missed three million people, causing the District of Columbia and 31 states to lose $4.1 billion in federal funding. This drives Democrats nuts, since the undercounted are most likely to be part of their constituency: poor people and minorities, who might be difficult to track down or wary of government.

Math and class: Given that one person’s statistical-sampling-based projections are another’s agenda-driven cooking of the books, Republicans have resisted efforts to adjust census results using mathematical tools. On the traditionalists’ side: the U.S. Constitution, which in mandating a census called for an “actual enumeration,” not a guesstimate.

Count me out: In June, Michele Bachmann, a Republican congresswoman from Minnesota, vowed not to fully respond to the 2010 census, calling it government intrusion. Participation, however, isn’t optional. Failure to fill out the census form is a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $5,000. (Wrongful disclosure of confidential information, on the other hand, is a felony.)

The seed of controversy: Census “partners” help in counting harder-to-reach groups. One, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), proved especially divisive—even before an undercover video surfaced, showing its workers offering advice to brothel owners on passing off underage prostitutes as legal dependents.

Measure for Measure: A snapshot of the tallies, then and now

Population

1790: 3,900,000

2009: 308,000,000

Census Takers

Number in 1790: 650

Number in 2010: 650,000

Participation

67%: Mail-in response rate for 2000 census, after declining from 78 percent in 1970

$90 million

Amount the government saves in door-to-door census worker salaries with each 1 percent increase in mail-in response rate.

Marital Status

1880: First year included on census forms

2010: First year same-sex married couples allowed to declare *Note*

Urban Population

Cities with the biggest gains, 2000–2008

New York

Houston

Phoenix

... and with the biggest losses

New Orleans

Philadelphia

Cleveland

79:

Percentage of people living in an urban area in 2000—up from 51 percent in 1920

An Early Look Trends for 2010

The Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey offers specifics you won’t find in the 2010 census. Some highlights:

*For the first time in a decade, the total number of foreign-born residents did not grow.

*The share of people who have never married increased 4 percent from 2000 to 2008.

*Real median household income declined nationwide, ranging from $37,790 in Mississippi to $70,545 in Maryland.

*he median price of a home fell to $197,600, with the biggest declines in Nevada and California.

Forward Thinking

We know where you live. Really. This year, many enumerators, or census takers, will carry handheld computers equipped with a Global Positioning System to help track down addresses. GPS use will make the searching go faster and increase productivity, but the big advantage, according to the Census Bureau, is that adding GPS coordinates for addresses to the bureau’s database will ensure that an accurate location is recorded for each resident. That will help officials redraw congressional districts if necessary.

Keeping it brief: There will be just ten questions on the 2010 census form—one of the shortest since the first enumeration, in 1790. (Question No. 1: How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?) It will use 30 percent less ink than the 2000 census and be printed on 30 percent recycled paper. And there will be no long-form supplemental survey: These days, the bureau gets much of its most detailed information about us from the annual American Community Survey and the every-five-years Economic Census.

Oficina del Censo: The upcoming census will be the first to offer Spanish-language questionnaires—part of an effort to increase participation by Hispanics, many of whom fear filling out the government form if they are in the country illegally. (In fact, the census doesn’t ask about citizenship, only nationality. And cities benefit from having illegal, as well as legal, immigrants participate, since larger urban populations mean more federal aid.) Also encouraging a better count? Telemundo producers, who made a character in a popular Spanish-language soap opera a census worker to help ease fears of the count.

Bargain rate: U.S. officials may want to look to Switzerland. Its 2010 census will be the first that annually synthesizes information gleaned from local and regional population registers, records of buildings and dwellings, and other public information, supplemented by a sample survey of 200,000 people. The new approach, according to the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, offers “an excellent cost/benefit ratio.” Its cost? About $10 million per year. (They take their census annually.) The U.S. price tag for 2010? Nearly $15 billion.

Tomorrow I will share with you the time line!

Sharon LaMothe
Infertility Answers, Inc.
http://infertilityanswers.org/
LaMothe Services, LLC
http://lamotheservices.com/

Unexplained Infertility Resolved for One 97 Year Old Woman

 She was 97 and having an ultrasound done for maybe the 2nd time in her life. Her granddaughter was standing next to her worried and asking the technician all kinds of questions as the tech checked to see if the fall the older woman had taken had broken any pelvic bones. Already it was determined that the left hip was broken and would need surgery.

As the wand glided over a flat abdomen the tech, seemingly speaking to herself, "Well, your uterus is really tipped". The granddaughter looked at her grandmother in surprise and then asked the technician if that would be a good reason why her grandmother (in her much younger years) couldn't become pregnant. And, of course, the answer was a resounding "Yes!" Apparently it was tipped THAT much!

So at age 97, a woman finally found out, after adopting one son, living through a couple of world wars, a man landing on the moon, welcoming three grandchildren into the world, outliving her husband, moving in with her granddaughter and losing her only son, why she never became pregnant. After years of trying and years of acceptance a mystery was solved. The wonder of the unexplained infertility was over...and a peace of mind was had.

My grandmother lived to be 100 years old and died peacefully in her sleep in 1999 while I was carrying twins as a Gestational Surrogate. She is still greatly missed by all!

Sharon LaMothe
Infertility Answers, Inc.
http://infertilityanswers.org/
LaMothe Services, LLC
http://lamotheservices.com/

Happy New Year! Get ready for 2010!

 We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.  Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential.  ~Ellen Goodman

Wishing all of my readers an Happy and Healthy New Year!

Sharon LaMothe
http://infertilityanswers.org/