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I’m excited that you’ve joined the first Three Makes Baby Parent Workshop. Watch your inbox for emails from Jana Rupnow with details about the workshop.

4 LIVE CALLS

Dates for our fall workshop will be Oct 19, 26, Nov 2 and 9 from 6:30-7:30 pm CST (Zoom link provided in email)

Submit the contact form, buy the books and get ready to go!

• Submit this contact form
• Buy your workshop materials below.

Some things feel scary and with Halloween near, I thought I’d use this motto:

This 4-week online workshop helps you learn skills to build healthy family narratives and interactions around the topic of donor conception. I will teach a variety of skills such as how to foster open dialogue, learning to listen, learning to see through the eyes of your child, and allowing feelings. We will cover how expectations can be the enemy of growth and common questions parents have about DNA testing, telling their story, privacy vs secrecy and more. We will explore the juxtaposition of the parent and child narratives, experiences of grief and family loyalty.

Connect in small, intimate groups with other recipient parents. A supportive learning environment is my priority!

The workshop includes hard work. Its curriculum is designed to challenge you and may push you outside of your comfort zone.

• 

During the workshop, you’re going to learn how to understand your child’s potential feelings. I’ll cover:

• Learning to listen
• Creating space for your child’s emotions
• Skill development

Learning to Listen

First, we’re going to cover learning to listen. This is important because listening is harder than we think. It requires us as parents to clear a space, basically get our junk out of the way. Here’s what you need to know about learning to listen: We have to first  UNLEARN some things. We will get into that in the course.

Creating Space for Your Child’s Emotions

Next, we’ll talk about creating space for your child’s emotion. This is important because it goes beyond good listening skills. It requires some detective work. We will discuss this in our first zoom call.

Skill Development

Finally, we’ll discuss how to build skills. Skills are how we put theory into practice and we will do several practical exercises including role playing and script work to create a plan for you

This workshop will keep growing too!

The curriculum will keep evolving, growing and include controversial topics as they happen. It is led by Jana Rupnow, a clinically and personally informed perspective and author of Three Makes Baby. Information provided will be evidence-based when at all possible. Keep in mind that evidence-based information may include surveys and polls. It will be clear when it is published research vs original research.

All materials used will be owned by Jana Rupnow, through Trademark law or used with permission by the original content creator. In that case, the original content creator will be given due credit.

3. TAKE THE SURVEY to let me know what you’d like to learn

If you haven’t already, take the survey below to let me know what you’d like to learn. http://www.surveymonkey.com/r/96KHCGQ

Are you open to connect via:

Level 1
DSR registry
Unidentifiable email account
Zoom call (audio only), use alias account
Share baby photos, interests and hobbies

Level 2
Identifiable email account
Zoom call (face to face with identification
Share adult photos, and/or extended family, share ancestral information/family tree

Level 3
Includes above levels plus in-person visits
Conversations including child as age appropriate
Social media connection (if yes, which platform)
Ongoing connection

Questions to ask your donor during any level of contact

Are you willing to provide medical updates? If so, how often?

Yearly
Upon change of health status
When initiated by recipient parents

Does your extended family know about your donation?
Would you like a flexible arrangement or a more formal arrangement?
Would you like an attorney to outline roles and responsibilities?
Would you prefer a third-party facilitator be the go between for first contact?

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-4m377-100f564

Chapter 1: Are You Ready to Tell? Explore Your Reasons

School is officially back in full swing for us. My daughter is starting a new high school this year and for the first time it hasn’t crossed my mind that she will have to answer questions about her family.  For the first time, she’s going to school with a friend who was also adopted from China, and attending a diverse School for the Arts in a large city. It’s a new experience for us. Since kindergarten my daughter has attended private, parochial schools. She was the minority race and the only kid adopted from China so she had answered all kinds of questions from classmates over the years.

“What happened to your real parents?” 

“Did your mom die?”

“Where are you from?”

“Is THAT your mom?”

“That’s your brother!?”

 

My daughter’s first experience with a question from her peers was as early as pre-school. She came home happy from school that day. While I was helping her get ready for bed, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and it triggered a memory from that day. She stretched the outer corner of her eyes and said, “Joshua told me my eyes look like this today! I want them to look like yours.” I told her how beautiful I thought her eyes were even though they were different than mine. Then I went on to ask her how it made her feel to try to decipher the intention of the comment. “Did it make you feel bad, honey?”, I asked. “Kinda”, she said. “Oh honey, I’m sorry that made you feel bad. You have beautiful almond-shaped eyes and Joshua was probably noticing them since they are different from his.”

Most pre-school children are simply curious and ask innocent questions to understand the world and people around them. Simple answers usually are enough. However, sometimes there is a clever and mischievous youngster in the class who learns to push other’s buttons early. 

If your family differences are less conspicuous at first, your child may not have to deal with classmate questions until after preschool. As children move into middle childhood, social comparisons begin and kids may need to develop more sophisticated ways to respond to questions from peers.

“Where did you get your blue eyes?”

“You don’t look like your mom at all!”

“Is that your REAL dad?”

Children need help understanding how to respond to their friends in constructive ways that maintain healthy boundaries. They also need help addressing inappropriate and mean comments they may encounter. And you may too. In my book, Three Makes Baby, I offer five ways to teach your kids to handle social situations. They all begin with the letter D and I use game analogies to help you remember to use them in a moment that catches you off guard. Hopefully, this will empower you and your child to handle any uncomfortable situation that comes up. 

When peer questions or comments upset your child, you’ll want to know how to comfort them. As a parent, it’s best to be prepared early.  If you are struggling to find the right words, you’re not alone. It helps for families to have conversations at home in advance so a child feels comfortable talking about their family story. I offer simple phrases you can share with your child in my book, Three Makes Baby. You can get a copy of the book on Amazon.com, Target.com or BarnesandNoble.com.

I began counseling couples going through the International adoption process. Even though domestic adoptions were becoming more open in the US, international adoptions were still inherently closed. When international adoptions declined drastically in the mid-2000s to improve child trafficking regulations, I switched gears. I learned about third-party reproduction counseling from my fertility doctor, and I began screening anonymous egg donors. Early on, the young women I screened didn’t give much thought to what it really meant to donate their eggs. I remember one young lady comparing it to donating a kidney. I knew more education was needed in the field.

I started to feel conflicted about my professional life. As the adoption field became more open, the third-party reproductive field remained fiercely protective of genetic secrets. I knew the psychological challenges of anonymous egg and sperm donation on a child. The closed adoption system was repeating itself, but worse. I knew that children should have access to their genetic information but there were no regulations requiring donation facilities to keep the information on file for a lifetime.

I couldn’t remain neutral anymore. How would these children find out their genetic information if they wanted to someday? There were major gaps in psychological preparation for intended parents. Intended parents had questions that agencies weren’t answering. Parents were seeking more than simple answers.

In session, I covered details that other professionals weren’t, like epigenetics and how infertility grief affects parenting across the life span. One counseling session was not enough time to prepare couples for the journey. I recommended joint counseling sessions with known donors to discuss roles and intentions and to anticipate the child’s needs. There came a point when I couldn’t be neutral anymore.

The turning point came when an angry client called and threatened me. I was on a road trip with my family in Oregon in 2015, when my cell phone rang. It was a client I had seen the week prior. He and his wife came to me for couples counseling to prepare to secretly use an acquaintance as an egg donor. I remembered his wife so well. She was suffering when she came to my office, deeply grieving. I felt for her. I saw her brokenness and felt her heartache. I felt the resistance in the room but who could blame them? Their dreams were broken and now they had to face the psychological complexity of egg donation.

I knew they wanted to just brush this under the rug and move on. It would’ve been much easier for me to avoid the hard topics, but my job was to counsel them according to ASRM guidelines. My heart pounded as I informed them of the ASRM’s recommendation to disclose the truth to the child. As the husband’s tension rose, I chose my words more carefully. I knew he was protecting his wife’s feelings, and I wanted to be tender too. It was uncomfortable, but it was my job to be neutral yet compassionate.

It was also my recommendation that their donor come to a counseling session with them to discuss their relationship moving forward. Do they all agree on disclosure? Has the donor shared the secret with anyone? How would they communicate if the secret got out? What would they do if the child wanted contact with the donor? What would the relationship with the donor be like?

The couple declined this meeting and we moved on. I sent a psychological report to their doctor and noted that the couple declined a joint session but had met the counseling requirements of the ASRM. My personal recommendation upset the doctor’s office manager, and she wanted me to rewrite the report without the negatives. I explained I did not put anything in the report that would disqualify them for the procedure according to the ASRM guidelines. I simply felt it was best for known donors and couples to talk through what their relationship would look like for the child’s sake.

That’s when the office manager contradicted the couple and told me they were using an anonymous donor. I’d like to think it wasn’t a direct attempt to lie to me. I’d like to think she meant that the known donor wanted to remain anonymous but that was impossible. The couple already knew their donor. They were friends on social media, so by definition it was not anonymous. I refused to change my report, so the office manager threw it in the trash and told the couple to see a different counselor. That’s when the husband called me and accused me of not providing the proper counseling. He threatened to report me if I did not refund his fee for counseling. He felt that I shoved “my agenda” down his throat during our session.

I was ready to quit counseling for third-party donation that day. I was sickened by what I saw happening. I had already been bullied by egg donation agencies to pass unqualified donors and lost business because I wouldn’t rubber stamp the psychological evaluations. As I expected, the angry client’s doctor’s office never sent another one of their patients to counseling with me. I knew so much more than they did, but they didn’t want to hear it.

I knew that life was long and I may have to answer to the unborn children someday. I felt a deep responsibility to them because I was one of them. I was a child with a mysterious identity to figure out. I lived through the confusion, the grief, and the silence. I fell silent again, muted and unheard in this field.

As disgusted as I was by the phone call that day, something stirred in me, and I knew I couldn’t go back to doing what I was doing before. Not the same way. That angry client showed me that I wasn’t okay with the way anonymous donation was being conducted. Science may change the way we conceive babies, but it can’t change the role DNA has on human identity development.

After decades of research, the adoption field understands why children should have access to their genetic information if they want it. It’s time for the third-party reproduction field to require more education and implement industry standards to reflect our knowledge of human development. If they would not listen, then I would go straight to those parents and ask the questions. It was time for me to do it. I might lose all my business, but I counseled differently starting that day. I started telling clients when they called for an appointment that I was on the side of openness before they even stepped in my office. I lost 80% of my business the following year, but slowly I began seeing more known donors, same-sex couples, and other couples that were open to being open. It was liberating.

Since then, I’ve counseled many couples using known (family members or friends) or open/ID release donors. The adoption community understands that openness is possible and healthy for the child. We can learn a lot from the adoption community’s approach to open adoption. I have interviewed hundreds of donors over the years and many of them were willing to be identified. We can’t let fear stop us from what is doing best for the children being born.

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“Are you trying to get your head around using a donor or processing the idea of adopting?  ‘Three Make Baby’ which is a brilliant guide and workbook to help you process the crazy range of complex emotions you have going on.” – Natalie Silverman
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