Adoption as a Choice

Amy Senior, Founder, Adoption For My Child the design and creative force behind the company’s products and services. As an entrepreneur, wife, and mother to biological twin boys and an adopted daughter, Amy has experienced a journey of infertility, birth, disability, loss of children (foster children) and adoption. Adoption For My Child empowers families and expectant moms to take control of their adoption journey, providing them with available adoption situations, instant profiles delivery and freedom to be presented to any expectant mom considering adoption. AFMC is uniquely positioned to operate at the highest standards of care, support and integrity. They remove the barriers by empowering families to take control of their adoption journey. AFMC believes in Your Choice, Your Voice and Your Plan.

Our guest, Daniel Nehrbass, is the President of Nightlight Christian Adoptions, home of the Snowflakes® Embryo Adoption program. Dan will address various adoption program the agency has and answer many frequently asked questions. Nightlight Christian Adoptions provide families with many paths to parenthood through their domestic, international and foster adoption programs. In 1997, they pioneered the world’s first embryo adoption program, Snowflakes®, allowing families to experience pregnancy and give birth to their adopted child. Snowflakes exists to empower couples with remaining embryos to choose LIFE for those embryos by selecting an adopting family. Snowflakes is about HOPE. By the end of 2022 the program will have helped families give birth to over 950 babies. The Snowflakes program has been helping with embryo donation and embryo adoption since 1997. It is the oldest and most experienced embryo adoption agency in the world. The Snowflake Embryo Adoption Program is Uniquely Child Centered : Over 800 babies have been born to their adoptive parents through successful Snowflakes placements. Nearly 1,600 families have donated their remaining embryos through Snowflakes (sometimes referred to as leftover embryos or unused embryos)– allowing them to choose the family for their embryo gift. Embryo adoption is a low-cost adoption option, allowing you to experience pregnancy and give birth to your adopted child. There are now over 1,000,000 embryos in frozen storage in the United States.

Our guest will be Diane Ferraro, CEO of Save the Storks. Diane will share her own story as being adopted at birth, becoming an adoptive mom herself, and the mission, work and successes of Save the Storks. This is a don't miss episode.

May is National Foster Care Month and what better way to celebrate than with the Dave Thomas Foundation. Their mission is: Dramatically increase the number of adoptions of children waiting in North America's foster care systems. The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is the only public nonprofit charity in the United States that is focused exclusively on foster care adoption. Through its signature program, Wendy’s Wonderful Kids®, the Foundation funds adoption professionals, known as recruiters, who are dedicated to finding loving, permanent homes for children waiting in foster care. We will be highlighting the foundation, and speaking with Kameca and her husband, Jamar, who adopted Elias and Niyah through the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption’s Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program. The Brooms, who live in Texas, hope that anyone considering foster care adoption see it as a higher calling.

Pat O’Brien is the Executive Director of the Adoptive & Foster Family Coalition of New York, after recently serving for 2.5 years as the Director of the Coalition’s post adoption program called AGAPE in both Long Island and Rockland County. The Coalition unites foster, adoptive and kinship care families, giving them a voice and providing support, information and advocacy. By fostering communication and collaboration between families, agencies and concerned citizens, we seek to ensure the stability, well-being and permanency of all children touched by the child welfare system. The Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York provides support, information and advocacy for foster, kinship and adoptive families and related professionals in New York State. Incorporated in 1975, they provide services to help support families and their children. They educate the public, legislators and government leaders about the needs and realities of foster, kinship and adoptive families. Finally, they collaborate with child welfare agencies and other groups to ensure that families are best able to support and parent the children in their homes.

Safe Haven Baby Boxes mission is to prevent illegal abandonment of newborns by raising awareness, offering a 24-hour hotline for mothers in crisis and offering a last resort option for women. Founder, Monica Kelsey, started Safe Haven Baby Boxes, Inc. after learning she was abandoned as an infant and after seeing a baby box in operation at a church, in Cape Town, South Africa. She has made it her personal mission to educate others on the Safe Haven Law and to do whatever it takes to save the lives of innocent babies from being abandoned. The Safe Haven Baby Box takes the face-to-face interaction out of the surrender and protects the mother from being seen. The Safe Haven Baby Boxes organization's primary goal is to raise awareness of the Safe Haven Law. Women in crisis can call the 24-hour hotline and can receive counseling and assistance. To date, the hotline has received over 8,000 calls from every state in the United States. Safe Haven Baby Boxes has referred over 500 women to crisis pregnancy centers, assisted in 7 adoption referrals, and have had over 100 legal Safe Haven surrenders. 15 babies have been surrendered in one of our baby boxes. Three babies were surrendered to firefighters at Safe Haven Baby Box locations. Since April 2016, when the first box was installed, there have been no dead abandoned infants in the state of Indiana.

The Mother's Heart is a Pregnancy Resource Center for the Northern Neck, VA area. The founders: Jaime Gomes and Ashleigh Dilworth are here to help and love women facing unplanned pregnancies or who have experienced abortion. Are you carrying the emotional baggage from an abortion? Are you currently pregnant? We can help! The idea of The Mother’s Heart of the Northern Neck began 7 years before they started operating in January 2022. It is in its beginning stages of development and fundraising. We will be speaking to the founders on this episode. These are two women had the same idea... just 7 years apart! Their vision is to help men and women who find or have found themselves in an unplanned pregnancy.

In June of 2019, Waskom, Texas made a bold move to outlaw abortion in their city, becoming the first Sanctuary City For the Unborn by ordinance in America. Since the initiative in Waskom many other cities have followed in their footsteps and passed an ordinance outlawing abortion within their city limits. Today's guest, Mark Lee Dickson serves as a Director with Right to Life of East Texas and the founder of the Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn initiative.

Our guest, Melanie Wallace, is a licensed social worker and certified master life coach. She has worked with children and families since 1993 and served in adoption for about 14 years. Her passion is family and serving them how she can. As an Adoption Specialist with New Life Adoption, Melanie does outreach and education to local pregnancy centers in the East and Northeast Texas area. She hopes to bust the myths about adoption, change the way people talk about adoption, and reduce the stigma of adoption through education and stories.

Jennifer Woolley brings a few different perspectives to the table, as someone who has walked through two unplanned pregnancies- the first that ended in abortion and the second being an adoption placement through New Life. She then walked through infertility and now is an adoptive mom to two sons, that she and her husband adopted through New Life! She and her husband have a heart for that ministry because of the impact that they have had on her life. She is also very involved with BraveLove and thankful for the work that they are doing to change the perception of adoption, so that more women might recognize adoption as an option!

Author Peter J. Boni will discuss his book, UPROOTED: Family Trauma, Unknown Origins, and the Secretive History of Artificial Insemination. PETER J. BONI credits his disruptive childhood, a state college education from UMass Amherst, decorated on-the-ground service as a US Army Special Operations Team Leader in Vietnam (coined his “Rice Paddy MBA”), plus luck-of-the-draw DNA with making him the person he is today. Out of his accomplished business career (high-tech CEO, venture capitalist, board chairman, non-profit leader, award-winning entrepreneur, senior advisor) grew his first book, All Hands on Deck: Navigating Your Team Through Crises, Getting Your Organization Unstuck, and Emerging Victorious. The father of two and grandfather of three, he lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

A discussion with Sandra Picket, Executive Director of New Life Adoptions. The mission of New Life Adoptions is to give hope and offer choice as we empower pregnant women to make the best life-affirming decisions for themselves and their babies. New Life Adoptions envisions a world where every unborn child is given the opportunity of life: where shame and fear do not play a part in the decisions an expectant mother makes for her child, a culture where the stigmas of adoption are erased, and the choice of adoption is better understood.

Melodie Chandler is the founder of Journey of a Joyful Life in Texas. The vision is to advocate for orphaned children with special needs in our community and around the world. We want to normalize special needs adoption by bringing awareness and encouragement to families about how amazing life with a special needs child can be. Melodie Chandler is a native of Montgomery County. She attended Sam Houston State University and Graduated with a BA in Music Education. She taught Music in Huntsville, Willis and Magnolia ISDs before moving to Wuhan, China in 2011 to teach English at JiangHan University. After one year of teaching English as a Second Language, Melodie moved to Guiyang, China to serve in a foster home for children with special needs. After the first six months of serving there, she became the director of the foster home. During that time, she formed a board and with the help of that board formed the 501c3, Journey of a Joyful Life. During Melodie’s 8 years in China, she fostered over 100 children, all with differing abilities and needs. Many children were adopted into forever families all over the USA. Melodie will share stories from China and the U.S. and the ongoing work of the Journey School for the Uniquely Gifted and Talented continuing with passion the work begun in China.

Juda Myers, Founder of CHOICES4LIFE, works diligently with women and children who are stigmatized like no other on the planet-mothers and children of rape conception. She will share her own story, as well as others to spread awareness and confirm that “People make mistakes, but no one is a mistake.” Learning in 2003 of her traumatic beginning catapulted her passionate work for over 13 years. Despite obstacles Juda relentlessly has shared her “life without exceptions” testimony with young and old. Past audiences include Harvard, the United Nations, churches, legislators, pregnancy center banquets, international audiences, grocery stores, sidewalks and wherever there is a listening ear to hear the truth. Juda educates people sparking a challenge to eradicate the stigma against mothers and children of rape conception. Sometimes funny, many times animated, always sincere and compelling, using logical reasoning as well as Godly wisdom, Juda challenges everyone to take a sincere look at life without exceptions.

Adopted at birth, Jim Nailon will take us on a journey that began in San Francisco during the Korean War, involves music, love, family, ups and downs, and a loving reunion in Arkansas and finally in Ireland.

Teresa Strack is the Executive Director of LifeFirst.org and will discuss the work they are doing in pursuit of their mission and vision. Based in Houston, TX, LifeFirst pursues an attitude shift toward a respect for life via a three-pronged approach of prayer, education and providing direct care for people making life decisions.

Susan Glemboski will share how the heartbreak of losing her infant baby daughter impacted and shaped her early adult life. She threw herself into her job (then career) at IBM that and got divorced. It wasn't long before she decided to adopt and take on the challenges of being a single mom and career woman. That was 40 years ago, and her life is a testament to love, family and determination. We will explore the years with her as we continue to share inspiring stories around adoption. Susan and her husband Paul are now retired and call CT and FL home. She shares more insights into her story in her bio below.

Dr. Ray Guarendi — renowned clinical psychologist and father of ten adopted children — provides authentic answers to challenging, real-life questions in Adoption: Should You, Could You, and Then What? Dr. Ray Guarendi is a Catholic father of ten adopted children, a clinical psychologist, author, professional speaker, and national radio and television host. His radio show, “The Dr. Is In” can be heard on over 440 stations and Sirius XM channel 130. His TV show, “Living Right With Dr. Ray” can be seen on EWTN Global Catholic Network and is aired in 140 countries. Television Host: Dr. Ray’s national EWTN television series, “Living Right With Dr. Ray,” is in its 6th season. The world is in great need of the truth, and of authentic guidance in finding the answers to life’s daily family issues. Dr. Ray’s television program combines the wit, humor, and experience of its host with the timeless wisdom of the Catholic Church to provide these answers. For seven years Living Right with Dr. Ray, has captivated TV viewers around the world through the dynamic format of a faithfully Catholic family psychologist, Dr. Ray Guarendi, interacting with a live audience and presenting a wide range of topics. Airing three times a week on EWTN, the Global Catholic Television Network, Dr. Ray dispenses practical advice along with a generous dose of laughter. Each show features a special in-studio guest, along with Dr. Ray’s spirited segments on parenting, relationships, aging and the challenges facing teens, young adults and families. To find out more, please see our complete broadcast schedule. Clinical Psychologist: For over 40 years, Dr. Ray has a wide variety of experience working with parents, families, educators, substance abuse programs, in-patient psychiatric centers, juvenile courts, and private practice. He has witnessed the common time-tested factors that consistently contribute to success in marriages and families. Author: Dr. Ray’s in-depth experience has led to his discovery that the so-called “experts” are undermining parental authority and preventing parents from following their God-given instincts to raise their kids for Heaven. This guiding principle led him to write his best-selling book, You’re A Better Parent Than You Think! By putting the power, knowledge and authority back in the hands of parents, Dr. Ray has helped thousands eliminate parenting frustrations by showing them proven parenting techniques that result in happy, well-adjusted children. Throughout his vocation and career, he has expanded on this theme to empower families to confidently take charge of the many challenges that arise with respect to marriages, families, raising teenagers and more.

Julie Posey became known internationally known as the Cyber Crime Fighter after spending just over a decade working with local and federal law enforcement to identify child sexual predators and bring them to justice. Her work led to the conviction of over one hundred of the most dangerous predators and she maintained a 100% conviction rate the entire time. Her motivation behind her work was the fact that she survived six years of sexual abuse as a child. As a result of the abuse, she became pregnant at the age of seventeen. She chose to give her son up for adoption and twenty-four years later reunited with him.