Family Building Stories
Get real-life perspectives from our community, highlighting the many different paths a fertility and family building journey can take.
Jessica’s Journey: Chutes and Ladders
This episode features Jessica Katz, licensed clinical social worker and certified perinatal mental health therapist, and parent to an egg-donor conceived child. During our conversation, Jessica shares her deeply personal and often challenging journey to...
Lisa’s Journey: A Safe Space to Say the Unsayable
In this episode we welcome Lisa Rosenthal, President of the AllPaths Family Building Board of Directors. Lisa shares her deeply personal and often challenging six-and-a-half year journey through infertility, which began when she was 26 and "very naive" about...
Bruce’s Journey: “Whose Tummy Did I Come Out Of?”
This episode of the AllPaths podcast features Bruce, an attorney in the Boston area. Prior to becoming a lawyer, Bruce and his husband built their family through surrogacy with gamete donation, going through the process twice with different surrogates in...
Annika’s Journey: “My wife knocked me up.”
In this episode, we welcome Annika, an attorney specializing in assisted reproductive technology (ART), who offers a unique perspective as both a professional in the field and someone who built her own family through reciprocal IVF. Annika shares her...
Will’s Journey: An IVF Insider’s Path to Parenthood
In this episode of the AllPaths podcast, we speak with Will Baird, a father of three who grew up with a unique perspective on family building. Will shares how his father, a PhD in animal sciences who began working in human IVF in the late 80s/early 90s,...
Jodi’s Journey: One from Each Column
This episode features speaker and author Jodi Mitchel Tolman, who shares how she and her husband navigated multiple paths over six years to build their family after facing challenges with fertility. Their family ultimately consisted of three children: one...
Matt’s Journey: “I’m doing everything I possibly can to make sure her name never gets lost”
In this episode of the AllPaths Podcast, Matt Smith, founder of Wandering Soul Beer Company, shares his personal experience with stillbirth and how this profound loss directly inspired the creation of his brewery and its flagship beer, Melody Maker. Matt and...
Shannon’s Journey: “This Is Your Body, This Is Your Life”
In this episode of the AllPaths podcast, we welcome guest Shannon Cook to share her journey. Shannon recounts her experience navigating fertility struggles, including early attempts at conception, misdiagnoses like hydrosalpinx and stage three endometriosis,...
Lauren C’s Journey: IVF finds a way to humble you
This episode features Lauren Hart Clancy, a perinatal advocate, AllPaths peer group leader, parent through IVF, and co-chair of the 2025 Footsteps for Family Building Walk. Lauren shares her journey through multiple IVF cycles, a delayed male-factor...
Lauren D’s Journey: Our family is now complete to what WE define as complete
In this episode, we speak with Lauren Delaney, a co-chair for AllPaths’ annual Footsteps for Family Building Walk. Lauren shares about the roads she and her husband Ryan travelled to build their family. Ryan faced significant health issues including two...
Erin and Stephen’s Journey: For some people, it’s not a straight line from A to B
This episode featuring Erin, a longtime AllPaths group leader, and her husband Stephen offers a raw and unfiltered look at their decade-long struggle with infertility and it’s emotional toll. From the early days of excitement and expectation to the stark...
From Infertility to Innovation: The Carelli Family Story
Featured in the AllPaths Magazine, 2025 Volume 1 For Annie and Gene Carelli, two pharmacists living in Philadelphia, the path to parenthood was not a straight line. After tying the knot, they decided to wait a couple of years before starting a family. Like...