Why does it cost to adopt?

Posted on January 17, 2026 by yoselkbaez36ck

Hi, I’m Megan with adoption life adoption life is a licensed nonprofit agency in Idaho Wyoming in Utah and today I’m answering more of the questions we frequently hear from parents who are considering adding to their family through adoption question number two is why it has to cost money to adopt you’ve probably heard that adoption.

Is expensive and unfortunately that can be true there are a few important things to read member as you’re considering the cost of adoption and whether it’s a right path that you want to pursue for your family first is different types of adoption cost different amounts for example adopting from the foster care system can be relatively inexpensive compared to other types of adoptions sometimes you’ll have some cost and sometimes the state will cover the bulk of the costs for you um depending on which Avenue you go if you work with a private agency or if you work through the state for that adoption and this is because,

The state has a vested interest in ensuring that children.

In the foster care system have permanent loving homes um as opposed to staying in the foster care system long term um and so that type of adoption can be relatively inexpensive International adoptions can be fairly expensive because agencies have to maintain their status in multiple countries and navigate the complicated process of moving a child from one country to another with a new family and so it can be a lengthy process and pretty complicated and so they have to have a lot of pieces in place to be able to navigate those types of adoption domestic infant adoption can also be expensive though typically less than International adoptions in domestic infant adoptions there are a lot of moving pieces and agencies have to um factor in cost like their insurance their overhead with buildings um licensing costs and general.

Um you know staff that they have to maintain in order to have all the right pieces to provide the support for a placement and this is in Direct in addition to the Direct Services they’re providing for each placement um that they’re navigating so it’s important in any adoptive situation to ask a lot of questions about.

What the fees cover and what they don’t if you’re paying a big fee for a simple match with a birth parent and there’s no Services beyond that that carry you through placement and post placement Services then you may want to consider that there might be better options out there for you it’s important that the Fe that you’re paying correlate to the actual services that you’re receiving and the in the agency.

You choose to work with has transparent policies about what the fees cover and what they don’t and how they handle their fee process if you have other questions about adoption or want support in your adoption Journey, please feel free to reach out.

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Contraception for Adolescents

Posted on January 17, 2026 by yoselkbaez36ck

In this lecture, we will discuss contraception, a critical part of adolescent medicine. Why is this so critical in adolescent medicine? It’s because 46% of US high school students report having had sex. There are more than 700,000 US teen pregnancies each year. This rate of teen pregnancy has come down but that’s because of increased use of contraceptives in these kids.

There are two main types of contraception. We have hormonal methods and barrier methods. Among hormonal methods, oral contraceptive pills are the most commonly used in the United States.

These generally either are alone or combined estrogen and progesterone. Hormonal methods can exist which contain progesterone alone and this may have a different or improved side effect profile. Likewise, there are barrier methods and condoms are the most frequently used. So, let’s go through the methods of standard adolescent birth control in terms of what these methods are and how we use them. So, oral contraceptive pills are generally estrogen or estrogen and progesterone combined. Usually, this is a daily pill. There’s also the opportunity for providing a transdermal patch. Again, estrogen and progesterone and this time, it’s an adhesive patch that’s left on the skin. We also can provide adolescents with vaginal rings. These may have estrogen and progesterone. It’s a flexible ring that’s inserted and left in the vagina.

Also, we can recommend condom use which obviously does not involve hormones, but it has to be used every time you have sex. There are also long-acting varieties of birth control where patients do not have to intervene on a regular basis like a daily pill or remembering to change their vaginal ring. This cheap one is the intrauterine device. This is inserted by a healthcare professional into the uterus. We can leave it there as long as five years or we can do an etonogestrel implant. This is an implant usually in the upper arm on the inside, so it’s subtle, by a health professional.

This slowly secretes hormones and can be left in the arm for up to three years. Likewise, we can inject progesterone, we call these Depo-shots, into the arm every three months as an effective method of birth control. When we go to an adolescent and we discuss birth control, it’s important to have them help make the decision as to what type of birth control is best for them. Minors can consent to healthcare related to sexual health and birth control. They do not need parental approval.

There are certain consideration of factors here. One, privacy. Second, will they adhere to this regimen? If it’s someone who’s irresponsible, is the daily pill really the best option? Will they be able to tolerate the side effects? What side effects seem intolerable or tolerable to them? Also, are there any contraindications? Do they have a clotting disorder, so they really shouldn’t be on estrogens? Are there any no contraceptive benefits to these medications? For example, a patient with severe acne may prefer the birth control because of its benefits regarding acne.

We have to determine the patient’s understanding of what they want and their decision.

Because of all these things, long-acting, reversible contraceptive is becoming increasingly popular in the United States. The IUD is rapidly becoming our first choice for effective contraception in teenage girls. Let’s talk about disadvantages and advantages of all these methods. Let’s start with condoms. Condoms, advantages: Well, you only need to use it when it’s needed. It has minimal side effects. It prevents many STDs which some of the other methods do not. On the other hand, it does interfere with spontaneity. The adolescent needs to remember. As you can imagine, an adolescent often forgets. It may break or tear rendering it less effective. And in patients with latex allergies, it can be hard to find a non-latex condom.

Let’s talk about oral contraceptive pills, advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of an OCP is that it can make menses shorter, lighter, and much more predictable. This is a great opportunity for someone with say, dysfunctional uterine bleeding. It does decrease acne which is viewed as a benefit among many of our female patients. It can sometimes suppress ovarian cysts which may cause pain in adolescents. So, it may help with a painful period. On the downside, it does not prevent sexually transmitted diseases.



Daily adherence is difficult for some teenagers. The estrogen can cause some side effects such as nausea, breast tenderness, headache, and the risk of thrombosis. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the transdermal patch? This is a patch that’s placed on the skin. Well, the advantages, again, it makes these menses shorter, lighter, and more predictable.

It will decrease acne. It will suppress ovarian cysts. What’s great about this is it’s only once a week as opposed to everyday. On the downside, there’s no STD prevention. It does lack some privacy in that in the locker room or whatever, other kids can see that you have a patch on.

It can cause skin irritation at the site of the patch application. The patients have all those estrogen related side effects that we discussed in oral contraceptive pills. What about the vaginal ring? This is inserted by the girl up into her vagina. So, there are some advantage to this. Again, shorter or lighter predictable menses, decreased acne, ovarian cyst suppression. This is very private. No one can tell it’s in there. You only have to do it once a month. On the downside, again, no STD prevention. It may require a patient to be comfortable with actually a self-insertion of this device. So, the girl has to be pretty comfortable with herself and her body. It sometimes causes vaginal discharge or yeast infections or other problems in the vagina. Again, we still have those estrogen related side effects like nausea.

What about the Depo-shot?

This is an intramuscular injection of progesterone every three months. It can cause amenorrhea. It’s very private but this infrequent dosing is sometimes annoying. Every three months, the patient has to remember to go back to the office to get another shot. Also, it can cause spotting of the menses which sometimes girls find annoying when they can’t predict when they’re going to spot. On the downside, again, there’s no STD prevention. They may suffer some weight gain. They may have irregular periods for a few months before they develop their amenorrhea. You can have decreased bone mineral density which is bad for them long term. So, we have to be thinking about optimizing calcium intake. What about the IUD? The IUD is rapidly becoming a very positive option in adolescent girls in the United States. The huge advantage here is there is no maintenance. You go to the doctor. They put it in. You’re done for five years. It does last up to five years. You can remove it when childbearing is wanted. So, if a girl at the age of 17 doesn’t want to have a child but at the age of 22 does, she simply has it taken out.

This is the most effective form of birth control.

However, just like in the oral contraceptive pills, this does not prevent STDs. There is a rare risk of intrauterine infection. Patients may develop cramping or bleeding with the presence of that IUD. So, what are the advantages and disadvantages of the etonogestrel implant, NEXPLANON for example? It goes right up in that arm. There’s no maintenance. Once it’s in, it’s good. It’s got a reasonably low risk. It’s a pretty safe thing to put in. It’s very effective. It’s reasonably private because most people can’t see it because it’s placed on the inner part of the arm. On the downside, again, it does not prevent STDs. There is a minor surgery needed both to implant it and even more perhaps surgery to remove it. Cramping and bleeding can absolutely happen..

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Thinking of Building a Fish Pond? Watch This First!

Posted on January 16, 2026 by yoselkbaez36ck

Chances are you found this video because you’re looking for some help with building a fishpond. Well in this video, How to Build a Fishpond, we go into specific details of why we’re upgrading this old, traditional fishpond with high maintenance issues. So, grab yourself a drink and sit back and enjoy the video. Hi, guys, it’s Mark from anypond.com, you’re trusted resource in the UK for ponds and water features.

And what we’ve got here is we’ve got an eight foot by eight-foot round, traditional fishpond. There’s a lot of fish in this particular pond, and they’ve been in there for a long time, about 15 years. And we’ve got a very small filtration system keeping the pond looking good, but it needs weekly maintenance. How crazy is that? Weekly maintenance to me is far too much. You should be cleaning your filters out every four to six weeks to allow the beneficial bacteria to colonize. Otherwise, what you’re doing is basically you’re flushing out any feces on a regular basis, so as soon as the fish defecate it’s out of the system. So, a lot of work, it’s a lot of attention. So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to upgrade this particular pond to a 10 foot by eight-foot pond.

Two foot deep, we’re still going to be two foot deep.

We’re going to put rocks and gravel all around the outside, and also, we’re going to put in a wetland filtration system that only really needs cleaning out once a season, or once a year, depending on the size of the fish, depending on the size of the pond, depending on what you’re going to keep in the pond. So, what we’re doing today is we’re building a lovely natural fishpond. Stay tuned for the Any Pond showcase. So, before we actually start digging the pond, what I’m doing is I’m plumbing in the bio falls so we can actually bury the pipe underneath the ground. So, what I’ve got is I’ve got a 63-mil pipe coming from the skimmer that I’m going to tee off.

One’s going to go to the wetland, and one’s going to go to the bio falls. And what I’m doing is I’m reducing it down to 50 mil, so the 63 to the 50, and then basically 1x 50mm goes to the bio falls, and 1x 50mm goes to the wetland. And also, we’re going to put on these gate valves so I can regulate the flow, how much water goes down the (bio falls) waterfall filter, and how much water goes into the wetland filtration system. So, let’s crack on. So now we’ve got a plan.

We’re going to basically extend the fishpond two foot that way. As you can see the skimmer box is going to go down in there. This is what the skimmer box looks like. We’re going to turn it around. So, we’re going to have the skimmer here. And we’re going to have a waterfall at the back, so that flows down a five-foot stream. And also, these. So, this is going to go into the ground and water’s going to percolate up through the gravel. We’re going to put a skimmer box on that side and we’re going to extend the pond two foot that way. So now we’ve got all the groundwork done. We’ve gone down to two feet in the middle; we’ve extended the fishpond by two feet. We’ve also excavated around for this surface skimmer, and also, we’ve got the Wetland filtration system down underneath the ground, and we’re going to have gravel on top of there.

We’re going to have a five-foot stream. Wetland filtration. We’ve got the surface fishpond skimmer. So, let’s get the underlaying liner, then the overlay, and then we can start rocking. And what we’re going to do today is we’re going to actually stack a lot of stones around the bottom, to make it look a little bit more interesting, and also, we’re going to build a big fish cave out of the glass tabletop that came out of the last one. Now normally, I wouldn’t use a glass tabletop, but the client wants a big fish cave because the fish are used to having a big fish cave.

So, we’re going to put in a five foot by three-foot piece of glass, and we’re going to rock over the top of it and make it all look nice. So, you won’t actually see it apart from unless you’re actually specifically looking for it. So, carry on watching, appreciate it. As you can see, the fishpond’s taking shape now. We’ve still got quite a bit of work to do, but as you can see, we’ve started rocking in the pond. We’ve got pebbles in the bottom. We’ve even put the fish cave in. And today, it’s all about the stream and building the waterfall, and carrying on the creative process.

I am very impressed with my new pond that Mark has just finished. He listened to my brief and interpreted it very well. He answered all my questions honestly and understood when I was anxious and never made me feel silly. I would thoroughly recommend them.

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How Childhood Trauma Leads to Addiction – Gabor Maté

Posted on January 16, 2026 by yoselkbaez36ck

So an addiction is a complex psychological physiological process  but which manifests in any behavior any behavior that a person enjoys that a person enjoys  finds relief in and therefore craves in the short term but suffers negative consequences in the long  term and doesn’t give up despite the negative consequences. So craving pleasure relief in  the short term negative consequences in the long term inability to give it up.

Now notice I said  nothing about substances. I said any behavior so it could be related to cocaine crystal meth heroin fentanyl marijuana nicotine alcohol whatever could also be sex gambling internet relationships shopping eating work extreme sports working out pornography any number of human activities so.

I said any behavior now the official definition of addiction according the american society for  addiction medicine is that this is primary uh it’s a primary brain disorder it arises in the brain  largely due to genetic reasons this is how they see it and i say that’s just not true the other  popular idea about addiction is that it’s a choice that somebody makes that people choose  to be addicted which is what the legal system is based on because if people are not choosing what  are we punishing them for and and although i think the medical definition is closer to the truth  i don’t see it as genetic it’s a genetic disorder and i don’t see it as a primary  brain disorder so let me perhaps show you why if that’s okay a human being.

Has  two fundamental needs apart from the physical needs in infancy in childhood  one is for attachment now attachment is the closeness and proximity with another human being  for the sake of being looked after or for the sake of looking after the other  human beings as mammals and even birds are creatures of attachment we have to connect  and attach because otherwise we don’t survive if there’s nobody that’s motivated to take care of us  to attach to us that way and if not motivated to attach to others we just can’t survive one of these things is that the endorphins which um the embodies internal opiate chemicals  which heroin and.

All the other opiates resemble they have to facilitate attachment  so if you take infant mice and you knock out their endorphin receptors so they don’t have  endorphin opiate activity in their brain they won’t cry for  help and separate from their mothers which wouldn’t mean that they would die in the wild  and which goes back to what happens in early in childhood when their stress and trauma  these these endorphin systems don’t develop and then when people do heroin it feels like a warm  soft hug to them they feel love and connection for the first time that’s why it’s so powerful but so we have this need for attachment we thought which obviously the hearing infant.

Was the most hopeless the most dependent the least mature of any creature in the universe at birth uh cannot survive without the attachment and.



That attachment relationship given that we have the  longest period of development of any creature you know well into adolescence and beyond attachment is not a negotiable need but we have another need which is authenticity now authenticity auto self means being connected  to ourselves just knowing what we feel and being able to act on it so that means our gut feelings  so let’s look at how human beings evolved for hundreds of thousands of years and for a hundred  thousand years or so of this species existing on earth how did we live we didn’t live in cities and  houses and so on we lived there out there in the wild until very recently in human um existence now  just how long do you survive in the wild if you’re not connected to your gut feelings not very long.

If you start using your intellect instead of your gut feelings you just don’t survive so that’s a powerful survival need as well so attachment is a survival need  authenticity is a survival need but what happens if your authenticity threatens your attachment  relationships for example as a two-year-old you get angry because you can get that cookie  before dinner but your parents can’t handle anger because they grew up in homes when there was rage  a holism and they’re terrified that they’re very expression of anger so they give you the message  that good little kids don’t get angry the message you receive is not that good little  kids don’t get angry but that angry little kids don’t get loved because.

Your parents are now sullen they won’t look at you they talk to you in a harsh way you’re not getting loved not experiencing love.

At that moment no but you got to stay attached  guess what you’re going to suppress the authenticity every time  and this is how we lose connection to ourselves and to our gut feelings so that strangely enough  that very dynamic which is essential for human survival in a natural setting not becomes a threat  to our survival in his in this more modern setting where to stay authentic is to threaten attachment  and so we give up our authenticity and then we wonder who the hell we are and whose life is this  and who’s experiencing all this and this life doesn’t you know and who am i really and so  that’s where the reconnection has to happen that’s what the healing happens is with that reconnection  but it’s because of that conflict the tragic conflict in childhood between authenticity.

And attachment that most of us face that we lose ourselves and lose connection to our gut feelings  now this leads to the question of trauma because it’s one thing to recognize that all this  originates in childhood pain it’s quite another to transform that pain and for that we have to  understand what trauma is so people often think that trauma is what happens to you so trauma is  a divorce when you’re small and your parents fighting trauma is your mother’s depression  trauma is your father’s alcoholism trauma.

Is your parents’ argumentation trauma is physical or sexual.

Abuse or some loss those aren’t the traumas those are traumatic but the trauma is not what happens  to you the traumas of what happens inside you and as a result of these traumatic events what happens  inside you is you get you get disconnected from your emotions and you disconnect it from your body  and you have difficulty being in the present moment and you develop a negative view of your  world and a negative view of yourself and a defensive view of other people  and these perspectives keep showing up in your life in the present so in other words  the addiction is not the primary problem it’s an attempt to solve a problem and then the real.

Question is how did the problem arise in other words this is where my theory is that it’s  always rooted in childhood trauma and that the addiction is an attempt to deal with the effects  of childhood trauma which it does temporarily while it creates even more problems in the long  term and so the issue is not just to recognize what happened 10 15 30 however many years ago  but to actually recognize their manifestations in the present moment and to transcend them and  already do that by reconnecting with yourself by restoring the connection with your body primarily.

And with your emotions that you lost and once you do when you found these things again then  you have what we call recovery because what does it mean to recover something  it means to find it again so what does the people find when they recover they  find themselves and the loss of self is the essence of trauma so the real purpose of  addiction treatment mental health treatment any kind of healing is reconnection you.

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Step 3: Trust in God – Sharon’s Story about Crystal Meth Addiction Recovery

Posted on January 16, 2026 by yoselkbaez36ck

When I was 35 years old, I just had the feeling like I’d rather be dead than fat. At 136 pounds, I thought that I was fat. So, I was dealing with this obsession, doing different things. You know, the bulimia, the diet pills. And I just would do anything not to be fat.

I got a friend who was doing crystal meth, and I asked for one little, small little Baggie. “I don’t want to do it to get high. I just want to do it so that if I just take enough, it will suppress my appetite. And that’s all I want–just to lose 10 pounds so I could be in my 120s again.” I became very quickly addicted, within a matter of two weeks.

Ice addicts have a term, and they call it the chase. It’s every minute of your waking day; you’re chasing the drug. One night I think my husband was just kind of fed up with everything. He was going to leave me. As the addiction progressed, I’d wake up and I’d say, “Am I going to live or am I going to die today?” So, I took about 20 muscle relaxers, and I drank a whole bottle of tequila and ended up in the emergency room. I knew I had to do something, or I was going to lose literally everything. When the therapist said to me, “Any kind of recovery or any recovery program is based upon faith in a higher power or faith in God,” I was very angry.

I was angry with God because of all the things that had happened to me as a child and all the things that I wanted Him to fix that He didn’t fix. Back in the day, it was called discipline.

So, I was angry with Him. So angry. Any addict knows that there are other issues that fuel your addiction. Then I got a phone call from a relative, and he said, “Auntie, I just wanted to let you know that the Church has an addiction recovery program.” Grudgingly, I told God, “OK, I’m going to do it Your way.

And if it doesn’t work out, then You cannot blame me, because this is my one last shot with You.” And so as we went through the steps, that number 3 came up.

And it was trust in God, turning your will over to God. “OK, so now You’re telling me the same old thing. I’ve got to do things Your way.” I couldn’t see it. The real help came one day when I read an article from the Ensign, a spiritual magazine that I said I was never going to read. And in this article, he talked about Lot’s wife. Lot and his family, of course, were asked to leave the city. It was going to be destroyed.

And they were cautioned, “While you’re leaving the city, don’t look back.” And we all know that Lot’s wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Why did this happen to her? Why was she turned into a pillar of salt just for looking back? And he said it wasn’t so much that she was looking back.

It was because she looked back with longing, that she looked back yearning for the things that she had left in Sodom and Gomorrah. Her heart was still there. When I read those words, I said, “I am Lot’s wife.” You know? “I’m her, looking back and longing for things that are not there–looking back for a life that if I stayed in it, I would be destroyed.” In my mind, step 3 is all about trusting God and realizing that the Creator of this universe cannot only help you recover, but He can literally provide a different life for you, a new heart for you.

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