Fertility Planit Show LA Launches Registration

Featured

Posted on October 18, 2012

What a Week! Thanks to our diligent, endlessly dedicated team, we launched Early Bird Registration on Thursday, October 11th, 2012.

Our prices are about 21% discounted from what they will be starting November 15th onwards. Right now you can get a Both Days ticket for $125! And a one day ticket for $75. You can add a +1 to your ticket for an extra $50 and an extra program to your ticket (2 are included in the standard ticket) for just $15/program per person. We designed our ticket prices to be as low as possible, while still offering our live and online audiences a high quality experience.

Community Partners, like Keiko Zoll and the Infertility Voice, are already promoting their Unique Discount Codes to help you gain a further 5% off your tickets.

Considering some of our speakers -- like Tara Stiles, Dan Bucatinsky, Dr. Richard Marrs, Ken Cook and Sarah Brokaw -- speak to large audiences at sold-out venues on a regular basis -- the fact that you can see, hear and meet many of the world's most renowned and respected speakers as a group over one weekend in LA, is remarkable.

We've been blessed to attract their support, and are grateful that almost all confirmed speakers are appearing pro bono, since this is our first year and our launch of Fertility Planit. They believe in our mission to create a community, both live and online, where patients, consumers, experts and thought leaders, can gather on equal footing and have conversations about all options for creating families.

I highly encourage you to sign up and get tickets while we can still offer you seats for the program and speakers you want to see. Have a look at our agenda of programs and speakers to choose the ones for your ticket that interest you the most.

If you can't get to LA on the weekend of January 12-13th, 2013, know that you can join the Fertility Planit Show online via live streaming and live web chat. We'll be able to show you 10 of our 20 60-minute programs live, and all 20 programs are available for download after the show for $4.99 each.

As ever, I welcome your input on our programs, speakers and on how we're assembling our content and partners together as a resource. Our aim is to create a platform which you may customize to find the information, support and inspiration you want to suit your individual path.

Warmly

Karin Thayer

Founder

Space is limited. Register now >

Yes To Non-Profits, Our Community Partners

Featured

Posted on October 11, 2012

FreshFoodLA

We want to honor the organizations who work tirelessly to offer well researched information, online communities and inspirational support to the growing population who want to explore all options for creating a family.

AFA

We've been lucky to make contact with an influential philanthropist in Los Angeles who has gotten behind us and made introductions to outstanding thought leaders who might participate as speakers. However, the other day, this philanthropist asked me how much we're going to give back. What this person meant was, how much money might we give to the non-profit organizations affiliated with these thought leaders?

Circle + Bloom This speaks to a core issue which has cropped repeatedly for Fertility Planit. Are we a non-profit or a business? Why are we a business and not a non-profit? Are we trying to earn a profit from people who are struggling to afford the treatments needed to create a family?

There are many things I could say about this. But in brief, we choose to be a business because we feel, as social entrepreneurs, that we can offer the most help to people by creating and sustaining a robust community and resource. To offer highly curated content and a high quality experience for both our live and online audiences, requires a budget that can only be earned by a business. That said, our ticket prices will range between $75-145, and include a full conference pass with registration for two programs and a beautiful schwag bag with offers from our sponsors and exhibitors. We also offer an online hub where all attendees, sponsors and speakers may submit and share information with one another.

On top of that, we give registrants the opportunity to direct 10% of their checkout total to non-profit organizations. We also offer a Community Partners program for high quality non-profits and boutique value providers, so we can promote their products and services to our audiences and stakeholders.

999 Reasons to Laugh at Infertility

For a first year show, operating on a very tight budget, we are doing the best we can to offer the greatest value to our audiences with our exhibit hall and speakers, and to create a very special, supportive experience for our live audience on the day. I did share these views with the philanthropist i mentioned, and she did send a short supportive note via email as a response. I haven't heard from her since. It's pretty clear that since we're a business, she felt we should be doing more.

But we're a start-up, and I'm a single working mother who holds down a full-time job and sole responsibility for my child, in addition to being the Founder of Fertility Planit. To continue offering the service we provide requires funding -- even just to break even.

I wish we were in a position to offer non-profit organizations more. And we want to, in the future. But for now, we need to pour the bulk of the resources into establishing our service for you.

Warmest Wishes,

Karin

Founder/CEO Fertility Planit

Space is limited. Register now >

Why I Love Tara Stiles

Featured

Posted on October 4, 2012

She gets a lot of grief from yoga traditionalists, and she does things her way, anyway, and with love. She doesn't let anyone shake her vision. She is brave enough to put herself out there and to inspire others to reach for the biggest possible version of their dreams. She is a testament to thinking it, working so very hard at it. Making it happen and then holding the course.

These are all qualities I thought about as I was experiencing a mountain of disappointment and discouragement during my journey to create my family. I was told by relatives and friends to give up, to accept that I'd left it all for too late, that my eggs were too old -- that not even the fertility clinics wanted to work with me any longer. But I kept sticking with my vision and working hard at it.

Tara Stiles, Credit: BlissTree.co

If you Google Tara Stiles you'll see that she receives an avalanche of criticism and judgment. And yet she stays true to her vision, celebrates it and lives up to it -- if anything, pushing herself to go further, to dream bigger and to be bolder.

When I look at all that Tara has achieved, the fact that she is the personal yoga teacher for Deepak Chopra and Jane Fonda, and how much goodness, inspiration, and original vision she represents -- I think to myself that she is the perfect speaker for our show. She may not have experienced infertility issues herself, but I know that her example of mental strength in combination with her physical fitness and nutritional regimen -- is exactly what I needed and felt was missing during my own journey.

For all of these reasons, Tara Stiles is an outstanding choice for our show and I'm so pleased that she has said YES.

As we head into October, your suggestions for speakers who are inspiring individuals, and have valuable information to impart to our audience who want to have children, are very welcome. Please share your ideas and feedback at: [email protected].

Warmest Wishes,

Karin

Founder/CEO Fertility Planit

Space is limited. Register for Tara Stiles's session now >

Producing the Fertility Planit Show

Featured

Posted on September 27, 2012

I knew it would happen, but I didn't anticipate all that I'd learn from it.

Long story short: stay as loose and flexible as possible when putting together a large event for the public, but do be resolute and don't let anyone shake your vision. You'll need to be stronger, much stronger, than you think to bring the vision to life.

The Fertility Planit Show has now confirmed about 30 speakers. And not just any speakers -- but world class thought leaders like Dr. Mark Surrey, Dr. Richard Marrs, Ken Cook, Dr. Paul Turek, Dr. Daoshing Ni and Dr. Prudence Hall. People whom many of us would travel a great distance to see and hear as individuals, let alone the whole group in one place.

There are a million different ways we could have put our content programs together, and other excellent speakers we could have invited. But we can only do one first year show, and I need to stick to the vision: bringing information, support and inspiration to the widest possible audience who are looking at all options for creating families.

Warmest Wishes,

Karin

Founder/CEO Fertility Planit

Space is limited. Register now >

Thank You, Khloe Kardashian

Featured

Posted on September 20, 2012

I am so proud of Khloe Kardashian for sharing her quest with us about creating her family. Her recent TV episode sparked an intense volume of dialogue and debate across social media, and we found ourselves in the middle of it.

Khloe Kardashian Odom and Lamar Odom arrive at the Kardashian Kollection Handbag launch on November 2, 2011 in Sydney, Australia. Credit: Don Arnold/WireImage.com via USmagazine.com

The above tweet from @POFAdvocate hit me in the gut. Was I doing something wrong by reaching out to Khloe? Wait a minute -- she's just shared her struggle with infertility with an international audience of millions of viewers -- surely she won't mind if I ask her to join us at our show in LA for a conversation about her struggle, in front of an audience that is entirely sympathetic?

Throughout my struggle to conceive, I felt ashamed, closeted and isolated. At the time, the topic of infertility for me was something that was reserved for hush hush conversations on social networks where I'd use an anonymous username. I couldn't believe my eyes and ears when I saw Khloe give her testimony about dealing with fertility challenges. Is this how far we've come in just a few years?

For Khloe to share this with the world is a major milestone. We want her to know what a huge, positive impact she has already had with people everywhere who are trying to conceive -- she's shown us that we can talk about it openly, across mainstream channels, and that we need to get support.

Her decision speaks to the commitment Fertility Planit has made -- to open up the conversation around fertility and family building with a global, mainstream audience. To do that, we need role models like Khloe to join us. We hope you will see her at the Fertility Planit Show in January.

Warmest Wishes,

Karin

Founder/CEO Fertility Planit