ABOUT

Finding the right guidance and advice when you’re trying to build your family can be frustrating. With so many different sources of information on the internet and ‘experts’ delivering conflicting advice, it’s easy to become confused and feel overwhelmed by it all.

That’s why The Center for Family Building was first established. When Founder Lisa Schuman LCSW needed advice on her own fertility challenges and was looking for alternative ways to build a family she spent endless hours trawling the internet for advice she felt she could rely on. Her mission is to help you stop wasting time, like she did, and have confidence that you have reliable advice from a true expert-so you can get the family you always dreamed of faster.

Lisa is not just another mom offering the benefit of her own experience, she is a leading specialist in family building and has helped thousands of people around globe build the families of their dreams.

She is a highly respected qualified professional in the fertility field and has lectured extensively and has written numerous articles on a variety of family building subjects including LGBTQIA+, and single parent family building. Lisa also runs workshops and offers counseling for parents and children who have formed their families through sperm and egg donation or adoption.

Lisa has been working as a licensed therapist for more than two decades and is currently the Director of Mental Health Services for Illume Fertility and Gay Parents to Be. She is a consultant for schools and corporations and has worked with groups such as Memorial Sloane Kettering, The Gay and Lesbian Community Center, The Family Equality Council and Single Mothers by Choice.

Jefferson lecture Ms. Schuman was the only therapist chosen as a surrogacy expert to testify to the State Senate Judiciary Committee on the subject of legalizing compensated surrogacy in New York.

In her many years of treating patients who need assistance to build their families, she came to understand that the guidance, support and education she provided could make their paths to parenthood easier. To fill that need, in 2015, she founded the Center for Family Building, a trusted comprehensive resource offering products, videos, coaching services, support programs and more.

Ms. Schuman’s My Lifebook which is now available on Amazon, was created to capture special memories and moments from the journey to have a child. Says Schuman, “Children love hearing about how they came into the world and My Lifebook can help them feel connected to their beginnings.”

As the principal investigator for many accepted research papers, Ms. Schuman was honored with three awards by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and the Pacific Coast Reproductive Society. Ms. Schuman sat on the board of the American Fertility Association and was a group leader for RESOLVE. Ms. Schuman received her Undergraduate degree at Northeastern University and her graduate degree at Yeshiva University.

Ms. Schuman, who lives in Connecticut with her husband and three children, has personally experienced almost every facet of family building including fertility treatment, surgeries, alternative therapies, surrogacy and adoption and has lived through the struggles of raising neurotypical and neurodivergent children. This has given her special insight into the trials, tribulations and joys of the families she counsels. Says Schuman, “I can talk the talk but I have also walked the walk.”