Crusade took seed with son's birth

Her son is named Thomas after the apostle for whom seeing was believing.

For Quebec television diva Julie Snyder, five years of fertility treatments finally led to the birth of Thomas, now 3.

"You believe ... only when you have the baby in your arms. We were so happy but we didn't believe it," said Snyder, who will be speaking tonight at the McGill Reproductive Centre about her own experience with infertility.

Despite professional successes - she's currently hosting a top ranked show, Le Banquier, the Quebec version of the game show Deal or No Deal - Snyder said her best achievement by far was having a child.

"Nothing can compare with that - nothing," said Snyder, who is expecting a second child in October with her partner, Pierre-Karl Péladeau, thanks to fertility treatments she received at McGill University Health Centre after failed attempts at other clinics.

Snyder said she is so grateful that she would happily wash the floor of the reproductive clinic that helped her become a mother.

Snyder made no secret of the fact that she had to undergo fertility treatment to achieve both pregnancies.

"When I got pregnant, I swore to God that I would help other women," said Snyder, whose vow translated into a documentary on the subject that included an interview with pop singer Céline Dion. Dion also turned to fertility techniques that resulted in the birth of her son, René-Charles.

But Dion and Snyder have the means to pay for the therapy, which could be as high as $30,000 per attempt.

Most Canadian couples who need help with fertility are out of luck financially.

The majority of treatments are not covered by provincial health insurance agencies, including the Régie de l'assurance maladie du Québec, although about 25 per cent of the medical cost is reimbursed as a tax credit.

In contrast, abortions and surgeries that prevent conception - vasectomies and tubal litigation - are covered 100 per cent, Snyder said.

"But if you want to have a child, good luck. You better have money," Snyder pointed out.

"It's a paradox in a province so concerned with its declining birth rate."

It seems totally unfair that some people have remortgage their houses to pay for fertility therapy, said Snyder, who also is involved in fundraising for women who cannot afford the treatment.

Quebec should follow the examples of France, Belgium, Australia and Denmark, where artificial reproductive techno-logies including in vitro fertilization are heavily subsidized, she said.

Canadian couples go for hyper-ovulation drugs and opt to implant several embryos at once because they can't afford more than one attempt.

The result is often multiple births, lifelong health risks and costs.

The government would save money if it was paying for reproductive technologies, Snyder said.

Quebec Health Minister Philippe Couillard did not return calls yesterday.

About one in eight couples will face fertility problems.

Many couples don't seek fertility treatment until they've spent years trying for a child, said Roger Pearson, reproductive endocrinologist and past president of Canadian Fertility and Andrology Society.

Child Seat Safety

As a parent, your child's safety is always on your mind.

Saturday, some parents got peace of mind at the State Farm Insurance Child Safety Day.

State Farm agents from Michiana, as well as volunteers from Clay Fire Department and St. Joseph County Police spent time teaching parents the proper way to install child seat's so that their kids are safe.

State Farm Insurance Agent Tim Grauel says, "It's amazing. Last year, across the nation, out of 500 people, about 80 percent were installed improperly. We're looking to make sure seats are new, they fit the size of the kids, they're fastened tightly enough inside the seats and fastened tightly inside the car."

Grauel says the two most common mistakes parents make are not graduating their car seats as their children grow and not fastening infants tightly enough in their seats.

While their parents were learning, the little ones enjoyed themselves getting their faces painted and leaving with balloons.

Two women, 4 ingredients and a best-seller

What started with a simple idea and a conversation over red wine has led to over half a million sales of a cookbook. The authors of 4 Ingredients have found the recipe for small business success.
The story began when entrepreneur and motivational speaker, Rachael Bermingham gave her first book Read My Lips, about marketing and motivation for women, to her friend Kim McCosker.
"Kim was raving about it," says Bermingham. "I said, everybody's got a goodbook in them, and after a few red wines that same day she said, I've got a good idea for a book. She told me that it was a recipe book with [each recipe using] only four ingredients. I said, that's brilliant I would buy that, and my friend next to me said, I would buy that too."
Bermingham, a motivational speaker, kept asking McCosker, a financial planner, about the book's progress until she finally decided to give it a go, on the agreement that Bermingham would co-author it.
"Her idea and my motivation kicked us both into gear. We said we'll give ourselves 12 months. We had the book on her door step at 10 months. We wrote it during our children's sleep times," Bermingham says.
"None of the publishers wanted to know us. `Are you famous, are you a chef?'. `No'. They wouldn't even talk to us, we couldn't get past the secretary in most cases."
So the Sunshine Coast pair decided to appoint their own editor and printer and self-publish, with $20,000 seed funding from McCosker.
4 Ingredients was published in March last year and has since sold 575,000 copies in Australia and New Zealand, with agreements underway from other international distributors. After considering a variety of television proposals, they recently signed a deal with the Lifestyle Channel to present their own cooking show, which will air from September.
Bermingham says there were four key ingredients to the book's success that can be applied to any business: "Idea. Plan. Action. Marketing".
"I've marketed many other companies before and it's still those same four ingredients. You do it a little bit differently to suit the company you are marketing, but it's just the language that changes, not the process," she says.

"There are a lot of people out there with fantastic ideas but they just don't do anything. You need to first of all do something with it, take some action, then marketing is definitely the oxygen.
"I wrote up a press release and sent it out to all the media and press and print entities in Australia. Kim and I both followed up with phone calls and we got on the phones to the book stores too. We keep doing it, we still do it every single week. Just this week alone Lifestyle was filming in my house and I called my local paper to let them know."
Bermingham has no formal training but decades of experience in marketing. She has run many small business, including a travel agency, a speakers' booking agency and a consultancy practice called "Marketing to Success" where she provided advice to women over the phone on how to market their business with a zero budget.
"Whether you are the director of a child care centre or an insurance broker, every single person needs to market their business in some way. I always say if you market properly you don't ever need to sell, your marketing should do that for you."
A positive approach to marketing is important, Bermingham says.
"I think everybody has a problem with selling because they are fearful of rejection, that is a normal human quality. Whatever I'm doing, I come at it from, `How am I benefiting other people'."
Bermingham says excellent customer service and a clearly defined target market are also important for success.
"A lot of people in business don't know who their market is. You need to know what language to use. If my market is women, I'm not going to speak in a male language, because they'll miss the point."
The original target market for 4 Ingredients was busy mothers between the ages of 25 and 55.
"But our market has grown now and we have changed our marketing to capture more of the market because our biggest online buyers now are actually men," says Bermingham.
"Single men may be wanting to wow their partners, and there are a lot of widowed men out there too. You can evolve [your target market] but you need to start somewhere."
Bermingham and McCosker are in the final stage of production of their second cookbook.
They will be self-publishing their second book, despite offers from publishers around the country.

Brumby's baby boom budget

NEARLY $1.5 billion of tax cuts for home owners and businesses, and a "bush bonus" of $3000 to encourage young families to move from Melbourne's bulging outer suburbs to regional Victoria are the key features of yesterday's state budget.
Dubbing it a "baby boom budget", Treasurer John Lenders also announced $180 million of extra spending on maternity and child health services to cope with Victoria's highest birth rate since the early 1970s.
Mr Lenders gave business a welcome surprise: cuts to land tax aimed at helping the struggling manufacturing sector, a reduction in payroll tax to encourage employment and, for the fifth year in a row, a cut in WorkCover insurance premiums.
Victoria's stamp duty rates on home purchases — among the highest in the country — will be cut, with all thresholds lifted by 10%.
This follows a staggering one-year jump in stamp duty tax revenue of $913 million, or more than 30%, as a result of the boom in the property market. The cuts will reduce the stamp duty take by only $138 million next financial year.
The stamp duty relief is aimed at first home buyers. Mr Lenders said the saving for a family buying a median-priced first home for $317,000 would be nearly $2500.
The Opposition dismissed the tax cuts as illusory, saying the Government had "gouged" five times more in additional revenue from taxpayers since last year's budget than it was giving back in tax relief. Other features include:
■A $1 billion social justice package to help families with disabled children and "at-risk" communities such as Aborigines and new migrants from the Horn of Africa.
■Almost $800 million to increase capacity on the public transport network, including extra tracks at the Laverton, Westall and Craigieburn railway stations, and upgrades of Prahran and Windsor stations.
■Nearly $600 million to rebuild, renovate or extend 128 government schools, including new schools in Craigieburn, Caroline Springs and Wyndham.
■More than $350 million extra for capital works on hospitals, including Sunshine, Box Hill, Dandenong, Bendigo and Warrnambool.
Mr Lenders said the budget was aimed at helping the state cope with a population boom — Melbourne is growing by about 1200 people a week — and ensuring adequate provision of transport, education, water and health care.
"A growing population brings new joys — but it also brings new challenges," he said. "It places our infrastructure and services under much greater pressure. It makes it harder to maintain our liveability. And it puts a bigger strain on our natural resources."

To help fund future investment, the Government will increase the state's debt more than four-fold to almost $10 billion over the next four years.
While business applauded the budget, the Australian Medical Association said it did not do nearly enough to meet growing demand for public hospitals. Public transport and environment lobbies said it failed to tackle congestion and climate change.
Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu dismissed it as visionless, and ridiculed claims that it would enable Victoria to cope with the baby boom.
"Our babies will be paying the bills for the mismanagement of this Government," Mr Baillieu said. "There is a substantial increase in taxation in this state, and our babies will be paying the bills long into the future.
"When the people of Victoria wake up tomorrow, they will still struggle to get on a train or a tram, they will still struggle to get into a hospital bed, they will still struggle to get the fundamental services they deserve.
"This is maximum taxation, minimum delivery of services and no substantial infrastructure projects despite a bigger revenue take."
Mr Lenders conceded that economic growth was slowing, down from 3.25% this financial year to a forecast 3% for each of the next four years.
He said the budget surplus was expected to be $828 million next financial year and average $907 million over the subsequent three years.
This would give Victoria a buffer against "harder global times" caused by rising interest rates and inflation in Australia, an economic downturn in the United States and turmoil on the world's sharemarkets.
"It's clear that this budget comes at a challenging time: for Victoria, Australia and the world," Mr Lenders said.
"But it's equally clear that the Victorian economy has the resilience and diversity to meet these challenges and weather the risks ahead."
The Opposition attacked the Government's plan to fund future infrastructure projects in part by pushing the state further into debt.
Opposition treasury spokesman Kim Wells said Victoria was "on the path back to the bad old days of the Cain-Kirner Labor government's debt spiral".
"This will become a frightening legacy for the next generation," he said.
But Mr Lenders said net debt would stand at 2.9% of gross state product by 2012 — lower than the level Labor inherited from the former Kennett government in 1999.
"Worldwide, many governments carry a level of debt to drive their economies and invest for the future," he said. "They would be negligent if they did not."
International credit rating agency Standard & Poor's said last night that Victoria could easily afford the projected increases in net debt while retaining the state's triple-A rating.

Family struggles to help child recover

By: Jennifer Moxley

CHARLOTTE -- Cabarrus County parents are turning to an alternative therapy, hoping it brings back the little boy they nearly lost to an accidental drowning. He now has severe brain injuries after being found face-down in a pond, having been without oxygen for at least 45 minutes.
Aidan Wright’s parents want to continue the 2-year-old’s therapy at home, but they are struggling to pay for it. Part of the therapy is putting Aidan in a hyperbaric chamber. “What we’re doing is we’re taking oxygen -- concentrated, compressed, under pressure -- and we’re giving it to his brain,” said Rebecca McCall with Alternative Health Solutions.
The hope is that by giving him oxygen in the chamber, parts of Aidan’s brain will come back.
“He's fighting, he's still in there and we hope and pray that we can get him out of there,” said Russell Wright. He lost his job five days before the accident, so the family is on Medicaid. As the oxygen treatment is considered an alternative therapy, insurance doesn’t cover it.

The Wrights say the treatment is needed regardless.
“Lack of oxygen to your brain, treat it with oxygen instead of pumping more medical chemicals into your body,” stated mother Erin. McCall is donating her time and services, but the Wrights want to buy a chamber of their own so their son can get more treatment. No matter the stress or financial burden, they say they won’t give up.
“If you had something like this happen to [a loved one], wouldn't you do the same thing,” asked Russell. “I mean wouldn't you go to the ends of the Earth to make sure he was alright?”The hyperbaric chamber costs about $25,000 and so far the family estimates they’ve raised $9,000. A golf tournament to raise money is scheduled for June 14 at Rocky River Golf Club.

Wives angry at man who faked death

The two former wives of a man who faked his own death, sparking a $1 million insurance payout, want nothing to do with him as he caused "so much pain".
The man, who cannot be named because of strict suppression orders, yesterday in the Christchurch District Court admitted three charges of dishonestly using documents and two of false pretences.
The man disappeared in 2002 from Port Waikato, south of Auckland, and was presumed dead.
Instead, the father of three children from two marriages had staged his disappearance, assumed another identity and moved to Christchurch.
The man took out an insurance policy worth more than $1m in 2000 that was paid to his second wife after she went to the Auckland High Court to have him declared legally dead.
Sergeant Mark Berryman said the man's two wives were supporting each other because his actions had caused them and their children so much pain.
The women -- one of whom has a teenage daughter and the other who has two primary school-aged sons --"wanted to move on with their lives and wanted nothing more to do with him (their former husband)", Berryman said.
The women's identities, along with any details that could identify the man, how he committed his crimes and large sections of evidence heard by the court yesterday were suppressed at the request of defence counsel Barry Hart.
High Court documents obtained by The Press show the man was being investigated by Inland Revenue and Work and Income for fraud at the time of his disappearance.
The High Court documents, filed by the man's second wife to have him declared legally dead, also revealed he went bankrupt while he owned a business in the central North Island.
The tax agency's fraud investigations relate to allegations he had received tens of thousands of dollars on which he did not pay tax. The High Court documents also contain reference to the man receiving government benefits worth almost $50,000 while working full-time running a business.
In court yesterday, Berryman said the man's car was found abandoned at Port Waikato in 2002.
Police initially believed it was an attempt to fake suicide, but along with the family eventually concluded he had taken his own life.
In 2004, the High Court in Auckland made an order allowing his insurance policy to be paid out in full to his second wife, some of which was put in trust for his three children.
Meanwhile, the man obtained documents under a false name and started work in Christchurch.
Last year he applied for a new passport under his real name, which led to his identification and arrest in January.
His wife was ruled out of the investigation as an innocent party and was not prosecuted, Berryman said.
His second wife said at yesterday's hearing that she had been married to the man for nine years when their relationship broke up in 2002, for reasons which were suppressed. She had two children with the man and was aware he had been married and had another child.
The second wife said she was not aware he had a $1m insurance policy until well after he had taken the policy out.
He also had another policy for $125,000 relating to a mortgage.
After the separation and some initial difficulties, he began to see the children again.
But the custody arrangements started breaking down, the man arriving late to pick the children up, or not at all, his former wife said.
In the following months he disappeared.
The man's former business partner in Christchurch said he had no desire to see the man ever again.
At yesterday's court appearance, police did not oppose bail for the man, who was remanded for sentence to July 11.

Virus claims life of one more child

By Shan Juan (China Daily)Updated: 2008-05-03 09:12
FUYANG, Anhui: The potentially fatal intestinal virus known as EV-71 had infected 3,321 children in the city as of Friday, and the death toll had risen to 22, a spokesman for the provincial government said.

The latest death was reported on Friday, Wang Yan told a press conference on the epidemic.
He added that 978 are in hospital, of whom 48 are critically ill.
"Babies with such habits as sucking fingers are prone to the disease," Ran Xiangui, deputy director of Fuyang No 2 Hospital, said.
"Most of the infected children are from rural areas," he said. "The public health environment is generally not as good as in cities."
The hospital where Ran works is under great pressure treating the patients, he said. "Every day, about 20 are discharged after recovery, while 40 to 50 are admitted. We are short staffed."
Experts from other provinces and the Ministry of Health (MOH) have been sent to the designated hospitals to help with the treatment.

Official figures show that there are 580,000 children under 5 in Fuyang.
Xie Jiawang, a 14-month-old boy, was diagnosed with the viral infection and has been in Ran's hospital since April 24.
His mother, Yang Juan, said: "We've spent nearly 8,000 yuan ($1,144) because the boy has no health insurance. It's really a huge amount for us farmers."
Taxi driver Wang Bin told China Daily that he had driven five couples with their babies to the railway station on Friday.
"They were fleeing the city to protect their babies from the virus," he said.
"The government should have alerted the people earlier about the disease."