That was hard for the Carlos family to wrap their minds around. I felt in my heart the rest of them deserved the same chance at life. She spent nearly 12 weeks on bed rest, and she knew that she didn't want to go through that again. Then 14 months after their twins were born, Kimmi miraculously got pregnant naturally with their third and final child, a son who's now 3. Kimmi says that getting pregnant naturally, against the odds with only one fallopian tube and having been diagnosed with Endometriosis helped show them that donating their embryos was meant to be.
Most people don't understand how that's possible, how can you do that, how can you have another child that you're not raising and you're not loving and all of that, and I don't know the why or how behind that," Kimmi says. Since the Snowflakes program was created in , children born to families receiving embryos donated through the agency have been called "snowflake babies. The term "snowflake babies" caught on and people now often use the term for any baby born as a result of an embryo adoption or donation.
The last office census of embryos in frozen storage was conducted in and calculated over , embryos in frozen storage in the United States. Some estimates of embryos in frozen storage are now pushing 1,, And I said, "Well, if they're not, I would have had to add something with my body to make her a human life.
I added oxygen, nutrients, a warm place to grow, and love. Therefore, she was a human life. Marlene Strege : Yeah. So the questions that you were getting back to, why would people in churches or church denominations not think that this was moral or acceptable before God. Scott Rae : Right, it's understandable why people who are on the pro-choice side of abortion would not be in favor of this because they would view the term embryo adoption as an oxymoron because you don't adopt property.
Marlene Strege : Right, however, they have no problem when the state of California says adopt a highway. Scott Rae : But I think the point you're getting to is though that some of the folks who don't like embryo adoption come from a distinctly Christian worldview. Marlene Strege : The first one is they say it intrudes on the sanctity of marriage because they're putting something into me that's not of me and my husband.
My answer to that is that all of the adoption criteria had been met. We had done a home study. We'd been chosen by the placing family. The adoption agreement was signed, and just like it was buying a house because they were considered property, these embryos, they had three days to change their mind. Once that date had passed, those were our children. An adoption's not second best. John and I had to provide from those children, and the way we did that was with my body.
Scott Rae : Yeah, if you think about it, there's some interesting advantages to embryo adoption over traditional adoption because one is there continuity between the woman who gives birth to the child and the woman who raises it. That's the same person, so there's no break in the relationship at birth. Marlene Strege : And I'm providing the nutrients in my body, so I know what's going into my body.
That's in the best interest of the child. Scott Rae : The other thing that's different about it is that the one thing that most adoptive families fear the most is that the birth mother's going to come back and reclaim her child at some point. The law in most states allows for that within a reasonable time period. But in the case of embryo adoption, couples don't give up embryos for adoption, generally, unless they're convinced that they're childbearing days are over.
Scott Rae : The likelihood of your bio parents coming back to reclaim "their biological child" in embryo adoption, I think, is pretty low. Marlene Strege : We had the adoption agreement, and we were the legal "owners," if you will, I guess the state would say, of these embryos. We were the parents. But then when she was born, we have the birth certificate that shows my husband and I.
We don't have an adoption decree from a judge because the state doesn't view these as people. But the law and, in some cases, theologians are lacking of what science is doing. They're maybe behind on some of this. Marlene Strege : I wanted to get back to the other issue. There's two that I see.
We talked about the sanctity of marriage. The other one is people will say, "Well, if we support embryo adoption, then that's just giving a green light, or we're supporting the whole assisted reproductive technology. Marlene Strege : There's no regulation on it. They're not putting the best interest of the child first. They're putting the best interest of the parents because the parents want to be parents. They want a child, so they'll do anything. And it's a business. They're there to make money.
Marlene Strege : I liken it to a birth mom who gets pregnant out of wedlock and has a child. You still support the child even if you don't support premarital sex. But you still support the child. That's the case with these frozen embryos. There's a million in our country right now that need to be adopted, that need to fulfill their gift of life.
Marlene Strege : For those 20 children that with adopted, they all survived. Excuse me. They all fulfilled their gift of life. Six of them actually survived the thaw on two different transfers and the transfer into me, but only Hannah was born. But all 20 of them were given that same chance. John Strege : Embryo adoption is trying to solve a problem, not add to a problem. In IVF, the doctors are contributing to the problem by creating way too many embryos.
Embryo adoption is a way to help solve that problem. Sean McDowell : There's a million frozen embryos. How many people are lining up to adopt this way? I don't know how many they have actively involved in that, but, again, just the everyday person doesn't know about this. It's just constantly getting the word out. Scott Rae : I would consider this just like traditional adoption.
These are rescue operations. Scott Rae : How the person got into a rescuable situation is beside the point. The question is, do we have the obligation to rescue them, and I think the answer to that clearly is yes. The difficultly, I think, is that it's not that common that couples that have embryos leftover from IVF actually will designate those embryos for adoption. Scott Rae : I think that reflects this kind of strange ambivalence that we have culturally about what embryos actually are because I think we know.
It's hard to look at Hannah and say that embryos are property, but it's also a little counterintuitive to think that something that we have to look at through a microscope is also a human person even though, philosophically and biblically we can make the point that, as you said, that embryo has everything it needs to mature. I wouldn't even use the term develop. I'd say just it matures according to what it already is. Scott Rae : We all did, yeah.
The idea that we were all embryos at one point, and you don't become something different just by changing location or by stage of development or maturity.
Scott Rae : Let me ask you another question here. You've had maybe something that you weren't anticipating when you first got into the embryo adoption program, and that is the chance to have a very public voice on the use of embryonic stem cells for research and for medical treatments.
Tell us a little bit about your own journey. Tell us about your involvement in that discussion. Hannah Strege : I just put a face and a name to the problem. People see me, and they see that I was once an embryo, and I was once considered property. When in our country was the last time a human was considered property? I really showed America and the world that embryos are worth saving and worth our time and worth rescuing.
Marlene Strege : Yeah, and I testified before Congress in It should be interesting to note that Hannah was born December 31, , and I was already pregnant when the scientists discovered how to extract the stem cell from the human embryo.
So God's plan was well underway for these embryos, this plan of adoption instead of destruction. Marlene Strege : I went with the second Snowflake mom, who had twin boys.
At that time, they were nine months old, Luke and Mark. Hannah was about two. If you come into present day, Hannah is now studying. She wants to go on to get her master's and be a social worker in adoption, and help children find forever homes.
At that time, in , the message of the day was these frozen embryos are in excess of clinical need. They have no purpose. They're just going to be thrown away. Let's do research on them. Now, you have Snowflakes one, two, and three who are serving God, their country, and their fellow man. There are hundreds of Snowflake children who are about to take their place in the world.
Scott Rae : Yeah. It's such a compelling account. One last question here before we wrap up. What encouragement would you have for couples who are wrestling with infertility and considering options for resolving that? Hannah Strege : For couples that are wrestling with infertility, I really say that embryo adoption, Snowflakes, is the best of both worlds because you not only get to adopt, but you get to give birth to your own adopted child, which is every woman's dream.
That's just so exciting to hear. For myself and for women across the globe, just that this is a possibility, and that you aren't alone. Marlene Strege : I would tag onto that to say if there are families out there that have remaining embryos, really look into this because I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
You can choose the family you want to adopt your children. You can have an open adoption, and it's not as scary as it sounds. Marlene Strege : You want your children to know who their genetic siblings are because when they start dating, they want to know that they're not dating a genetic sibling.
It's very, very good for placing families as well. Sean McDowell : Hannah, I just encourage you. I have enjoyed having you in class here at Biola. You've done a great job.
And nobody chooses the family, obviously, that they're born into, but you're born into a very unique situation, and I just love seeing your passion and your heart, and that you're using this opportunity, just whatever that looks like in the future, just to encourage families, to bless people, to help out kids.
Sean McDowell : Love seeing it. Thanks for just your courage and your clarity, for all of you, but especially for you. It's really a thrill to see. Scott Rae : This has been so, so rich.
Thank you for coming on with us and for telling your story, John, for writing the book, and Hannah, Marlene, for testifying before Congress. I wish I could say that the need for that testimony is over.
Unfortunately, it's not. I so appreciate your advocacy for the unborn who are among us, but in storage in infertility clinics across the United States and around the world. Scott Rae : We pray for the embryo adoption programs that are springing up, the Snowflake programs that are coming to various parts of the country.
It's got to be very satisfying for you all to see the movement that you started with the first Snowflake Baby. It's a great read, terrific writer. Thank you for your work on that. In between the stories that you do for Golf Digest, glad that you found the time to get this one down in print too because this is a pretty meaningful story. That's biola.
Boston Globe. Bloomberg News. Topics A-Z. All topics. To top. About bionity. Your browser is not current. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. Your browser does not support JavaScript. To use all the functions on Chemie. DE please activate JavaScript. Snowflake children Snowflake children is a term used by organizations that promote the adoption of embryos left over from in vitro fertilization to describe children that result, where the children's parents were not the original cell donors.
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