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Snowflake Children

Why go through the lengthy process of adopting a child already on the planet when you can simply adopt a stranger's frozen embryos and grow a baby yourself?

Featured in a CBS news article in 2005, the term ‘Snowflake' when referring to children born who were once frozen embryos was invented by the first agency to provide embryo adoption, Nightlight Christian Adoptions.

Today there are an estimated 600,000 frozen embryos being stored in the United States and Canada is not far behind. According to the Embryo Adoption Awareness Center, the annual storage costs of embryos is $600 per family, and a120,000 families paying $600 a year means that Americans spend $72,000.000 a year. Also, the Embryo Adoption Awareness Center states that 7.3 million women are infertile and that is 12% of the females of reproductive age in today's U.S population.

The entire concept is foreign to many of us as we seem be standing on a dangerous precipice mixing 80% science with 20% religious and moral beliefs creating a recipe for controversy, disaster and the actual frightening possibility of twins existing born twenty years apart.

What began as a family's moral and ethical dilemma involving the decision of what to do with remaining embryos following successful in vitro fertilization resulted in the idea of sharing the birth experience with another couple who were unable to conceive but could still carry a child. While few can dispute the heart wrenching decision especially while looking into the eyes of other children from the same ‘batch' to speak, of destroying left over embryos or turning them over for stem cell research where the embryos are destroyed, the decision to store embryos and for what length of time is also allowing people to plan exactly when they are having their children like never before. Not to make light of a situation but rephrased, “Honey what do we do with the other potential kids we do not plan on having? Let's give our potential children away?”

For many, this has been a very viable cost effective answer as embryo adoption costs far less being only $10,000 to $15,000 where regular adoption can cost upwards $50,000, according the Embryo Adoption Awareness Center. In some cases where open adoption is conducted, there is no cost involved at all.

In 1998, Hannah Strege was the very first Snowflake baby born. She can now be seen on Youtube telling her story and by her account, she is the most fortunate child. She reveals in her very candid videos that she understands the process and has no problems with it.

But has science gone too far? An embryo frozen for twenty years was born in 2011 and the Embryo Adoption Awareness Center proudly states, here is no ‘shelf life' human embryos, which is an uncomfortable statement for most. Controversy and questions surround the new population of Snowflake children. Will the children want to know where their other potential siblings ended up? Some will be implanted, some will be lost during the process, some used for stem cell research, some will remain frozen while some may be going to the same school as their biological sibling and never know it.

What about health issues? Does a family simply take an embryo out of the freezer if someone in the family requires a liver? What about yearning for their biological maternal connection? Will Snowflake children ever harbour grief over being stuffed into a woman who was not their biological mother?

Some may argue that it is the selfish need of women to actually experience giving birth that is motivating this movement. Some believe embryo adoption is a way of bonding with the adopted child even though the child is not biologically theirs. Some believe the concept of in vitro fertilization is causing more long term negative repercussions than good. Some find the whole idea completely bizarre but indisputably, the Snowflake population is growing and growing.

We've all heard the expression that everyone has a twin in the world somewhere but to coin another expression, some things in life really are ‘stranger than fiction'.

By Alex Sher

Post date: 2014-01-08 15:34:11
Post date GMT: 2014-01-08 20:34:11
Post modified date: 2014-01-15 11:03:40
Post modified date GMT: 2014-01-15 16:03:40