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What Is Embryo Adoption?

For many people, the concept of embryo adoption is completely foreign. As an adoptive parent, it's helpful to know a thing or two about the process in case you need to field questions.

In short, embryo adoption is the process by which a family with embryos created during in vitro fertilization (IVF) places any embryos they did not use during IVF cycles with an adoptive family. Placing families frequently keep any remaining embryos frozen. From a Christian worldview, those embryos are human and deserve the best chance at life.

Nightlight Christian Adoptions became the first agency to formalize the adoption process for embryos, and others have followed. The thinking -- rightly so, in my view -- is that as embryo babies grow older, they will naturally ask questions about where they came from and want a deeper understanding of their heritage. The formal adoption process, including a legally binding contract between the families, ensures embryo adoption is just as valid as any other form of adoption.

Every adopted baby has a special story that involves his or her placing family and his or her adoptive family.

Embryos are then thawed according to the adoptive family's guidelines in consultation with their fertility clinic. Embryos that survive the thaw (and sadly, many do not survive, in the interest of full transparency) are transferred to the adoptive mother's uterus for development as embryos normally do after natural conception.

The process I've described above might sound fairly routine, but adoptive mothers as well as women who have gone through the process of IVF -- and the requisite medications and other required treatments -- know it is anything but simple process. Yet to live at a time when doctors can preserve the integrity of embryos frozen for years or even decades and help families bring them to term is remarkable.

My encouragement to you is that while you are bound to get plenty of funny looks for exploring embryo adoption, there isn't anything weird or inappropriate about it. It's simply another way to build a family that wasn't possible even 30 years ago.

What questions do you have about embryo adoption? Leave a post below and I'll be happy to answer them.

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