Embryo Adoption the Answer to Couples' Prayers

A white cradle sat empty at the foot of Maria and Jeff Lancaster’s bed. Maria, 46 years old at the time, had recently suffered her third miscarriage and since in vitro fertilization and adoption were not viable options for the couple, they were told to give up the dream of parenthood. Maria refused.

Six years earlier, she had gone to Cedar Park Assembly of God in Bothell, Wash., where Pastor Joe Fuiten prayed over her and other couples struggling to have children during what Fuiten calls Presentation Sunday. She was still waiting for God’s answer to that prayer.

“After my miscarriage, we were devastated,” she says. “I thought, ‘I’m going to die of despair if I don’t do something that opposes the natural.” That’s when she purchased the cradle as an act of faith that the Lord would fulfill her desire to have a child.

Months passed. Socks accumulated in the cradle. Then one day, an idea from a Dr. Dobson radio program rocked their world: embryo adoption.

Here’s how it works: When a couple does in vitro fertilization, often more embryos are created than ultimately are needed to increase the chances of a successful pregnancy. Only two or three of the healthiest embryos are placed back into the woman’s body to avoid the risks to both babies and mother associated with multiple pregnancy, such as quadruplets, quintuplets, etc. (One high-profile exception is the case of Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to octuplets from in vitro fertilization on Jan. 26, 2009.) Any remaining embryos can be frozen for possible future use. Embryos can also be donated for adoption to another couple.

When the Lancasters learned of embryo adoption, only 10 babies in the U.S. had been born this way. After months of soul-searching and prayer, they decided to go for it.

Embryos which had been frozen for four years, at the two-cell stage, arrived via FedEx from a North Carolina clinic and were thawed and implanted in Maria’s uterus in a painless, two-minute procedure. Nine months later, Elisha Ramiah Lancaster was born, September 5, 2003. She was the first “Snowflake baby,” as Maria says, to be born in the state of Washington, and only the 35th in the nation. Today she is a lively five-year-old with an affinity for horses and dressing up like a princess.

According to Dr. Christina Powell, AG minister and research fellow at Harvard University in Boston, embryos can remain viable for a decade or more if they are frozen properly. “However, not all embryos survive the thawing process,” she says. “Typically about 60-70 percent survive cryopreservation. The probability that an embryo will grow to be full-term before being born is about one in 10 for embryos frozen less than five years, and lower for embryos that have been frozen longer.”

Elisha Lancaster has a simpler explanation for how she was born: “She tells me that Jesus sent her to us,” says Maria. “She was just the right one and God sent her.”

Maria is now executive director of Embryo Adoption Services at Cedar Park (www.adoptanembryo.net), a ministry of the church which had prayed for her 12 years ago to have a child. The service opened in November 2008, and by March 2009 is already working with 60 families from across the U.S. as well as Canada, Sweden, Jamaica and England.

“It’s a need people have, a need we can fill,” says Pastor Fuiten. “We are a church that does God’s work—and we think having a family is part of God’s work.” (The church also runs a funeral home, several counseling offices, a mechanic shop, studio, thrift store and the largest evangelical school system in North America.)

“Something that was once a great anguish for my husband and I has turned into our ability to share this opportunity and joy with other people,” says Maria. “Some couples can’t afford regular adoption, or are too old like we were, or in vitro fertilization is not an option. There are a lot of people like us who, if they don’t adopt an embryo, will never have kids.”

Though there are 500,000 frozen embryos in storage in the U.S., Cedar Park is one of only seven embryo adoption services in the U.S. according to www.embryoadoption.org, and the only church-based service. The Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption Program run by Nightlight Christian Adoptions has resulted in 199 births in the last decade, and the five-year-old National Embryo Donation Center has logged 109.

In embryo adoption, the donating family chooses the family which will adopt their remaining embryos in the freezer. Couples seeking to adopt apply and go through a home study screening. Donating and adopting couples can also choose how much contact to have with each other. The Lancasters have exchanged letters and pictures with Elisha’s genetic parents and hope to someday meet them.

“We aim to make embryo adoption as financially affordable as possible,” says Fuiten. “When you see families being able to have children, that’s very valuable. It’s also valuable as a teaching mechanism about the ways of God. We’re able to speak quite clearly to issues of sanctity of life and abortion. We are helping shape the values of the culture by thinking of embryos.”
The basic definition of what constitutes life, says Dr. Powell, leads to the conclusion that a new human life begins when an embryo is formed. “The question debated in our society today is when does human personhood begin,” she continues. “While the birth of healthy babies from frozen embryos does not address these questions, seeing these healthy babies reminds everyone of the value of human life contained within each embryo.”

The Lancasters have always been pro-life, but their experience with Elisha “revolutionized” their consideration of embryos. “We must fight for the embryos that are in the freezer that are just human beings in a freezer,” says Maria. “The embryo should be greatly valued and treasured for the potential of a born human being. Nothing else compares to it. Even Dr. Seuss knows, ‘A person’s a person, no matter how small.’”