Adoption's New Frontier

'Snowflake' Babies Adopted For Personal, Political Reasons

(CBS) 
Susan and Bruce Lindeman of Richmond, Virginia dealt with infertility for seven years. Five years of treatment and three rounds of in vitro fertilization later, they were drained emotionally and financially. In the spring of 2002, they discussed the option of using donor eggs, as Susan's eggs had deteriorated over the years with age. This would have cost the Lindemans another $25,000 after already spending over $100,000 on previous infertility treatments.

Susan was very active on the Web site IVFconnections.com, and happened to come across a posting on a bulletin board from a couple with extra embryos to donate. The couple, Glenda and Scott Lyon, had one child conceived naturally and a set of twins conceived through in vitro. The Lyon family was complete and by July 2002, Glenda and Scott agreed to help the Lindemans achieve similar good fortune.

Instead of going through an agency, the two families arranged the adoption independently, with a private attorney drawing up the necessary legal papers. Within three months, the embryos were over-nighted to Virginia from a clinic in Minneapolis. Of the 14 embryos transported, six were thawed and three survived the thaw. On July 1, 2003, Susan gave birth to boy-and-girl twins, Jack and Chase.

The two families have joined forces to help other couples start families and experience pregnancies as simply and inexpensively as possible. This is the idea behind MiraclesWaiting.org where Glenda Lyons serves as Treasurer and Susan Lindeman is Public Relations Director. It is a Web site for people looking to put excess embryos up for adoption -- especially those who want varying degrees of contact with the receiving couples. As Susan said, "There are a growing number of people out there that would be willing to donate if they knew the outcome."

More importantly, the people behind the Web site understand the financial burden those struggling with infertility have experienced. It is meant to reduce costs and, as Susan noted, "to give people the opportunity to meet each other and work things out on their own terms." Susan makes sure to note that the Web site is not affiliated with any religion and is a neutral ground to help people create families.

Susan and her husband have also tried to avoid any involvement in the political dialogue surrounding embryo adoption. "We do not have a political agenda," Susan said, "We would like to think that folks that have embryos frozen would be willing to give other people who can't start a family a chance to start one. But we understand not everyone will be comfortable with that."

With the number of excess embryos created and frozen across the country rising with every round of IVF, Paige Faulk believes people should know embryo adoption is a viable option and said, "we would like to see the embryos gets adopted into families like ours that are infertile." Susan said, "Different people will talk about embryos and about whether they're life or not life. What people choose to do with their frozen embryos are their personal feelings."