“How many embryos could we adopt?”
As the tears rolled down Marlene Strege’s face, the unconventional words tumbled out of her mouth. The year was 1996, and nobody had ever asked her doctor that question before.
Marlene and her husband John had already tried fertility treatments when Marlene was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure, a condition in which the body stops producing eggs regularly. They were already “uncomfortable” with trying IVF due to moral and ethical concerns. So the couple was ready to try something unprecedented.
At that time, embryo cryopreservation was already more than a decade old and thousands of embryos were sitting stagnant in liquid nitrogen. Most of them were likely never to see the light of day. So after weeks of discussion with trusted pastors and ethics leaders, the Streges felt that adopting some of these “frozen orphans” was the right thing to do.
“I had to find out what God thinks about this because I have to stand before God someday and give an account of my life, and my infertility doctor is not going to be standing there with me to tell God ‘Oh, yeah, well, we used a donor,’” Marlene told The Federalist.
It was then that the Streges partnered with Ron Stoddart of Nightlight Christian Adoptions to pioneer an embryo adoption program with the same requirements as domestic adoption, including a home study, background check, social worker visit, and adoption education classes. The only difference was families like the Streges
