Obviously, I don't mean a literal snowflake like we see in January (or on the left). Zoe is a snowflake baby, conceived as part of an IVF treatment but then not implanted. Her biological parents' first round of IVF was successful so they had embryos leftover that they chose to freeze instead of destroy. Over time, the rest of the embryos were adopted out to other families. Zoe was one of three adopted by her family but the only one that survived thawing and implantation. Her mom joked that they refer to her as both their oldest and youngest child since she was conceived before their other two children were born but wasn't actually born until last year. Zoe had been frozen for almost 10 years, the outside limit of the technology.
I got tears in my eyes watching this precious little girl enjoy her dinner and observe the world around her. We even got to sing happy birthday to her at church dinner the day after she turned one. It made me so grateful that the technology has been developed that not only allows these children to be created, but allows them to not be forgotten and frozen forever. Currently, over 500,000 embryos are frozen in the U.S., most still waiting for the parent couple's personal IVF use. A portion of those, though, are waiting to be adopted and it is estimated that over 3,000 babies have been born from such adoptions. You can find more on embryo adoptions here.
Anyway, that's what is on my mind right now. One precious little girl...unique as a snowflake :)
Soli Deo Gloria,
Meghan
