Snowflake Adoptions

I've heard Snowflake adoptions mentioned in Christian circles but I had never actually seen a Snowflake family. Thanks to this article I was finally able to match some real families and faces with these wonderful embryo adoptions.

Here is part of President Bush's remarks at his recent meeting with 21 Snowflake families:

I want to thank Nightlight Christian Adoptions for their good work. Nightlight's embryo adoption program has now matched over 200 biological parents with about 140 adoptive families, resulting in the birth of 81 children so far, with more on the way. The children here today remind us that there is no such thing as a spare embryo. Every embryo is unique and genetically complete, like every other human being. And each of us started out our life this way. These lives are not raw material to be exploited, but gifts. And I commend each of the families here today for accepting the gift of these children and offering them the gift of your love.

One family who met with President Bush was the Brinkman family. From Doni Brinkman's Snowflake adoption story:

All 11 embryos were shipped to us via Federal Express in May of 2000. Due to an
inadvertent error in the addressing, the embryos were delivered to a Federal
Express where house in Phoenix instead of their intended destination. Calmly
reminding myself that God is in charge of the drama of my life, I quickly drove to pick up my little ones. This shipping error was a blessing in disguise because I had the privilege of holding my children while still in their frozen state. I placed the black canister in my car, put a seatbelt around it, placed my hand on the canister and offered up a prayer of thankfulness for their safe arrival and pleaded with the Lord to allow me to one day hold them in my arms.

You can read more of Jim and Doni Brinkman's amazing story, along with their family blog and photos, here.