"It's that dark circle in the middle," Timothy Cochran said from the living-room couch of the couple's home in Maryland, as his wife, Sarah, smiling broadly, held up the picture, a sonogram taken earlier in the day.

Sure enough, there was a small, dark oval in the middle of the static.

After years of heart-breaking frustrations as they tried again and again to have a child, the sonogram confirmed that Sarah was pregnant. One of the three embryos doctors had transferred from frozen storage into her womb three weeks earlier had taken hold.

Fertility treatments -- with a twist -- had finally worked.

The Cochrans had gone through a lengthy and relatively new process called "embryo adoption" to take possession of the embryos, which are the genetic offspring of another Maryland couple.

The Cochrans first learned of embryo adoption while listening to "Focus on the Family," the radio show of Dr. James Dobson, an evangelical Christian commentator.

By the time they decided to give it a try they had already been through an epic struggle, to have children.

In 1998, doctors diagnosed Sarah with endometriosis, a condition in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus is found in other areas of the pelvic cavity. The excess tissue restricts blood flow to Sarah's ovaries, preventing her from producing healthy eggs.

Over the next several years, the Cochrans' attempts to have children through in vitro fertilization produced no results. They then decided to pursue traditional adoption, but before they finished the adoption process, Sarah became pregnant.

The surprise pregnancy also ended in heartbreak. Just before the due date, a kink in the umbilical cord cut off blood flow to the infant, who died during an emergency Caesarean section.

In 2004, after another unsuccessful round of IVF treatments, the couple paid a visit to the California headquarters of the Snowflake Embryo Adoption Program, the agency mentioned on Dr. Dobson's show. After a two-hour consultation, they were convinced.

"We left knowing this was what God wanted us to do," Sarah said.

A few key differences

Founded in 1997 by Nightlight Christian Adoptions, an agency that also arranges traditional adoptions, Snowflake was the first of three U.S. programs that currently arrange embryo adoptions.

Unlike traditional embryo donation, which is anonymous and only requires the couples to undergo medical screening and psychological counseling, Snowflake requires adoptive couples to submit to more extensive screening similar to that required for traditional adoptions. This includes fingerprinting, background checks, visits by social workers, and infant CPR and parenting classes.

Both the donor and adoptive couples prepare in-depth profiles of themselves, including statements of religious beliefs and multiple photographs, which they use to choose each other.

The adoptive couples like the Cochrans must agree to forego selective reduction, a procedure where embryos are surgically removed from the uterine wall after transfer to prevent the development of multiple children. Doctors sometimes recommend the procedure to protect the health of the mother and the developing fetuses, but some religious conservatives consider it a form of abortion and tantamount to murder.

'Pre-born children'

While Snowflake stops short of saying it is immoral to destroy embryos for research, it is upfront about its philosophy on when life begins. Snowflake's Web site calls embryos "pre-born children" and states that "when embryos are created, life begins."

The Cochrans agree with the view that embryos are living beings and that using them for research is trading one life for another.

"Dead things don't grow," Sarah said. "I would never ask someone else to let their child be killed so that my child might have a cure. I can't in good conscience respect someone who would."

As of this January, Snowflake embryo adoptions had produced 99 children since the program began in 1997, according to Ms. Corcoran.

Source Embryo adoption: New twist to infertility treatment generates kids, Capital News Service. www.hometownannapolis.com. 4/13/2006.

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