A Snowflake Named Hannah: Ethics, Faith, and the First Adoption of a Frozen Embryo

by John Strege

When John and Marlene Strege learned they wouldn't be able to have a child, they were devastated. Then Marlene asked the question that would change their Can frozen embryos be adopted? The answer not only gave them their beloved daughter Hannah, it drew all three into a political spotlight they never expected. Hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos exist, held in stasis because parents using in vitro fertilization have completed their families without them. When scientists discovered a way to extract stem cells from human embryos for disease research and cures, those tiny lives were suddenly at risk. And Hannah, just a few months after this discovery, became the first human face of the growing resistance to this new science. In the first few years of her life, she not only sparked other parents to adopt their own "snowflake babies," but she also inspired the first frozen embryo adoption program, featured on Focus on the Family (getting a new godfather in Dr. Dobson), attended her mother's testimony in Congress, and stood at President Bush's side as he vetoed federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. This compelling story unfolds at the intersection of faith and family, science and politics. Pro-life Christians, those who have experienced infertility or know those who have, and anyone concerned with where science can lead when moral and ethical concerns are ignored will welcome this book--and the sweet face of the baby who might never have been born.

Genres: Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2020

About the author

John Strege is the author of seven previous books, two of them New York Times bestsellers: "Tiger: A Biography of Tiger Woods" and "18 Holes with Bing: Golf, Life, and Lessons from Dad," co-authored with Bing Crosby’s son Nathaniel Crosby. Strege’s book "When War Played Through: Golf During World War II" won the United States Golf Association’s International Book Award in 2005. He has an active baseball writer for twenty years and has worked for Golf Digest magazine since 1997. He is a Lifetime Honorary Member of the Baseball Writers Association of America and a member of the Golf Writers Association of America. He and his family live in Colorado.

Reviews

[Mary Jackson _TheMaryReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of the hardest books that I have read. After losing my only child, I have longed for a child of my own again so this was a really hard book for me.
I learned so much about "Snowflake" babies from reading this book.
This family is an extraordinary family and what they have is an Angel.
I am in full of hope and adoration, this is a book all my friends going through infertility issues need to read.
I recommend the 4 star read and plan to reread it when I am in a better place.
The Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required and all views expressed are our own.

[Sydna]

Thank you, John Strege, for putting this amazing story into a great book. It was a blessing to read the entire tale of how God moved from an idea to a beautiful daughter named Hannah. Her lovely life reminds me that God has a plan for each of us that He formed long before He made our Earth (Jeremiah 1). I recommend this book to anyone that is searching for God today. This story will encourage you to dream and trust Him!

[Angela]

How wonderful. I cannot wait to read this!!! I heard the Strege’s story on a James Dobson podcast at the beginning of 2014 and my heart was deeply stirred! I never knew of this possibility!!! But by the end of that year, I was pregnant with our son - through embryo adoption and 4 years later, I am currently pregnant again. Adoption in its various forms has changed and grown our family in wonderful ways. We would not be family without it! Thank you for sharing this story further!

I would love to review this book or add a write up on my blog if you have any info to send on.
www.everydayiswritten.wordpress.com

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fact that the wife in this book didn't want to do anything without consulting James Dobson to find out if things she was considering were "God's will" (as if Dobson was God's anointed one and had a direct phone line to heaven) really shows the power religious figures have over some people. Amazing to think people would make major life decisions on the word of a stranger just because they had a perception of him as being godly. I wish Dobson had used his influence better. He did a lot of harm to the LGBT community.

I wonder if this adoption agency would give an embryo to an LGBT couple. I suspect not. Why do I think that they would rather these children stay frozen and be deprived of life forever than have LGBT parents? Or even nonchristian parents?

Which would be more important, being pro-life or anti-LGBT? why do I think anti-LGBT would win out? Why do I think discriminating against an LGBT couple would be more important to these people than saving the life of a baby?

Or am I just too jaded because I've known too many homophobic, hypocritical Christians?

As for the book itself, I'd say 3 1/2 stars. I will be generous and give it four, because I'm grateful for what the Streges have done to protect human embryos and stand up for human life. I would have liked to have read more about the adoption process. And about how those the family knew reacted to their story.

Also, the super-religiosity really grated on me. I know that just means I'm not the target audience. I understand that this was meant to be a Christian book. But I spent a lot of the book gritting my teeth and forcing myself to read on while shaking my head. I wish it had been a little more accessible to non-religious readers.

The coverage of the Senate hearings was very interesting though.

I noted that some people with rheumatoid arthritis were mentioned on the opposite side. I have RA. I am in constant pain, and in a wheelchair (I can hobble short distances with a walker)- but I would never want to sacrifice the life of Hannah or another child like her for my own self-interest. I do now and always have opposed embryonic stem cell research. I wish I could have been a witness.

I'm hoping changes in the situation (covered in the book) will make this kind of research obsolete. I haven't heard about it much in the past few years.

[Marc · Rating 1 out of 5]

A flagrant piece of evangelical (not to mention colonialist) propaganda for the pro-life group; a 183 page exhibition of confirmation bias littered with misleading and outright false terms about the embryo donation process, reproduction, and scientific research. For example, 'uterus' is repeatedly and incorrectly referred to as 'mommy's tummy' yet embryonic stem cell research is flatly declared 'murder' and 'killing', the term embryo is swapped for 'human baby', and cryogenically frozen embryos are referred to as suffering orphaned childen in "frozen orphanages". The most flagrant use of language surrounds the term "embryo adoption" itself which is a pseudonym used to skirt the legal term "embryo donation", because the law does not allow an embryo to be adopted as it does a born human child. The process of embryo donation described in this book is governed by property law, where adults are buying groups of embryos to implant in their uteruses (not tummies) as property and calling it adoption. This is justified because it is viewed to be sanctioned by their Christian God; in the form of James Dobson who interpreted God's will in this instance, and gave his blessing before profiting wildly and exploiting the process publicly. Hannah, the sole product of a 20 embryo implantation in her birth mother, refers to the 19 embryos in her group that did not implant successfully as her "dead brothers and sisters". She personifies them and asks pro-choice politicians why they want to kill her and her "siblings". The entire tone is undemocratic regardless of the readers' political affiliation. I made someone a promise that I'd read the entire book. After keeping that promise, I would argue that the true suffering party here is the reader, not the "surplus" of frozen embryos in America.

[Emily Serven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book about the history of embryo adoption and the original embryo adoption program, called Snowflakes, which is part of Nightlight Christian Adoptions. John Strege is a skilled writer who presents two decades of history in an interesting and cohesive way, showing the significance of the fact that the embryo adoption movement began just before the public debate on embryo stem cell research. Families who had participated in the Snowflakes program had a special role to play in presenting a human face to the argument against doing research on human embryos. He reports on those Congressional debates and then the following years when the pro-life position was vindicated and embryo stem cell research was acknowledged not to hold the promise that those in favor of destroying the embryos had claimed.

Thousands of embryos remain in cryostorage around the world, denied the warm nurturing womb that would let them mature into the people God created them to be. This book is an encouraging and sobering reminder of what is at stake and that human lives should never be treated as commodities, created at will by parents who might want them at some point in the future, then relegated to a freezer until they meet a need. This book makes a strong defense for the goodness of embryo adoption and families choosing to rescue these embryos from their “absurd fate.” I highly recommend this book for anyone who is considering embryo adoption or who has participated in the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program. It provides helpful context and an inspiring story of how God used one family’s infertility and desire to honor him to bring about a movement that would rescue thousands of children and bless many families!

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learned a lot from the Strege family story. John explains in the simplest terms the ins and outs of Embryonic Adoption, the moral and ethical challenges faced, the history of legislative hurdles they overcame, and the joys of fulfilled dreams to become parents in a never before attempted Adoption process. God perfectly placed the right plan, the right people, and provision to a double-sided problem with His perfect solution. Their blind obedience paved the way for untold numbers of children to be lovingly placed with folks longing to grow their families that value the Biblical pro life view that all human lives begin at conception without exceptions!

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the debate about stem cell research, the abundance of unused embryos is not an ethical dilemma but an obvious opportunity. When a plethora of embryos has been generated, there are four options: store indefinitely, discard, donate or adopt. In his testimony during the 2000 hearings by the US Senate Committee on Appropriations, actor and quadriplegic Christopher Reeve’s articulated, “Human embryonic stem cells...have the potential to cure disease and conditions ranging from Parkinson’s and MS to diabetes, heart disease, to Alzheimer’s, Lou Gehrig’s, even spinal cord injuries.” Prolonging embryo storage indefinitely and/or eventually discarding them is our ethical dilemma; in so doing, we are perpetuating the suffering of post-born human beings-- “flesh and blood people now who feel pain, feel fear, feel debilitation” (Mary Tyler Moore)--and refusing to steward the intelligence imbued on us by our Creator to bring His Kingdom come here on earth. I am reminded of Matthew 25:24-30,

He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

Stem cell research does not refute that “Every human being, no matter how small, has innate value, dignity, and purpose” (Congressman Smith). But embryos are not human beings. Like the talents, embryos are seeds. They carry the potential to become body tissue or human beings but they are still primitive cells; just as seeds are distinct from trees. In the words of Senator Hatch, “The support of embryonic stem cell research is consistent with pro-life and pro-family values. This research holds out promise for improving and extending life for more than one hundred million Americans suffering from a variety of diseases, including heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, multiple sclerosis, cancer, and diabetes.” Doing nothing with these embryos is the ultimate genocide. If we do nothing with them, we are culpable for neglecting our Creator given capabilities; if we invest them in preexisting human life or procreating human life, we are stewarding the talents God has given us. In the words of President Reagan’s son Ron Reagan, “How can we affirm life if we abandon those those own lives are so desperately at risk?”

Senator Brownback beckons to a photograph of a bald eagle and complains of a disparity between treatment of human and bird embryos. “You can face two years in prison for destroying a bald eagle egg, but taxpayer dollars are used to destroy a human at the same phase of life.” Bald eagles are endangered; there are more human embryos in cryogenic storage than can possibly be adopted.

When writing for the American Prospect, Dana Goldstein posits: “But is the possibility of embryo ‘adoption’ really an argument against stem cell research? Not at all. There are approximately 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States, but less than 2000 children have been born through embryo donation.”

In the matter of IVF, we as a society must progress from an either/or to a both/and mentality. In an either/or discussion, there are two options--one is right and one is wrong. According to this linear way of thinking, decisions don’t reflect the complexity of the situation addressed, and implementation suffers. Informed decisions transcend the single story. They apply circular both/and thinking. They ask the question “How do we make sense out of multiple perspectives that seem at odds with each other?” They figure out how people who have seemingly opposite facts both have valid information. In making sense out of what seems at odds problem solving is achieved.

When writing for the American Prospect, Dana Goldstein posits: “But is the possibility of embryo ‘adoption’ really an argument against stem cell research? Not at all. There are approximately 400,000 frozen embryos in the United States, but less than 2000 children have been born through embryo donation.” There is not one alternative to destroying human embryos but two--simultaneously pro-life and pro-embryonic stem cell research. Genetic and adoptive parents should be provided both as viable and laudable choices: donation of embryos for stem cell research to offer healing for patients or donation of embryos for adoption to offer hope for parents.

Ultimately John Strege’s A Snowflake Named Hannah is a idolization of rightwing conservative Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson and the Republican political agenda rather than a personal memoir of the experience of embryo adoption. This two-dimensional depiction of a multifaceted subject proved a disappointing read.

[Lindsey Silver · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up. Beautiful story and I learned a lot but omg it was so slow and repetitive. It took me forever to finish this even though it’s short. This could have been so much better.