Springfield family grows through frozen embryo program
Joanna and David Rea of Springfield want their little snowflake to know the special way she entered their lives.
“We tell her that babies are made by mommy’s seed and daddy’s seed, and she was started by another family and given to us as a big gift,” Joanna said. “And we took those seeds and asked God to help her grow in me.”
Five-year-old Vivienne Rea is among more than 7,000 children nationwide who are known as snowflake babies, an emotional collaboration between two families who have both experienced fertility issues. Unused and frozen embryos from one family that has successfully undergone in vitro fertilization are donated to another family to be implanted in the mother and hopefully produce a child. That’s what happened for the Rea family.