The first in vitro fertilization (IVF) or “test tube” baby, Louise Brown, was born in England in 1978 and the first IVF baby in the United States, Elizabeth Carr, was born in 1981. Since that time, the fertility industry has grown enormously and because of that, the number of remaining frozen embryos has significantly increased.

As laboratory technology and techniques improved, the ability to safely freeze and thaw embryos opened the possibilities for families to make additional attempts at becoming pregnant without having to repeat the egg retrieval process. It also allowed them to return for a sibling when they were ready to try again.

While no one truly knows when the first embryo donation occurred, they were usually performed in fertility clinics where the physician facilitated anonymous transfers between patients. In 1997, Nightlight Christian Adoptions expanded its services to include embryo adoption and began to educate the public regarding this option for infertile couples.

In the late 1990’s, the Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA) approached Dr. Jeffrey Keenan, a Knoxville, Tennessee, Reproductive Endocrinologist, with the idea of creating a medically-based non-profit embryo donation center. The center would accept all embryos regardless of number or grade and have its partner medical clinic store them on-site. The center would also actively match willing recipients with donors and then facilitate the clinic’s performance of the actual transfers.

Originally part of the Baptist Health System in Knoxville, the new organization began assembling its grassroots staff and formulating the processes, parameters, and protocols needed to create the most beneficial program for both donors and recipients.

By 2003, the NEDC had received several sets of donated embryos from fertility clinics around the country and began to match them with hopeful families. In addition, the NEDC pursued and received federal grant funding to educate the public and create awareness of the embryo donation and adoption process.

By 2010, the NEDC had significantly increased its transfer/success rate, continued to receive grant funding, and moved to a permanent, independent location.

Since its inception, the NEDC has become the premier center for ED/EA services and has been featured in multiple national media stories. The most important story, though, is the one that we can help write for you. We look forward to helping you complete your fertility journey.

While the NEDC is open to couples of all races, religions, creeds, and backgrounds, our own Christian faith is the overriding principle upon which we operate. As an organization guided by our religious faith and protected by the Constitution of the United States, the NEDC firmly believes in the sanctity of life beginning at conception and recognizes marriage as a sacred union between man and woman as defined by the Scriptures of the Holy Bible.