Image courtesy of Rachel Mayes

When Rachel and Rollin Mayes first considered in vitro fertilization after a seven-year struggle with infertility, they had concerns about it. 

At the first clinic the Texas couple visited in 2021, they were told that most procedures would create as many embryos as possible, as few as 15 or as many as 40. As Christians, the Mayeses didn’t feel comfortable with this process because they knew they would never transfer that many embryos, and the ones they could not use would only be discarded or put up for adoption. 

Then Rachel searched the internet for “Christian fertility clinics” and discovered Rejoice Fertility, a center in Knoxville, Tennessee. She read that this clinic did not discard embryos and they did no pre-implantation genetic testing. 

She picked up the phone and made a call.

A Holy Discomfort

A few years earlier, John Gordon, a reproductive endocrinologist, was having second thoughts on his career, despite two decades in the field. Gordon got into the field because he wanted to help parents begin their families, but over the years, he felt that the IVF industry had morphed into a consumer-driven baby factory. 

As a Reformed Presbyterian, Gordon found the job challenging his spiritual convictions. He was concerned by the increasing use of donor eggs and sperm to create embryos and embryonic genetic testing that allowed prospective parents to discard embryos thought to be abnormal. 

Allison, Gordon’s wife, also began feeling very uncomfortable with her husband’s profession. 

“John was not happy coming home from work. I thought, Something is wrong  … God was making us really uncomfortable.”

Allison began exploring what Scripture had to say about issues of life and fertility.

Meanwhile, a couple met with Gordon at his clinic after genetic testing revealed that they carried a gene that could result in hearing loss for their children. The couple wanted to test their embryos and discard those that had the possibility of hearing loss. 

Allison was very troubled by this request because while serving at a VBS program, she had spent time with a little boy who was deaf and had a cochlear implant. 

“He was the most delightful boy. We just loved him,” she said. 

“The fact that this couple was wanting to throw out embryos that would have been like the child that I had in my VBS class, it just really struck me. It just seemed really bad,” Allison said. 

John said that, at this point, Allison told him that how he was practicing fertility treatments was wrong and he needed to consider making a change. The process took several years of prayer and discernment, but in 2019, the Gordons decided to move from Northern Virginia to Knoxville to purchase a fertility clinic and start a new kind of practice. 

A New Approach

The new practice — first called Southeastern Fertility and then changed to Rejoice Fertility to reflect Gordon’s Christ-centered vision — would operate under a new set of rules. 

“I’m going to take care of patients of all faiths and patients of no faith, but we will be guided by our faith in terms of what we will be willing and what we won’t be willing to do,” Gordon explained.

Patients had to be married, and marriage had to be between one man and one woman. Patients could not receive donor eggs or donor sperm from anyone other than their spouse. There would be no embryonic genetic testing and no discarding embryos. If an embryo was created, the couple would be obligated to use it—or perhaps put it up for adoption.

Typically, only half of the embryos that are transferred implant and result in pregnancy. In contrast to his previous practice, Gordon would only allow the fertilization of a limited number of eggs (usually six or fewer), thus limiting the number of embryos that a couple could feasibly use (usually between two and four). 

 But for the patients choosing Rejoice—mostly Christians, but also Muslims and orthodox Jews—this care was precisely what they wanted.

Risking It All

When the Mayeses contacted Rejoice Fertility, Gordon explained to them his process of creating a few, rather than many, eggs—a process referred to as a “Minimal Stimulation IVF.” 

Rachel said she appreciated the clinic’s conviction not to discard embryos and not to conduct pre-implantation genetic testing. 

“Their policy position created trust,” she said.

She also valued that the clinic was small and felt personal, compared to the “big business” approach of the rest of the industry. After seeking the wisdom of friends and leaders in their church community, the couple decided to travel to Knoxville to pursue IVF with Rejoice.

“We wanted our doctor to share our ethics,” Rachel explained. “We could have done the same thing in Texas, but couldn’t find a doctor like Dr. Gordon in Texas.

“I think the whole time, we were very open-handed,” said Rollin. “We wanted a child, but we’re not willing to compromise our ethics in order to get a child. We wanted to be confident that the decision we were making was godly, biblical, and wise.”

Rachel received her first treatment in March of 2023. It was unsuccessful. 

The loss almost broke them emotionally, Rollin said.

“It was maybe the hardest thing we’d ever experienced together. We had a huge community of people praying for us. We had a GoFundMe to finance that first round. We had to deal not only with our own personal grief, but [also] of breaking the bad news to hundreds of other people who had been rooting for us.”

Rachel said she wasn’t sure she had the heart to try again. But the morning after the devastating news, she woke up and realized that she would be willing to try again. The big road block was the cost. She said she told God that he would have to drop the money in their lap if he wanted them to try again.

Later that morning, the couple received an unexpected phone call from a friend who told them that they would cover the cost of another treatment.

“We had never had such an immediate answer to prayer,” Rachel said. “[God] saw us and heard us. For me, I was ready to do the second round.”

Rollin wasn’t so sure. He said he felt vulnerable and devastated after the first failed attempt and didn’t want to go through that kind of pain again.

“It took me a lot of time praying and wrestling with God. A really significant moment for me was when I sensed him asking me, ‘Do you believe I only write good stories?’ ”

Rollin said he realized that didn’t necessarily mean they would get the outcome they wanted, only that they were to trust God, knowing that he would work all for good.

“That moment was a real breakthrough for me … It was something pretty close to unshakeable peace.” 

The couple did another round of IVF that July. It was successful. Rachel gave birth to a baby girl on April 16, 2024.

Faithful

In July, Rejoice Fertility made national and international news when a couple working with Gordon successfully gave birth to a healthy baby boy from an embryo that had been frozen for 30 years  Thaddeus Pierce was the result of transferring an embryo that had been created and cryopreserved in 1994 during IVF’s early days. 

The mother of the unused embryos decided to give them up for adoption when she began going through menopause, and the embryos were placed in a Snowflakes program run by Nightlight Christian Adoptions. The Pierces adopted one of the embryos and selected Rejoice Fertility as the clinic they wanted to work with for the transfer.

Three years earlier, Gordon had made similar news when embryos that were nearly 30 years old transferred successfully and resulted in a healthy set of twins.

Gordon says he loves working with families like the Pierces and the Mayeses, especially walking alongside couples as they deal with uncertainties and fears in their fertility journeys. 

“We ask our patients if they want to pray,” Gordon says. “Ninety-five percent say ‘yes.’ We remind them that the Lord is sovereign. IVF creates the illusion of control.”

Looking back at the journey he’s been on for the past several years, Gordon reflects on God’s faithfulness. When he and Allison made the decision to come down to Tennessee, the practice consultant advised Gordon that his new practice paradigm would not be successful in Knoxville. 

“We had to leave a lot of money on the table,” Gordon admitted.

But the Gordons, who are now members of Christ Covenant PCA in Farragut, Tennessee, have seen how God has provided. Although the clinic prospered financially, the Gordons have decided to pump most of the money back into the clinic itself by building a 10,000-square-foot building to house the practice, ensuring its future survival and creating a safe haven for couples wishing to pursue more God-honoring fertility treatments.

“The Lord has blessed us beyond measure,” Gordon said. 

Meanwhile, the Mayeses are expecting their second child following another embryo transfer at Rejoice. Their baby is due in May.