ATLANTA AP – A judge gave the widow of a soldier killed in Iraq hope for a child by allowing her husband’s sperm to be extracted and preserved. But medical experts question whether artificial insemination would work because the samples were taken four days after the man died.

Before he died March 31 of wounds suffered when an explosive detonated near his vehicle in Baghdad, Army Sgt. Dayne Darren Dhanoolal, 26, had talked often with his wife of 13 months about having children, according to court papers filed by the wife’s lawyer.