A couple has welcomed twin babies in the United States state of Tennessee from embryos frozen more than 30 years ago. It is a new record for the longest-frozen embryos ever to result in a successive live birth. The father of the twin babies Philip Ridgeway called it “mind-boggling”. Rachel Ridgeway, a mother of four from Oregon, gave birth to the twins on October 31.
According to National Embryo Donation Center, Lydia Ann and Timothy Ronald Ridgeway are likely to set a new record. NEDC, a private faith-based organisation claims that it has helped birth more than 1,200 infants from donated embryos. According to NEDC, the previous record-holder, Molly Gibson, was born in 2020 from an embryo that had been frozen for nearly 27 years.
"The decision... to adopt these embryos should reassure patients who wonder if anyone would be willing to adopt the embryos that they created 5, 10, 20 years ago," BBC quoted Dr. John David Gordon, who performed the embryo transfer as saying.
"That answer is a resounding yes!" The twin embryos had been created for an anonymous married couple using IVF. The man was in his 50s and reportedly relied on a 34-year-old egg donor. They were kept in storage at a fertility lab on the US west coast until 2007 when the couple donated them to the NEDC in Knoxville, Tennessee for another couple to use them instead, BBC reported.
Embryologists at the NEDC's partner clinic Southeastern Fertility then performed the thaw and transfer to the uterus earlier this year. In a statement, the NEDC said it hoped the news would "encourage others to experience the blessings of embryo adoption for themselves". It is the first child the Ridgeways have had via IVF or donors.
"I was five years old when God gave life to Lydia and Timothy, and he's been preserving that life ever since," Philip Ridgeway told CNN from the family's home. "In a sense, they're our oldest children, even though they're our smallest children. There is something mind-boggling about it".
(With BBC, and CNN Inputs)