Twin Babies Were Born From Embryos Frozen… 30 Years Ago
Say hello to Lydia Ann and Timothy Ronald Ridgeway, twins born on October 31, 2022.
While babies are born every day without the rest of the world batting an eyelid, the backstory to their conception is one for the history books. They were born from embryos frozen more than three decades ago—meaning they could have been older than some young parents today.
According to the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC), this incredible feat is believed to be the new record for the longest-frozen embryos resulting in a successful live birth.
The previous record-holder, Molly Gibson, was born in 2020 from an embryo that had remained frozen for 27 years.
Lydia and Timothy, or rather, the embryos from which they were formed, were stored in liquid nitrogen back in 1992—when Bill Clinton was still president.
And now, 30 years later, the breathing, living babies were born to Rachel Ridgeway, a mother of four whose other children were not conceived through donated embryos.
These twins are the world’s 'oldest' babies, having been born from embryos that were frozen for 30 years 🤯 pic.twitter.com/9ZGqOFrvi5
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) November 23, 2022
Calling the birth “mind-boggling,” Philip Ridgeway, the twins’ father, mused about how he was just five years old when “God gave life to Lydia and Timothy,” and that, in a way, they were both the family’s eldest and youngest children.
As per CNN, the embryos used had been created for an anonymous married couple undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF). The man was said to be in his early 50s, while the egg came from a 34-year-old donor.
For the unfamiliar, the process by which the Ridgeways received these embryos is termed ‘embryo adoption’, in which extra embryos produced during IVF are donated to other couples looking to have more children.
Unlike traditional adoption, which occurs after birth, this method “allows all parties to conceptualize the process and eventual reality of raising a non-genetically related child,” explains the NEDC.
However, the American Society for Reproductive Medicine has taken issue with the term ‘adoption’, highlighting that it could be misleading and should be avoided, though it is still the colloquially common term used to refer to the process.
Lydia and Timothy have now joined their older siblings, aged eight, six, three, and two, at home in Oregon, Tennessee.
[via BBC and CNN, cover image via Martin Valigursky | Dreamstime.com]
