His birth testifies to the great progress of science. Thirty years after the embryo freezing, Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway were born on October 31, reports CNN, picking up the announcement from the National Embryo Donation Center in the United States.
If the method is not new, it would however be a record of the freezing time leading up to a birth. The previous known feat was that of Molly Gibson, born in 2020 from an embryo frozen for almost 27 years.
“There’s something amazing about it,” said Philip Ridgeway, his children on his lap, from his home in Oregon.
“I was 5 years old when God gave life to Lidia and Timoteo, and he has preserved this life ever since,” recalled the father of the family.
“In a sense, they are our oldest children, even though they are our youngest children,” added Philip Ridgeway. With his wife, they already had four other small children, ages 8, 6, 3 and almost 2, none of them donor-conceived.
Stored in tiny straws
At that time, in 1992, the embryos were created by in vitro fertilization (IVF) for an unidentified married couple. The husband was 50 years old and they used a 34 year old egg donor.
For nearly three decades, five embryos have been stored on tiny straws, kept in liquid nitrogen at nearly 200 degrees below zero, in a device that looks like a propane tank.
The embryos were stored in a West Coast fertility lab until 2007, when the couple who created them donated them to the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the hope that another couple could use them.
This is because when people undergo IVF, they may produce more embryos than they use. Extra embryos can be cryopreserved for future use, but can also be donated to research.
a long dream
To choose their embryos, the Ridgeway couple combed through a database. This platform lists donor characteristics such as ethnicity, age, height, weight, health and genetic background, education, occupation, favorite movies and music, among others.
Southeastern Fertility, which partners with the National Embryo Donation Center, thawed the embryos on February 28. Of the five that were thawed, two were not viable. According to experts, the survival rate is around 80% when frozen embryos are thawed.
The remaining three embryos were transferred to Rachel Ridgeway on March 2, 29 years and 10 months after being frozen. Two of the transfers were ultimately successful.
Dr. Jim Toner, a fertility specialist in Atlanta, was reassuring about the life expectancy of these babies.
“It doesn’t seem like a sperm, egg or embryo stored in liquid nitrogen knows time… It just wakes up 30 years later and never knew it was asleep,” said expert Jim Toner.
At birth, Lydia weighed around 5 pounds, Timothy 7 pounds.
Source: BFM TV
