Meet the World’s Oldest Babies: Oregon Couple Welcome Twins Born from Embryos Frozen 30 Years Ago

A couple from Oregon welcomed twin babies born from embryos which were frozen more than 30 years ago. Philip Ridgeway and Rachel Ridgeway welcomed Lydia Ann and Timothy Ronald Ridgeway on October 31. Lydia Ann and Timothy Ronald Ridgeway were frozen as embryos in 1992 and have set the record for the longest-frozen embryos ever to result in a successful live birth. They are most likely to set the record for the world’s oldest babies.

The embryos were frozen on April 22, 1992 and were originally created for an anonymous married couple using in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), news agencies CNN and BBC reported.

From April 22, 1992 to the time the embryos were transferred to Rachel Ridgeway, these embryos were stored in liquid nitrogen at nearly 200 degrees below zero. The CNN report said that the storage device looks like a propane tank.

The process was facilitated by National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC), a private faith-based organisation which claims to have helped more than 1,200 infants from donated embryos, the BBC said in its report. The previous record holder was Molly Gibson, who was born in 2020 from an embryo that was frozen for nearly 27 years.

Dr John David Gordon performed the embryo transfer.

The embryos after being frozen in 1992 were kept in storage at a fertility lab on the US west coast until 2007. To give some perspective on the age difference, the embryos were frozen when father Philip Ridgeway was five years old.

“I was five years old when God gave life to Lydia and Timothy, and he’s been preserving that life ever since. In a sense, they’re our oldest children, even though they’re our smallest children. There is something mind-boggling about it,” Ridgeway was quoted as saying by CNN.

The anonymous couple donated the embryos to the NEDC in Knoxville, Tennessee for another couple to use them. It must be noted that during the IVF process, people may produce more embryos than they use.

The embryologists working at Southeastern Fertility, NEDC’s partner clinic, performed the thaw and transferred the uterus earlier in 2022. The NEDC released a statement saying it hoped the news will encourage others to experience “the blessings of embryo adoption for themselves”.

These are the first children the Ridgeways have had via IVF or donors. They have four other children between the ages of one and eight.

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