The embryos were frozen on April 22, 1992, and for nearly three decades, they remained stored in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of nearly 200 degrees below zero.
On October 31, Philip Ridgway and his wife, Rachel, welcomed their twin babies, Lydia and Timothy, born from the longest frozen embryos of 30 years.
The previous known record holder was Molly Gibson, who was born in 2020 from an embryo that had been frozen for almost 27 years.
The couple lives in Portland, Oregon and has four other children, ages 8, 6, 3 and almost 2. Apart from the twins, none of the other children have been conceived through IVF or donors.
They “waited” 30 years to be born
The 5 embryos were created for an anonymous married couple through IVF and were frozen on April 22, 1992, and for nearly three decades, they were stored in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of nearly 200 degrees below zero.
The embryos were kept in a fertility lab until 2007. At that time, 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.
When looking for donors, Philip and Rachel asked the donation center for embryos that were hard to find recipients for whatever reason. “We weren’t looking to take the embryos that have been frozen most of the time,” said Philip Ridgway. “We just wanted the ones that had been waiting longer.”
Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway were born from what may be the longest-frozen embryos to ever result in a live birth, according to the National Embryo Donation Center. https://t.co/7305hyU4w3
— CNN (@CNN) November 21, 2022
To select their embryos, they went through a donor database that did not list how long the embryos had been frozen, but did list donor characteristics such as ethnicity, age, height, weight, genetic and health history, education, occupation, loved ones movies and music. In some files there are pictures of the parents and their children, if they have any.
Finally the 5 embryos were thawed on February 28th. Of the five, two were not viable – according to experts, there is about an 80% survival rate when thawing frozen embryos.
The other three were transferred to Rachel’s womb and eventually two were fertilized.
Freeze indefinitely
Embryos can be frozen almost indefinitely, experts said.
“If they are frozen to almost 200 degrees below zero, biological processes essentially slow down to almost zero. And so maybe the difference between being frozen for a week, a month, a year, a decade, two decades, doesn’t really matter,” Gordon explained.
Also, the age of the fetus does not affect the health of the child. What matters most is the age of the woman who donated the egg that entered the embryo.
“If this patient was 25 years old, yes, her embryos would probably survive,” said Dr. Zaher Merhi, a fertility specialist at the Rejuvenating Fertility Center in New York. “It all has to do with the egg and the embryo and when the egg was removed,” concluded the scientist.
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With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
