Twins Timothy and Lydia Ridgeway were born 30 years after they were frozen as embryos in 1992, holding the record for developing from the longest-frozen embryos known to result in a live birth – and making the mother, Rachel Ridgeway, technically, just three years older than her newborns.
The adopted embryos were frozen in April 1992 and born in October 2022 to Rachel and her husband Philip.
Now a mother of six, Rachel fell pregnant three decades after their son and daughter – now named Timothy and Lydia – were frozen as embryos in April 1992. The infants’ biological parents, who have stayed anonymous, donated their leftover embryos to the National Embryo Donation Centre (NEDC) after going through IVF.
The Christian non-profit, which offers frozen embryo transfers only to heterosexual couples who have been married for at least three years, stored them in liquid nitrogen along with thousands of other embryos.
The NEDC was founded in 2002 as a way of helping people start – or, like the Ridgeways, expand – their families.
They hoped to welcome their fourth child in 2020. They chose to “adopt” a frozen embryo from the NEDC.
The couple, who live in Washington, selected their embryos in December 2021 from the so-called “special consideration” section of the NEDC.
“These embryos are often overlooked because they were donated by parents who had a known history of certain genetic disorders,” Rachel said.
The Ridgeways said that they didn’t care whether the 30-year-old embryos were considered perfect or not, reports Business Insider.
Rachel said they were told the twins’ biological father had died from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Three of them were transferred, and two developed. Rachel, who had a relatively straightforward pregnancy, gave birth on 31 October 2022, at 38 weeks.
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