Record-breaking twins born from embryos frozen 30 YEARS ago celebrate their first birthday

A pair of twins who were born from frozen embryos 30 years ago just celebrated their first birthday.

Timothy and Lydia Ridgeway were born on October 31, 2022 to their adoptive parents who were just three and five years old when the babies’ embryos were frozen in 1992.

The brother and sister’s embryos were adopted by a couple in Vancouver, Washington, after their birth parents, who wish to remain anonymous, donated their embryos to the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC).

The adoptive parents used IVF to conceive the twins in 2022.

The twins were born on October 31, 2022 from embryos frozen for 30 years.

IVF is one of several fertility treatments available to conceive a baby. During the process, an egg is removed from the ovaries and fertilized with sperm in a laboratory. This embryo is then implanted into the woman’s uterus to grow and develop.

With their embryos frozen in April 1992, the twins have earned the title of oldest embryo used in a successful pregnancy from the Guinness Book of Records.

Before the twins, the record holder was Molly Gibson, born in 2020 from an embryo that had been frozen for almost 27 years.

The babies’ biological parents stored their embryos in a fertility lab for 15 years before donating them to the donation center, a facility in Knoxville, Tennessee, that only allows heterosexual couples who have been married for at least three years to adopt embryos.

Their adoptive mother and father, Rachel and Philip Ridgeway, were only three and five years old, respectively, when their children’s embryos were frozen.

Ridgeway, 36, said Well-informed person shortly after the twins were born: it’s mind-blowing to think about. Almost everyone we’ve talked to has trouble understanding it.

Before their adoption journey, the Ridgeways already had four children between the ages of two and eight, but they wanted to continue expanding their family.

The couple had received “fertility help” to conceive their three eldest children and Mrs Ridgeway took hormone-stimulating drugs to increase the chances of conceiving a child.

Instead of undergoing more fertility treatments, the couple planned to use the money they would have spent to adopt an embryo. However, they were surprised to learn that they had conceived their fourth child naturally in 2020.

Still, they wanted to continue expanding their family and, in March 2022, they visited NEDC.

Ridgeway said, “We’ve always thought, ‘Let’s have as many children as God wants to give us.’ We think, ‘We’re not done yet if that’s God’s will.'”

The twins’ biological father had died from ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, but their adoptive parents, Rachel and Philip, did not hesitate to choose their embryos.

The Ridgeways already had six children before the twins were born, but they wanted to continue expanding their family, so they visited the NEDC in March 2022.

The twins, now one year old, celebrated their first birthday earlier this week with chocolate cake and balloons.

Unlike most, the couple, who are devout Christians, chose their embryos from NEDC’s “special consideration” bank.

Mrs Ridgeway, 35, said: “These embryos are often overlooked because they were donated by parents who had a known history of certain genetic disorders.

“We found that these children are rarely given attention because many parents who come into the process wonder what they might have.”

When the NEDC informed the Ridgeways that the father of the embryos had died of ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, they did not hesitate to choose them.

ALS is a fatal disease of the nervous system that weakens muscles and affects physical function. Family members of people with ALS have a slightly increased risk of developing the disease, but the overall risk is very low and most will not develop ALS.

About 10 percent of all ALS cases are familial, hereditary, or genetic.

Ridgewood said, “We decided we were going to look for kids who, in a sense, had been waiting longer because maybe they weren’t perfect.”

The parents reported that their pediatrician says the babies are healthy.

‘They have a potential flaw which, to us, seems silly because we all have potential flaws. We all have the possibility of developing any type of illness, disease or whatever.’

Her oldest child, a nine-year-old daughter, has epilepsy and asthma, but Ridgeway told Insider, “We don’t love her any less for those conditions.”

The twins, now one year old, celebrated their first birthday earlier this week with chocolate cake and balloons.

Ms Ridgeway added: “As believers in God, (we feel the twins) should be given the chance to live.”