Parents welcome twins from embryos frozen 30 years ago

Twins Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway were born on October 31, 2022, in Portland, Oregon. The Halloween babies gained national attention because they were born from the longest-frozen embryos to ever result in a live birth. The previous record holder was Molly Gibson, born in 2020, from an embryo that was frozen for 27 years. Molly took the title from the previous record holder, her sister Emma, who was born from an embryo frozen for 24 years.

The Ridgeway embryos were created by an anonymous married couple through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and frozen on April 22, 1992. They remained cryopreserved in storage for three decades at a fertility lab until 2007, at which point, the couple donated them to the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. They did so with the hope of allowing another couple to use them through Embryo Donation.

Embryo donation must meet certain US Food and Drug Administration eligibility guidelines to be donated and can be a cost-effective measure for those looking for fertility help. The process has sometimes been referred to as “Embryo Adoption” however, this is a misnomer as the process does not meet the legal definition of adoption.

For more information see Jen Christensen “Parents welcome twins from embryos frozen 30 years ago”, CNN Health, November 21, 2022.

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