Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway, twin newborns of Philip and Rachel Ridgeway, were born on October 31st, 2022, CNN reports . What makes their birth special, though, is the fact that they’re actually 30 years old. Or at least, the embryos that formed them are.
The Ridgeways underwent a procedure commonly known as “embryo adoption,” but more aptly referred to as embryo donation. Essentially, it’s when parents undergo IVF treatments with viable embryos that do not genetically belong to either parent but are from donors. In the Ridgeways’ case, the embryos they used had been frozen all the way back in April of 1992.
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The Donated Embryos Would Otherwise Not Be Carried To Term
CNN reports that extra embryos are often leftover from IVF procedures since the process typically produces more embryos than it needs for a successful pregnancy. Because of that, parents who undergo IVF will oftentimes donate the extra embryos, which are kept frozen until they are needed by the next set of parents.
Lydia And Timothy Are Not The Ridgeways’ First Children
In fact, the couple have given birth to four other children, ages 8, 6, 3, and 2. According to CNN, none of the four children were conceived using IVF.
But Philip and Rachel wanted to continue expanding their family and saw embryo donation as an option they’d like to explore. “We’ve never had in our minds a set number of children we’d like to have,” Philip told CNN . “We’ve always thought we’ll have as many as God wants to give us, and … when we heard about embryo adoption, we thought that’s something we would like to do.”
They Began The Procedure, Not Thinking They Would Break Any Records
The Ridgeways worked with the National Embryo Donation Center, a private, Christian-run company that operates out of Tennessee. They decided that they wanted the “embryos that had been waiting the longest,” though didn’t particularly want to shatter records for the oldest embryos used in an IVF pregnancy. As it is, though, they do hold that record, at least for known pregnancies.
The embryos were from a married couple whose identities remain anonymous. The father was in his 50s, while the genetic mother was an egg donor in her 30s. The embryos were first frozen in April of 1992 and then donated to the National Embryo Donation Center in 2007, where they remained until early 2022.
Knowing The High Risk Of Multiples, Rachel Took Three Embryos At Once.
All in all, there were five embryos, but only three were viable after being thawed. Rachel had all three transferred to her on March 2nd, 2022, knowing the risks. Of the three, two of them were successful. Those two became Lydia and Timothy, the newest members of their family.
h/t CNN
