Oregon couple welcomes twins from embryos frozen about 30 years ago

Rachel and Philip Ridgeway embraced parenthood with open arms on October 31 and welcomed their twins Lydia and Timothy, who were born from the longest-frozen embryos to ever result in a live birth, according to the National Embryo Donation Center. After being frozen for almost 30 years, the embryos were successfully used by doctors for the Oregon couple, who were extremely excited to welcome the two new members of their family.

The previous-known record holder was Molly Gibson, who was born in 2020 from an embryo that had been frozen inside a tube for about 27 years. Molly had broken her sister Emma's record, who was born from an embryo that had been frozen for 24 years.

"There is something mind-boggling about it," Philip told CNN as he and his wife cradled their newborns at their home located outside Portland, Oregon. "I was 5 years old when God gave life to Lydia and Timothy, and he’s been preserving that life ever since."

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"In a sense, they’re our oldest children, even though they’re our smallest children,"the father of the twins added. The Ridgeways have four children,none were conceived via IVF or donors.

The embryos belonged to an anonymous married couple, who froze them in 1992. Using in-vitro fertilization, the embryos were created with the husband's sperm, who was in his early 50s and a 34-year-old egg donor.

For nearly three-long decades, they were stored in tiny straws with liquid nitrogen. They were first kept at a fertility lab on the West Coast. In 2007, the couple donated the embryos to the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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