Twins Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway were born in Oregon, October 31. The twins were born from frozen embryos at the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) in April 1992. NEDC is a nonprofit in Knoxville, Tennessee, that provides donor embryos to couples who want to have children. Philip and Rachel Ridgeway are embryo recipients and have custody of the child. The two had four children before, but described Lydia and Timothy as “children in need of help”.
The embryos were originally created for an unnamed couple and kept at a fertility lab before being donated to the national center in 2007. Philip Ridgeway, the twins’ father, was 5 years old when the embryos were created and said: “There is something very confusing about this. “I was 5 years old when God gave Lydia and Timothy life- wife, and He has preserved that life ever since.
“We like the idea that we’re saving stranded lives,” said Philip Ridgeway, 35, adding that in a sense the twins are the couple’s oldest children, even though they are currently the youngest children.
The set of embryos selected by the Ridgeway family actually contained five embryos, which were thawed on February 28, nearly 30 years after being frozen for the first time. The three embryos then survived and were transferred to Rachel’s uterus, resulting in a twin pregnancy. The couple, who live in Oregon, have four other children. “We never had a specific number in mind that we wanted to have,” the twins’ father said. Philip went on to say they chose the “longest-awaited” embryos. Lydia was born weighing 5 pounds 11 ounces while Timothy weighed 6 pounds 7 ounces.
They were housed in tiny straws filled with liquid nitrogen for almost three decades in a west coast breeding lab. In an effort to help another couple, the couple gave their embryos to the National Embryology Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 2007.
Because of several ethical backgrounds, many patients choose to have embryos stored. However, this creates an embryo storage crisis. NEDC is holding about 6,000 embryos. According to one study, about one million embryos are stored in the US. According to M.D. Michael A. Thomas, president of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, embryos can be frozen indefinitely. However, after thawing, the embryo must be strong enough to carry out the transfer process into the uterus.
The birth of the Ridgeway twins broke the previous record held by Tina and Ben Gibson. Their daughter, Molly, was born from a 27-year-old embryo, in October 2020.
The Ridgeways went through an embryo donation, a process where unused embryos from in vitro fertilization (IVF) are donated to another person or couple. According to fertility resource Progyny, IVF typically creates an excess of fertilized eggs and a couple/individual can choose to cryopreserve them for the future.
