They look like regular babies. But the truth is that twins Lydia Ann and Timothy Ronald Ridgeway are already 30 years old. The siblings were born on October 31 in the US state of Tennessee. And made Lydia Ann and Timothy Ronald Ridgeway proud parents. The embryos of the two children were frozen in 1992 at -128 degrees Celsius and have been stored in liquid nitrogen at the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) ever since.
Unbelievable: back then the parents were still children themselves. “I was five years old when God gave birth to Lydia and Timothy. In a way, they are our oldest children, even if they are our smallest children,” the proud father told CNN.
The couple already has four children. Now it’s six in one fell swoop. It is the couple’s first time having a child through a donor.
“It is awesome”
The center stores embryos that have not been used by patients undergoing in vitro fertilization (a form of artificial insemination). Childless families can then adopt these embryos and place them back in the woman’s womb. “It’s amazing,” says the father, Philip Ridgeway, of the possibility of having children.
With the birth, the twins set a new record. They are the longest frozen embryos that have been successfully born. Molly Gibson previously held the record. She was born in 2020 after the embryo was frozen 28 years ago. In the past, her mother had unsuccessfully tried to conceive naturally. With the help of the Embryo Center she was able to make her dream come true. (lrc)