Oregon twins were born from what might be the longest-frozen embryos to result in a live birth.
Rachel and Philip Ridgeway welcomed Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway to their family on Oct. 31. The couple were already parents to four other children, ages 8, 6, 3 and almost 2, but none conceived via IVF or donors, CNN reported. Eager to grow their family, the Ridgeways reached out to the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, Tennessee.
"We weren't looking to get the embryos that have been frozen the longest in the world," Philip said. "We just wanted the ones that had been waiting the longest."
The embryos from which the twins were born belonged to an anonymous married couple using in-vitro fertilization. They froze the embryos in 1992 and donated them to the National Embryo Donation Center.
The Ridgeways, while looking for donors, had asked the donation center about a category called "special consideration," meaning that it has been harder to find recipients for these embryos.
On Feb. 28, the embryos were thawed, and on March 2 — 29 years and 10 months after they were frozen — three embryos were transferred into Rachel.
"Going into this, we knew that we could trust God to do whatever he had sovereignly planned and that their age really had no factor. It was just a matter of whether or not that was in God's plans," she said.
"There is something mind-boggling about it. I was 5 years old when God gave life to Lydia and Timothy, and he's been preserving that life ever since," Philip said, cradling his two newborn daughters.
"In a sense, they're our oldest children, even though they're our smallest children," he added.
"It really is God's grace because he has just sustained us each step of the way," Rachel said.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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