Embryos sat frozen for 30 years. Now couple has record-breaking newborn twins

For 30 years, a pair of embryos sat frozen. They waited longer than any embryos ever had before.

On Halloween, however, twins from the embryos were born to a couple in Oregon, the family told news outlets. Their father was 5 years old when they were frozen in 1992, according to CNN.

Babies Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway are believed to be the “longest-frozen embryos to ever result in a live birth,” according to a news release by the National Embryo Donation Center.

The embryos were originally donated by an anonymous married couple in 1992, according to CNN. The couple was going through in vitro fertilization using a 34-year-old egg donor and the husband was in his 50s.

The embryos were held in a liquid nitrogen storage unit until they were moved to the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, according to the news release. They were thawed in 2022.

“We’ve never had in our minds a set number of children we’d like to have,” Philip Ridgeway, the twins’ father who has four other children, 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.”

The birth of Lydia and Timothy broke Tina and Ben Gibson’s record of 27 years by being frozen embryos for over 29 years and 10 months before they were born, according to the release.

“They specifically requested the embryos that have been waiting for the longest. They actually felt called to specifically say we want the embryos that everyone else has taken a pass on,” Medical Director Dr. John David Gordon told WATE.

There are between 1.5 million and 3 million frozen embryos that wait to be thawed and transferred around the country, Gordon told WATE. Some are put up for adoption and some don’t get used.

“Thirty years ago, the living Christ gave these children life, and He has been sustaining that life ever since,” the Ridgeways said in the news release. “This is His story, and we are so thankful to Him that in His providence He is allowing us to be a part of it.”

This story was originally published November 22, 2022 at 12:11 PM with the headline "Embryos sat frozen for 30 years. Now couple has record-breaking newborn twins."