“They’re our oldest children, even though they’re our youngest,” Philip Ridgeway joked to CNN. A joke ? Not much. At the end of October, this father, his wife and their four children welcomed Lydia and Timothy, twins from embryos frozen more than 30 years ago, on April 22, 1992. This is a record, the oldest embryos used so far were 27 years.
Philip Ridgeway lives with his family on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon. “We have never had in mind a definite number of children that we would like to have,” the father of the family explained to CNN. We always thought we’d have as many as God wants to give us, and… when we heard about embryo adoption, we thought it was something we’d like to do. »
It is no coincidence, however, that these embryos “went” for this family: without trying to have “the longest frozen embryos in the world”, the couple wanted “the ones they have been waiting for the longest” and they corresponded to certain criteria that they can choose by donor such as ethnicity, height, weight, education, profession, favorite movies and music.
The “batch” of embryos frozen on April 22, 1992 actually numbered five, but two ended up being non-viable. CNN reports that the survival rate during thawing of embryos is about 80%. The three had been transferred to Rachel Ridgeway on March 2, but only two transfers had been successful. This is how Lydia and Timothy were born on October 31st. “I was 5 when God gave life to Lydia and Timothy, and He has preserved this life ever since,” believes Philip Ridgeway.
