Parents welcome twins from embryos frozen in 1992
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Featured Image Credit: Philip and Rachel Ridgeway
A newborn set of twins are believed to have set a new world record after they were born from embryos frozen way back in 1992.
Giving a new meaning to the phrase 'I was born in the wrong generation', Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway were born on 31 October despite their embryos being frozen back in 22 April 1992.
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The National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) have now claimed that the twins, who were cryopreserved AKA frozen for three decades, are the longest frozen embryos to result in a live birth.
Mark Mellinger, of the NEDC, said: "This is a new record for the transfer of the longest-frozen embryo resulting in a birth."
This record was previously held by Molly Gibson, who was born back in 2020 from a 27-year-old embryo.
The twins were initially conceived for an anonymous married couple, however, when their embryos went unused, they were donated to the national centre in 2007.
They were eventually adopted and brought to term by Philip and Rachel Ridgeway.
The twin's dad, Philip was just five years old back in 1992 and he described the whole thing as 'mind-boggling'.
"There is something mind-boggling about it," he admitted.
"I was five years old when God gave life to Lydia and Timothy, and he's been preserving that life ever since.
"In a sense, they're our oldest children, even though they're our smallest children."
As reported by Sky News, the twin's biological mother was aged 34 back in 1992 and their father was in his 50s.
To put how long the twins have been waiting to be brought to life into context, at the time of their conception, John Major was the British prime minister.
And not only that, but the internet was very much in its infancy and social media hadn't even been invented.
The twins are not the happy couple's first children as they already have four others, aged between two and eight.
The couple explained that while they weren't planning to break a world record, they did deliberately chose the embryos that had been waiting the longest.
Philip said: "We weren't looking to get the embryos that have been frozen the longest in the world.
"We just wanted the ones that had been waiting the longest."
The embryos were thawed in February of this year, and while two were no longer viable, three were, and they were implanted into Rachel.
The two successful transfers ultimately created two healthy baby girls.
Lydia was born weighing 5lbs 11oz, and Timothy was 6lbs 7oz.
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