Ohio baby born from 31-year-old frozen embryo

International

A BABY boy was born from an embryo that had been frozen for over 30 years, marking the longest storage time before birth.

The baby boy was born on July 26 from an embryo that had been stored for 11,148 days.

In a process called embryo adoption, couple Lindsey and Tim Pierce from Ohio utilized a number of frozen embryos from 1944 in the hopes of having a child after battling infertility for years.

According to a report by Associated Press, this concept has been around since the 1990s but has gained popularity to Christ-centered fertility clinics and advocates who opposed discarding leftover embryos because of their belief that life begins at conception, and expressed that all embryos should be treated like children who need a home.

One of the donors, 62-year-old Linda Archerd expressed her feeling regarding the embryos she donated to the Pierces.

“I felt all along that these three little hopes, these little embryos, deserved to live just like my daughter did,” she explained.

Around 2% of births in the U.S. are from in vitro fertilization, and an even lesser number involve donated embryos. However, medical experts say that around 1.5 million frozen embryos are currently stored all over the country, a lot of those facing uncertainty as parents battle to decide what to do with their leftover embryos produced in In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) labs.

A 2024 Alabama Supreme Court decision further complicated the topic that states that the frozen embryos have the legal status as children. State leaders have formulated a temporary solution protecting clinics from liability due to Alabama Supreme Court's decision, though questions hover regarding the remaining embryos.

Archerd noted that she turned to IVF in 1994. Back then, freezing, thawing, and transferring embryos was paving the way for progress and creating an opportunity for hopeful parents to create more embryos and increase their chances of a successful transfer.

She produced four embryos and hoped to use them all. However, after her daughter was born, she and her husband divorced, interfering with her plans of having more children.

Decades later, Archerd was troubled with guilt about what to do with the embryos as storage fees continued to rise.

Archerd eventually found Snowflakes, a division of Nightlight Christian Adoptions that offers open adoptions to donors like Archerd. She also had the right to set the standards for the families that would adopt her embryos.

“I wanted to be a part of this baby’s life,” she said. “And I wanted to know the adopting parents.”

The process required Archerd to contact her first fertility doctor in Oregon and go through paper records to have proper documentation for the adoption. The embryos then had to be transferred from Oregon to the doctor of the Pierces in Tennessee.

Rejoice Fertility, a clinic in Knoxville, refuses to let go of the frozen embryos and has become popular for managing embryos stored in outdated and older containers.

Out of the three embryos donated to the Pierces, only one embryo was successfully implanted in Lindsey Pierce's womb, two were transferred to her womb, while one did not survive the melting.(Marlon Ado Jr., USC Comm Intern)