Baby Born from 30-Year-Old Frozen Embryo Sets Record as 'Oldest Baby'

At the end of July in Ohio, USA, an extraordinary baby boy was born. He came from an embryo that had been frozen for 30 years and was “adopted” by an infertile couple at the end of last year. The baby was safely delivered, breaking the record for the longest interval between an embryo being frozen and a live birth.

The parents admit that it feels like a science fiction story coming true.

This baby set a new record as the “oldest baby.” The previous record holders were twins born in 2022, from embryos that had been frozen in 1992.

According to various foreign media, the baby boy was born on July 26 and named Thaddeus. Tim Pierce, 34, and his wife Lindsay, 35, had tried to conceive for seven years without success. They decided to undergo pregnancy using an embryo frozen in 1994. When the embryo was frozen, Tim was only three years old and Lindsay was four.

The embryo came from Linda Archead, who is now 62. In May 1994, Linda and her husband, after six years of unsuccessful attempts to conceive, decided to fertilize four embryos via IVF, which was cutting-edge technology at the time. One of the embryos became her daughter, and the other three were frozen. Linda later divorced and obtained custody of the embryos. She had no intention of donating them for research and did not want to donate anonymously. She said that being involved in the child’s growth process was very important, and the embryos are biologically related to her now 30-year-old daughter.

Preserving the three embryos was expensive, and the cost increased every year. Later, she found the “Snowflakes” program at Nightlight Christian Adoptions, where Linda was required to provide medical and embryology records, and was placed on the matching list in 2022.

The Snowflakes program allows donors to choose the recipient couple, and they can specify religion, race, nationality, etc., as selection criteria. Linda said she wanted to choose a married white couple living in the US—“I didn’t want them (the embryos) to go overseas.” Eventually, she was successfully matched with the Pierces.

The Pierces underwent the procedure at the Joy Fertility Center in Tennessee. After an intricate thawing process, all three embryos survived, but one stopped developing; two embryos were implanted in Lindsay’s uterus on November 14 last year, with only one successfully developing into a fetus. Lindsay said that she and her husband never intended to break any records—“We just wanted a baby.”

Linda has not met the child in person yet, but she says the baby looks a lot like her daughter when she was little in the photos. The two siblings are 30 years apart.