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The "world's oldest baby" was born from an embryo frozen for more than 30 years in Ohio last week, MIT Technology Review reported.
Thaddeus Daniel Pierce was born to parents Lindsey, 34, and Tim Pierce, 35, of London, Ohio, from adopted-IVF from a fertilized embryo initially frozen in May 1994.
“We had a rough birth but we are both doing well now,” Lindsey Pierce told MIT Technology Review. “He is so chill. We are in awe that we have this precious baby!”
“The baby has a 30-year-old sister,” the mom added, acknowledging that the baby's father was a toddler when the embryo was conceived.
The couple said they were baffled that the program even had embryos available for adoption.
“We thought it was wild,” Lindsey said via MIT Technology. “We didn’t know they froze embryos that long ago.
“We didn’t go into it thinking we would break any records. We just wanted to have a baby.”
Lydia Archerd, the originator of the embryo, shared similar sentiments.
“It’s been pretty surreal,” Archerd told MIT Tech Review. “It’s hard to even believe.”
Archerd, a mother of one, and her husband froze four embryos through what was then-new IVF technology after they struggled to conceive a child naturally, successfully transferring the embryos to another woman who gave birth to her own child, a now-30-year-old woman with her own 10-year-old daughter, in 1994. The other embryos, including the newborn, were cryogenically frozen prior to Archerd and her husband going through a divorce, later donating to an "embryo adoption" run by Nightlight Christian Adoptions agency, which allows donors to meet adopters.
“The first thing that I noticed when Lindsey sent me his pictures is how much he looks like my daughter when she was a baby,” Archerd told MIT Technology. “I pulled out my baby book and compared them side by side and there is no doubt that they are siblings.”