2024-04-09 07:59:50
Text: Karla Castillo
A baby surprised scientists with her birth. She was born in October, but she was in the process for 27 years, thus setting the new record for the longest frozen embryo that gave life to a baby.
Her name is Molly Gibson, and the embryo from which she was born was frozen at the end of 1992, until, in February of this year, Tina and Ben Gibson, in the state of Tennessee (USA), adopted her.
Molly set the record, surpassing the mark that her older sister, Emma, who was born two years earlier, had achieved 24 years after the embryo was frozen. They were both donated and frozen together in 1992, when Tina Gibson was about a year old. They are genetic sisters.
According to the NEDC, 24-year-old Emma’s embryo was the oldest in history to have resulted in a birth, until Molly arrived this year.
The parents are still surprised by this second birth, but happy. The couple struggled with infertility for nearly five years before learning that embryos could be adopted.
She is an elementary school teacher and her husband works as a cybersecurity analyst. Together they came into contact with the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC), which is a Christian non-profit organization. located in the city of Knoxville, which stores frozen embryos donated by fertilization patients.
With such organizations, families like the Gibsons can access unused embryos and give birth to children not genetically related to them. According to the NEDC, there are an estimated one million frozen embryos stored in the United States.
The process is similar to a traditional adoption, it is up to the couples to decide whether they want a closed or open adoption, that is, one that allows some type of contact or not with the donor family.
As the Gibsons have recounted, Emma loves her little sister, and the similarities between the girls are obvious, including a small wrinkle between their eyebrows when they’re angry or upset.