In a groundbreaking moment for reproductive medicine, a baby boy born in Ohio has earned the title of the world’s “oldest baby” after being delivered from an embryo that had been frozen for over 30 years.
Thaddeus Daniel Pierce was born on July 26 to Lindsey and Tim Pierce, a couple from London, Ohio, through a procedure known as embryo adoption. The embryo used in the birth had been cryogenically preserved since May 1994—just two years after Tim was born himself.
The couple said they were stunned when they learned about the possibility of adopting an embryo. “We didn’t even know embryos could be frozen that long ago,” Lindsey told MIT Technology Review, which first broke the story. “We just wanted to have a baby—we weren’t trying to break any records.”
The embryo originated from Lydia Archerd, now 62, who created four embryos with her husband in the early 1990s while struggling to conceive. One was successfully implanted in a surrogate in 1994, resulting in the birth of a daughter—now 30 years old with a child of her own. The other three embryos remained in storage at -196°C (-321°F).
Although Archerd later divorced and did not go on to have more children, she continued paying $1,000 a year to keep the embryos preserved. “I called them my three little hopes,” she said.
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After reaching menopause and realizing she would not use them, she decided to donate the remaining embryos through Nightlight Christian Adoptions, which connects donors and recipients.
The Pierces traveled to Tennessee to complete the IVF procedure using one of those embryos. Archerd is now planning to meet Thaddeus and said she already sees a resemblance between him and her daughter.
Although Tim and Lindsey are Thaddeus’s legal parents and raised him from birth, his genetic material comes from donors who have long since separated. “It’s surreal,” Archerd said of the birth.
This milestone reflects broader trends in fertility science. Experts say there may be no clear limit to how long embryos can remain viable when properly frozen. Several children have been born from embryos stored for decades, including twins Lydia Ann and Timothy Ronald Ridgeway, born in 2022 from embryos created in 1992, and Molly Gibson, born in 2020 from a 27-year-old embryo.
As reproductive technology continues to evolve, Thaddeus’s story shows just how far science—and hope—can reach, even across generations.
