Parents of 'world's oldest baby' explain how they plan to tell their son

The parents of the 'world's oldest baby' have explained how they plan on telling their son about his historic birth.

Lindsey, 35 and Tim Pierce, 34, from Ohio, welcomed their son, Thaddeus Daniel Pierce, just a few weeks ago on 26 July.

But Thaddeus' birth turned out to be a world record-breaking occasion, as he was born from an embryo that had been frozen for over three decades.

In fact, Lindsey and Tim were just toddlers themselves when Thaddeus was conceived.

It all started back in 1994, when Linda Archerd, now 62, went through IVF with her husband.

They created four embryos, one of which became Linda's 30-year-old daughter.

Meanwhile, the other three were frozen, where they remained until last year.

While Linda had hoped to have another baby following the birth of her daughter, she and her husband ended up divorcing. However, Linda won custody of the remaining embryos and paid to keep them in storage.

While she didn't want to discard the embryos or donate them to research, she also didn't want to donate them to a family anonymously, either.

She then learned about embryo adoption, via the Nightlight Christian Adoption agency, which allowed Linda to choose the family she donated them to.

This is when she came across Lindsey and Tim, who had been struggling with their own fertility issues.

Baby Thaddeus was born in July this year (Tim and Lindsey Pierce)

"We'd been trying for children for a while after we got married, and at one point we thought it's time to look into adoption," Lindsey told LADbible.

"We went into different Christian adoption agencies and found Nightlight Christian Adoptions, which had a programme called Snowflakes, which is embryo adoption.

"We had never heard of this, but we thought 'why not'? The timeline is shorter than international or domestic adoption and the price is lower, too. We'd only been in the programme for two years and we have a baby."

Lindsey and Tim explained that the process is similar to a dating profile, in which they made a profile which matched with Linda's profile.

"It's a double match process, so once it gets matched on the placing family's side it then gets sent to the adoptive family," said Tim.

"We got Linda's profile and saw the embryo was from 1994, we just thought 'why not'?

"We got to decide if we would take Linda's batch of embryos and we said yes!"

Thaddeus is the 'world's oldest baby' (Tim and Lindsey Pierce)

Lindsey and Tim explained that they didn't know they were about to break a world record until their doctor - Dr Gordon at Rejoice Fertility clinic - explained to them that if they were successful, the embryo would be the oldest to have ever been born.

Dr Gordon's clinic treated the parents who previously held the record for the longest-stored embryo back in 2022.

However, there were risks involved due to the age of the embryos and the process in which they were frozen over 30 years ago.

"We talked to the embryologist that helped unfreeze the embryos, and back then they did a slow freeze over time. To unfreeze, they have to be put in warm water and wait for them to be unfrozen," said Tim.

"So the process is different. With one of the embryos, the vial actually broke and shattered in that process. But once they are fully thawed and growing, it's no different to any of the embryos today."

Lindsey added: "Linda had three embryos, we originally transferred two but only Thaddeus survived. When we transfer that many you accept the risk of multiples. We were very grateful we got one."

The couple matched with Linda and transferred the embryos last year (Tim and Lindsey Pierce)

Lindsey and Tim plan on telling Thaddeus - whose name means 'gift from God' - all about his incredible achievement as soon as he's old enough to understand.

"Snowflakes encourages open adoption and telling the child when they start to understand the process at their level, and then just increasing it as they get older," said Lindsey.

"We're in contact with Linda, so we want her to be part of the story, and then we will tell him he broke a record.

"We hope to meet her one day, she's just across the country. We've been in contact with her since the beginning of the pregnancy. She's loved every single update and picture about him. We want her to be a part of his life."

Tim added: "We'll show him some of the old articles when he's old enough to be able to understand what the articles are saying."

The family had no idea Thaddeus would break a record (Tim and Lindsey Pierce)

Lindsey and Tim hope to have more children in the future, explaining that they also matched with another family and have some embryos stored away for when the time is right.

"When we matched with Linda, we also matched with another family and we have their embryos in storage for when we're ready to give Thaddeus a sibling," said Lindsey.

The couple have set up a GoFundMe for baby Thaddeus, to help with their medical costs and expenses. You can visit the page here.