FROZEN EMBRYOS SHIFT THE FUTURE OF FAMILIES By
Ashley Chen Emory Kim
Born from a 27-year-old embryo, Molly Gibson breaks her sister’s record for the longest-frozen embryo to result in a live birth. Her unique story brings a new meaning to the term “old soul.” On October 14, 1992, weeks before Bill Clinton was elected for president, an embryo was frozen. In February 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic had begun to take hold, that embryo was thawed and transferred to the uterus of 28-year-old Tina Gibson, a Tennessee woman who had struggled to start a family with her husband, Ben. On October 26, 2020, along came Molly—a 6-pound, 13-ounce baby girl—breaking the record for the longest frozen embryo to have resulted in the birth of a child. The previous record-holder, the embryo that created her sister, Emma, had been frozen for more than 24 years. Both baby girls were frozen together as embryos that were donated by the same couple, making the girls full genetic siblings. Like many other families who turn toward donor embryos, the Gibsons did so due to their fear of passing a genetic disorder onto
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their offspring. Ben has cystic fibrosis and Tina is a carrier. Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disorder that alters the way the body produces mucus; mucus aids in the function of organs and systems and should be thin and slippery. However, in the case of CF, mucus becomes thick and sticky, blocking tubes and ducts throughout the body. Their unique story opens the door for a better understanding of assisted reproductive technology (ART) as well as challenges conventions for future generations of children, families, and embryos. Embryo donation stems from the process of in vitro fertilization (IVF), a type of assisted reproductive technology. IVF helps people with infertility who want to have a baby as well as parents who run the risk of passing a genetic disorder onto their offspring. Infertility encompasses women who are unable to conceive after one year of trying. Often brushed under the rug, infertility is a serious issue that affects about 6% of married women aged 15 to 44 years in the U.S. In fact, 2% of all births in the U.S. now result from ART—indicating that births via ART have skyrocketed more than
threefold since 1996. In vitro fertilization involves retrieving eggs from a woman’s ovaries and fertilizing them with sperm. The fertilized egg, or embryo, can then be frozen for storage or transferred to a woman’s uterus. According to Dr. Sigal Klipstein, “once an embryo is frozen, it stays at the same level of development forever.” There are two different ways in which embryos can be frozen: slow freeze and vitrification. Slow freezing involves cooling the cell very slowly—at a decrease of roughly 1 Celsius per minute—until the final storing temperature of -196 ℃ is reached. The entire process spans over a couple of hours. Over time, slow freezing has become less prevalent, as embryos undergoing the slow freeze technique are less likely to survive the thaw, giving rise to the popularity of vitrification. Indeed, according to Valojerdi and his coworkers (2009), vitrification provides “a higher survival rate of human embryos and minimal deleterious effects on post-warming embryo morphology.” As it turns out, speed plays a crucial role in the success of egg freezing. The longer
