World’s ‘Oldest Baby’ Born From Embryo Frozen Since 1994

Thaddeus Daniel Pierce, born via adopted IVF to Lindsey and Tim Pierce, a couple from London, Ohio, has been named the “world’s oldest baby”.

Baby Pierce (male) was delivered on July 26, 2025 from an embryo that had been frozen for more than 30 years.

According to the MIT Technology Review, the embryo had been frozen since May 1994.

Lindsey said her husband Tim, 35, was just a toddler when Thaddeus’s embryo was first created. She added that the baby has a 30-year-old sister, referencing the biological daughter born from the same embryo batch in 1994.

The couple said they were stunned to learn that adopting embryos was even possible. “We thought it was wild, 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,” Lindsey said.

Completing the IVF process, the couple had to travel from Ohio to Tennessee.

The embryo came from Lydia Archerd, who is now 62, and along with her then-husband, had frozen four embryos in the early 1990s after struggling to conceive.

One of the embryos was successfully implanted in a surrogate named Linda, who gave birth to a healthy baby girl in 1994. The girl is now 30 years old and has a 10-year-old child of her own.

The review noted that despite divorcing and never having another child, Archerd continued paying $1,000 annually to preserve the remaining three embryos as they stayed cryogenically frozen.

“I always wanted another baby desperately, I called them my three little hopes,” she said.

Archerd after reaching menopause, decided to donate the embryos through the Nightlight Christian Adoptions agency’s (embryo adoption programme), which allows both donors and recipients to meet.

According to the MIT Technology Review, Archerd is looking forward to meeting Thaddeus believing he already resembles her daughter, describing the experience as “surreal.”

The couple, Lindsey and Tim Pierce, who were themselves only young children when that embryo was created, way back in 1994, are Thaddeus birth parents, but his genes came from two other people who divorced decades ago.

While baby Thaddeus is a record-breaker, plenty of other babies have been born from embryos that were frozen for long periods.

Archerd said that while she had always planned to use all four of the embryos, her then husband didn’t want a bigger family, referencing several reasons why people who create embryos might never use them.

“Some couples create embryos and later separate. Others age out of eligibility, many clinics refuse to transfer embryos to people in their late 40s or older,” Archerd said.

MIT Technology Review also stated that Thaddeus has now overtaken the previous record-holders; twins Lydia Ann and Timothy Ronald Ridgeway, born in 2022 from embryos created in 1992. Before that, the title was held by Molly Gibson, born from an embryo frozen for 27 years.

World’s ‘Oldest Baby’ Born From Embryo Frozen Since 1994 is first published on The Whistler Newspaper