A baby boy born over the weekend holds the new record for the “oldest baby.” Thaddeus Daniel Pierce, who arrived on July 26, developed from an embryo that had been in storage for 30 and a half years.

“We had a rough birth but we are both doing well now,” says Lindsey Pierce, his mother. “He is so chill. We are in awe that we have this precious baby!”

Lindsey and her husband, Tim Pierce, who live in London, Ohio, “adopted” the embryo from a woman who had it created in 1994. She says her family and church family think “it’s like something from a sci-fi movie.” 

“The baby has a 30-year-old sister,” she adds. Tim was a toddler when the embryos were first created.

“It’s been pretty surreal,” says Linda Archerd, 62, who donated the embryo. “It’s hard to even believe.”

Three little hopes

The story starts back in the early 1990s. Archerd had been trying—and failing—to get pregnant for six years. She and her husband decided to try IVF, a fairly new technology at the time. “People were [unfamiliar] with it,” says Archerd. “A lot of people were like, what are you doing?”

They did it anyway, and in May 1994, they managed to create four embryos. One of them was transferred to Linda’s uterus. It resulted in a healthy baby girl. “I was so blessed to have a baby,” Archerd says. The remaining three embryos were cryopreserved and kept in a storage tank.

That was 31 years ago. The healthy baby girl is now a 30-year-old woman who has her own 10-year-old daughter. But the other three embryos remained frozen in time.

Archerd originally planned to use the embryos herself. “I always wanted another baby desperately,” she says. “I called them my three little hopes.” Her then husband felt differently, she says. Archerd went on to divorce him, but she won custody of the embryos and kept them in storage, still hopeful she might use them one day, perhaps with another partner.

That meant paying annual storage fees, which increased over time and ended up costing Archerd around a thousand dollars a year, she says. To her, it was worth it. “I always thought it was the right thing to do,” she says. 

Things changed when she started going through menopause, she says. She considered her options. She didn’t want to discard the embryos or donate them for research. And she didn’t want to donate them to another family anonymously—she wanted to meet the parents and any resulting babies. “It’s my DNA; it came from me … and [it’s] my daughter’s sibling,” she says.

Then she found out about embryo “adoption.” This is a type of embryo donation in which both donors and recipients have a say in whom they “place” their embryos with or “adopt” them from. It is overseen by agencies—usually explicitly religious ones—that believe an embryo is morally equivalent to a born human. Archerd is Christian.

There are several agencies that offer these adoption services in the US, but not all of them accept embryos that have been stored for a very long time. That’s partly because those embryos will have been frozen and stored in unfamiliar, old-fashioned ways, and partly because old embryos are thought to be less likely to survive thawing and transfer to successfully develop into a baby.

“So many places wouldn’t even take my information,” says Archerd. Then she came across the Snowflakes program run by the Nightlight Christian Adoptions agency. The agency was willing to accept her embryos, but it needed Archerd’s medical records from the time the embryos had been created, as well as the embryos’ lab records.

So Archerd called the fertility doctor who had treated her decades before. “I still remembered his phone number by heart,” she says. That doctor, now in his 70s, is still practicing at a clinic in Oregon. He dug Archerd’s records out from his basement, she says. “Some of [them] were handwritten,” she adds. Her embryos entered Nightlight’s “matching pool” in 2022.

Making a match

“Our matching process is really driven by the preferences of the placing family,” says Beth Button, executive director of the Snowflakes program. Archerd’s preference was for a married Caucasian, Christian couple living in the US. “I didn’t want them to go out of the country,” says Archerd. “And being Christian is very important to me, because I am.”

It took a while to find a match. Most of the “adopting parents” signed up for the Snowflakes program were already registered at fertility clinics that wouldn’t have accepted the embryos, says Button. “I would say that over 90% of clinics in the US would not have accepted these embryos,” she says.

Archerd’s embryos were assigned to the agency’s Open Hearts program for embryos that are “hard to place,” along with others that have been in storage for a long time or are otherwise thought to be less likely to result in a healthy birth.

Lindsey and Tim Pierce had also signed up for the Open Hearts program. The couple, aged 35 and 34, respectively, had been trying for a baby for seven years and had seen multiple doctors.

Lindsey was researching child adoption when she came across the Snowflakes program. 

When the couple were considering their criteria for embryos they might receive, they decided that they’d be open to any. “We checkmarked anything and everything,” says Tim. That’s how they ended up being matched with Archerd’s embryos. “We thought it was wild,” says Lindsey. “We didn’t know they froze embryos that long ago.”

Lindsey and Tim had registered with Rejoice Fertility, an IVF clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee, run by John Gordon, a reproductive endocrinologist who prides himself on his efforts to reduce the number of embryos in storage. The huge numbers of embryos left in storage tanks was weighing on his conscience, he says, so around six years ago, he set up Rejoice Fertility with the aim of doing things differently.  

“Now we’re here in the belt buckle of the Bible Belt,” says Gordon, who is Reformed Presbyterian. “I’ve changed my mode of practice.” IVF treatments performed at the clinic are designed to create as few excess embryos as possible. The clinic works with multiple embryo adoption agencies and will accept any embryo, no matter how long it has been in storage.

It was his clinic that treated the parents who previously held the record for the longest-stored embryo—in 2022, Rachel and Philip Ridgeway had twins from embryos created more than 30 years earlier. “They’re such a lovely couple,” says Gordon. When we spoke, he was making plans to meet the family for breakfast. The twins are “growing like weeds,” he says with a laugh.

“We have certain guiding principles, and they’re coming from our faith,” says Gordon, although he adds that he sees patients who hold alternative views. One of those principles is that “every embryo deserves a chance at life and that the only embryo that cannot result in a healthy baby is the embryo not given the opportunity to be transferred into a patient.”

That’s why his team will endeavor to transfer any embryo they receive, no matter the age or conditions. That can be challenging, especially when the embryos have been frozen or stored in unusual or outdated ways. “It’s scary for people who don’t know how to do it,” says Sarah Atkinson, lab supervisor and head embryologist at Rejoice Fertility. “You don’t want to kill someone’s embryos if you don’t know what you’re doing.”(Technology Review)

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US Senator Cory Booker has shattered a decades-old record for the longest continuous speech in Senate history, speaking for a staggering 25 hours and five minutes. The New Jersey Democrat took to the Senate floor at 7 PM on Monday and did not yield until after 8 PM the following day.

His goal? To call attention to what he described as a “crisis” in American democracy under President Donald Trump. 

In surpassing the previous record—held by the late segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond, who filibustered against the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours and 18 minutes—Booker etched his name into Senate history. But unlike Thurmond, who fought against progress, Booker used his time to rally against what he sees as a dangerous consolidation of power.

“I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able,” Booker said at the outset of his remarks. “I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis,” Booker said. 

Booker wasted no time setting the tone for his speech. “I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able,” he declared. “I rise tonight because I believe sincerely that our country is in crisis.”

Over the course of his speech, he lambasted Trump’s sweeping budget cuts, which he claimed had put millions of Americans at risk. He reserved particular criticism for Trump’s closest advisor, billionaire Elon Musk, who has been spearheading efforts to gut entire government agencies. (EconomicTimes)

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Several cricketers have praised Sri Lankan cricketer Kusal Mendis for his new record during his performance against Pakistan today in the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup.

Mendis continued his brilliant form to shatter the record of the fastest hundred by a Sri Lankan player in ODI World Cup history.

He breaks the record of Sri Lanka cricketing legend Kumar Sangakkara, which was off 70 balls, against England in Wellington in 2015.

Commenting on the feat, Sangakkara said Kusal Mendis was always a special player.

“@KusalMendis13 was always a special player and seems to be coming into his own. What a hundred. His recent experiences in both international and franchise cricket is showing to be a huge positive. Consistent selection and clarity of style of play also helps hugely,” Sangakkara said, taking to ‘X’.

Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga commended Mendis stating that he is such a difficult batsman to contain when he’s on song, and he is in the form of his life.

“Magnificent innings from Kusal Mendis. He’s such a difficult batsman to contain when he’s on song, and he’s in the form of his life. Great to see him doing justice to his potential. He should continue to play with the same intent as he did in the last two games,” Malinga said further.

Indian cricketer Surya Kumar Yadav also took to ’X’ to praise Mendis, stating “Kusal Menids, What a knock.”

Former Indian Cricket Virendra Sehwag praised Mendis for his consistent form in the last two matches, stating “Kusal ensuring no Kushalta for Pakistan. What an innings by Kusal Mendis. Smashing form in both matches and this was a very special hundred. Dhaaga Khol stuff”.

Also praising Mendis, commentator and former Indian cricketer Harsha Bogle expressed hope this will be the stage from which Mendis’ career takes off, adding, “I think he could be one of Sri Lanka’s best.”

“What a fabulous talent Kusal Mendis is. So much in control and because he has shots all around the wicket, he is difficult to set a field to,” he further added. 

Former West Indian cricketer Ian Bishop also commended Mendis for his record feat, stating “That is some century from Kusal Mendis. Well paced and well-played. And still Sri Lanka’s fastest in IC Men’s CWC. Superb knock. As easy on the eye an ODI century as you will see from Sadeera Samarwickrama. A real touch player.” (NewsWire)

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A new digital record has been achieved by India during its match against Pakistan in the 2023 Asia Cup tournament played in Sri Lanka yesterday (Sep 11). 

BCCI Secretary and Asia Cricket Council President Jay Shah said the match clocked 2.8 Crore concurrent users on Disney+ Hotstar, an Indian subscription video on-demand streaming service.

Taking to ‘X’, Jay Shah stated that this was the highest for any India match in the history of digital.

He further stated that the previous best was the match between India and New Zealand during the semifinal of the 2019 Cricket World Cup with 2.52 Crore concurrent users.

India defeated Pakistan by 228 runs in the Super four of the 2023 Asia Cup yesterday and has topped the points table.

India will take on Sri Lanka today in the Super Four with the match scheduled for 03.00 pm local time at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, Sri Lanka. (NewsWire)

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