An Embryo's Journey: Frozen For 19 Years, Now Adopted Baby Boy
In 1985, there were 285 frozen embryos in the nation. Now, 400,000 to 600,000 human embryos live as souls on ice, carefully held in liquid-nitrogen tanks.
Baby Liam Burke is just learning to crawl. But he was conceived when Bill Clinton was president, the World Trade Center stood tall and home computers had the newfound ability to dial into something called the World Wide Web.
Suspended 19 years in deep freeze, Liam is the beloved new son of Kelly Burke -- and one of the oldest embryos ever thawed and restored to life.
"He is the most awesome baby there is," said Burke, 45. "He is a happy, healthy baby, a little bundle of joy, smart and interactive."
What's more intriguing, Liam is adopted. An Oregon couple who had twins two decades ago through the Reproductive Science Center in San Ramon, Calif., kept his embryo frozen for years, keeping open the option of expanding their family. Ultimately, they decided to donate the embryo to Burke for her pregnancy, an example of technology's extension of life.
Like Liam, about 10,000 embryos a year are thawed and join families, thanks to advances in the field of cryopreservation. Others linger, sometimes for a decade or more, raising medical and ethical dilemmas.
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