Using frozen embryos to conceive is nothing new, but at the end of 2017, a record was broken when a little girl was born from a 24-year-old embryo. Her name is Emma Wren Gibson and when she was born she was perfectly healthy and weighed 6 pounds, 8 ounces, but the thing that makes Gibson special is that according to Health, fertility doctors believe she is the longest-frozen embryo to have ever come to life.

Emma was born to proud parents Tina Gibson, who was just 25 at the time of her birth, and her husband Benjamin Gibson, who reportedly had cystic fibrosis, which left him fertility issues. They reportedly heard about embryo adoption, and applied for it in August of 2016, Chicago Tribune reports. It was not long before Tina had three embryos from the same anonymous donor transferred into her uterus, and the rest is quite literally history.

The couple had no idea how old the embryos were, up until the moment of transfer when the doctor and lab director reportedly announced that the couple had chosen an embryo that would ultimately lead to a world record.

But how is this possible, is probably a question that a lot of people are asking? Firstly, to understand this we should discuss what exactly an embryo is. The term refers to an egg fertilized with sperm, and they are usually placed into liquid nitrogen and stored, what this does is essentially freeze them so they cannot grow, and they cannot age.

The thing is, according to Thomas Molinaro, MD, an ob-gyn and reproductive endocrinologist, no one really knows how long an embryo can remain frozen for because most parents typically use the embryo not long after it’s been frozen. Yet despite this, Molinaro claims to not have been surprised that this embryo was viable. He also notes that it doesn’t seem as though the length of time that the embryo has been frozen poses any health risks to the child.

He told Health, “There doesn’t seem to be any difference in the health of the child.”

So, there's no difference in Emma's health, but it is surprising to think that she was conceived only a year and a half after her own mother. Now, there's something to think about!

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