adminThat is because, despite the fact the brother and sister were conceived from the same batch of embryos, they were born five years apart to parents Simon and Jody Blake.
Mr Blake (45), and his 38-year-old wife had been trying to start a family without success and began fertility treatment in 2005. During the medical process, five embryos were created and two implanted in Mrs Blake, which resulted in the birth of Reuben on 9 December 2006.
The remaining three embryos were frozen until the couple, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, decided to try for another child last year. Against the odds, Floren arrived on 16 November 2011 — two weeks before her due date — but five years after her twin brother.
“I tell everybody I can,” said Mr Blake. “Just in kind of mundane settings where people take an interest in a newborn baby and with Reuben around as well, I find it very difficult to resist the temptation to say ‘Oh and by the way they are twins’. It’s almost just to see people’s response. They are really amazed and surprised.”
His wife, a programmes manager for the children’s charity WellChild, said: “It does feel quite surreal. I think people are really, really surprised and it almost takes people a few minutes to get their heads around it. We obviously had nine months to get it straight and to think ‘Gosh, we’re having Reuben’s twin’, but it’s incredibly special.
Mr Blake, a business and economics lecturer at University College Birmingham, said: “Since the day Floren was born, he’s been really tender and loving with her,” he added:
“He knows that she’s been in the freezer — he likes to say she has been in the freezer with the chips and the chicken — so he is sort of aware that she is his twin, but obviously he doesn’t really understand how it’s all worked really,” his mother said.
The couple met in 1999 when they both worked in the medical profession in London, and have been married for nine years. They had been trying to start a family for some time but without success — as a result
they were referred to a fertility clinic in Bristol. They were first referred to the Bristol Centre for Reproductive Medicine in September 2005 to have intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) treatment — a technique used with in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) in which one sperm is injected into one egg in order to fertilise it.
Five embryos were produced and two were implanted in Mrs Blake’s womb; the remaining three were then frozen for a future date. The treatment was successful and Reuben was born four days after his due date weighing 9lb 5oz, but in March last year the couple decided they wanted another child.
The three embryos were taken from the freezer where they had been kept but only one survived the defrosting process which was then implanted into Mrs Blake.
Thirty-nine weeks later Floren arrived by Caesarean section weighing 8lb 12oz.
Mr Blake said: “We were aware the odds were long. There aren’t a huge amount of reliable statistics because it isn’t done that often, but we knew it was a long shot. You just can’t comprehend that a life could come from some material that’s been frozen for that length of time.”
Mrs Blake added: “It feels like an absolute miracle really, and I think we were incredibly lucky,” her husband said: “We would definitely recommend it, but with a reality check all the way through, but I think most people that go through fertility treatment are juggling that all the time, it doesn’t really leave you.” — Yahoo.
Online Reporter