First IVF baby is 30 by Livia Cseresova

Louise Brown, the first person ever who was born thanks to IVF (in vitro fertilization), is celebrating her 30th birthday. But Brown doesn’t want a big celebration at all, she just want to have a nice meal with her family and maybe a little, calm celebration with friends.

But let’s start from the beginning. Louise’s parents, Lesley and John were trying to have a baby for 9 long years. But because of some Lesley’s problems they couldn’t a were very excited and full of hope when they heard about research being carried out by Cambridge University physiologist Robert Edwards and gynecologist Patrick Steptoe.

The couple signed up with them for fertility treatment. The researchers created a fertilized embryo from the pair’s egg and sperm in a laboratory and implanted it in Lesley’s womb.

The implantation was successful and after few months, on July 25, 1987 Lesley was born by Caesarean section, weighing five pounds 12 ounces (2.61 kilograms).
Brown claims she had a normal childhood, just like all other kids. And just four years after her birth, her sister Natalie, also an IVF baby -the 40th in the world- was born.
Natalie Brown later became the first IVF child in history to give birth –naturally- to a child in 1999.

Louise didn’t want to be far behind her and after marrying a nightclub doorman, Mullinder, in 2004, she gave birth to baby Cameron in 2006, also in natural way.
Now, she lives happily with Cameron and her husband in Bristol and works as a shipping company administrator.

And still she remains close to Robert Edwards, who helped with her birth. His colleague Steptoe died in 1988, but Edwards is still close to the family and even attended Louise Brown’s wedding. Recently, they reunited again at a ceremony celebrating 30 years of IVF.

"Bob is really busy all the time but we really like to see him," said Brown and added "It's nice to have a close relationship. He's like a grandad to me."

by Livia Cseresova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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