When Lindsey Pierce held her newborn son for the first time, she felt how calm he was in her arms, how right it all felt. In that moment, there was no sense of history or records being made. Just a mother, a baby, and the quiet weight of a beginning that had waited 30 years to arrive.
But the moment still carried something almost surreal: the baby she was cradling had been frozen as an embryo in 1994, before she graduated high school, before she met her husband Tim, before the internet was a household name.
Her son, Thaddeus Daniel Pierce, was born in July 2025. His biological sister? She’s 30 years old and a mother herself.
This is a story where time folds in on itself: a child conceived in one century, born in another, sharing DNA with a sister who now tucks her own children into bed. It’s a story about motherhood across decades, and the profound questions that follow.
A family, three decades in the making
In the early 1990s, Linda Archerd and her then-husband had been hoping for a child. After years of infertility, they turned to in vitro fertilization (IVF), a method of fertilizing eggs with sperm outside the body before implanting the resulting embryos. In 1994, four embryos were created. One was transferred to Linda and became a daughter, born later that year. The remaining three were frozen and placed into storage.
Over time, life moved on. Linda and her husband divorced. She raised her daughter, now a mother herself, and the frozen embryos became, in her words, a presence in the background of her life. Decades later, she learned about embryo adoption and made the decision to donate the three remaining embryos to another couple through an adoption agency.
When the time came to use the embryos, only one was strong enough to continue, a delicate thread of life preserved since 1994. That single embryo, frozen for nearly 31 years, was transferred to Lindsey Pierce and became her son, Thaddeus.
Related: After an IVF mix-up, two moms raised each other’s baby—here’s what happened (and how to protect your family)
What is embryo adoption—and how does it work?
Embryo adoption is a process in which families receive frozen embryos donated by another couple after IVF. Rather than remaining in storage indefinitely, these embryos can be implanted in a new recipient, offering them a chance at life and giving prospective parents a path to pregnancy.
Unlike anonymous embryo donation, embryo adoption typically involves more input from both parties. Donors can often specify preferences—such as religion, marital status, or location—and may even choose to maintain a connection with the recipient family.
Legally, this process is considered a transfer of custody, not a formal adoption. But emotionally, it carries similar weight. For donor families, it’s often about completing a chapter with love and intention. For recipients, it can be a profound way to build their family while honoring the lives already created.
In this case, Linda Archerd hoped to find a loving home for her remaining embryos. Her criteria—white, Christian, married—ultimately led her to Lindsey and Tim Pierce in Ohio.
Related: These twins were born from embryos frozen in 1992—that’s over 30 years ago!
The emotional echoes of a 30-year wait
For Lindsey and Tim Pierce, welcoming Thaddeus marked a turning point, one that opened into something nearly impossible to explain.
“We had a rough birth, but we’re both doing well now,” Lindsey told The Guardian, “He is so chill. We are in awe that we have this precious baby.”
For the Pierces, the experience added a new layer to parenthood. They’re raising a living thread that connects two timelines, two stories, braided together by hope and biology.
Reflections on time, science, and motherhood
A baby born from an embryo created decades ago brings with it an invitation to rethink what a beginning really means.
What does it mean to carry a child whose conception predates your marriage, your home, your very idea of parenthood? In families like the Pierces’, biology becomes something more enduring, something that echoes through legacy.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there are more than 600,000 cryo-preserved embryos in the United States. Some may one day become children. Others may remain untouched. In either case, they exist in a liminal space: part science, part potential, part deeply personal. Clinics and faith-based organizations alike are increasingly encouraging embryo donation as a way to reduce that number, while helping more families grow.
Reproductive specialists like Dr. John Gordon, the physician who transferred Thaddeus’s embryo, believe that “every embryo deserves a chance at life.” But not all experts agree. Ethicists continue to grapple with questions about consent, the long-term psychological impact on donor-conceived children, and what we owe embryos suspended across decades.
And yet, in the quiet moments, in a parent’s arms or an old baby book, those questions are often replaced by something simpler: love, recognition, and a sense that something sacred has unfolded.
Related: A womb transplant between sisters led to this history-making birth—and new hope for families everywhere
What would you tell your child about a sibling born 30 years later?
Stories like Thaddeus’s are rare, but they are becoming more possible. And with that possibility comes a wave of personal questions: ones that don’t have easy answers.
Would you want your child to meet a sibling born decades later from the same embryo batch?
How would you explain that connection? Could it feel like family, even if the timing felt like fiction?
Science may offer the means, but motherhood is where meaning is made. It’s in the glances between siblings born a generation apart. In the parents who waited years for a child. In the small, steady heartbeat of someone once frozen in time.
Thaddeus will grow up loved, wrapped in a story that spans decades and lives in the hearts of those who brought him here.
Sources:
- HHS.gov. “General Departmental Management”