Floren Blake is a miracle baby for her parents. At just under two months of age she also has a “twin” five-year-old brother Reuben. Even the clinicians who delivered the baby girl in November last year were ecstatic said her 38-year-old mother, Jody Blake, as the family shared the excitement brought about by advances infertility treatment over the past 20 years.
Jody’s two children were born from the same group of embryos – Floren from one that spent five years in a freezer and a change of premises. “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 are having Reuben's twin,' but it is incredibly special,” said Mrs. Blake, a programmes manager for children's charity WellChild.
When she and her husband, Simon, a couple, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire - told the operating theatre team delivering Floren by caesarean section, “they were saying, 'We've never had this before,' and they were really excited for us, which made the experience really special”. They have been married nine years, and after trying to start a family without success had intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a technique that involves injecting a single sperm directly into an egg to fertilize it. The fertilized egg is then transferred to the woman's womb as an embryo.
Mr. and Mrs. Blake had treatment at the Bristol Centre for Reproductive Medicine. Five embryos were produced and two were implanted in Mrs. Blake's womb, while the rest were frozen. Reuben arrived on 9 December 2006, weighing 9lb and 5oz, and last March the couple decided they wanted another child. Only one of the remaining embryos survived being defrosted and Floren was born on 16 November last year, weighing 8lb 2oz.
Valentine Akande, director of fertility services at the Bristol centre, said, “We are delighted with the great outcome that Jody and Simon have encountered. It's a sensible approach to safely having babies. It's usually better to have one baby at a time rather than two because carrying twins is associated with greater risk.” Not everyone would be able to have surplus embryos and not every transfer was a success. As for Reuben and Floren, Akande said, “It does depend on how you interpret the term twins. Twins generally means that they are born at the same time. But, yes, twins in that they have come from the same batch of embryos, collected from the same treatment cycle. Twins born at a different time – but not a twin pregnancy when they have grown in the womb together.”
Reuben and Floren were similar, their parents said. Reuben was “just a bigger version of Floren when he was born”, said Mrs. Blake. The baby girl was “quite a feisty little character, quite vocal", according to Mr. Blake, while her brother was “quite determined, independent, stubborn sometimes and assertive”.
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