ionigeria.com Nigerian Newspaper
A ‘miracle’ baby has been born four years after his parents were killed in a car crash. A surrogate mother gave birth to the baby boy using a frozen fertilised embryo from the dead couple. Parents Shen Jie and his wife Liu Xi had hoped to have a child through Invitro fertilisation (IVF) when they were killed in a car crash in the city of Yixing, China.
The couple’s grieving parents had to file two lawsuits to get hold of and use the four fertilised embryos produced by the couple.
They then hired a surrogate mother, from Laos in south-east Asia, to deliver the child.
Liu Xi’s mother Hu Xingxian said: “He’s always smiling. His eyes are like my daughter, but he looks more like her dad overall.”
The little boy’s full name is not known although he has been nicknamed “Tiantian”, which means “sweet” in Mandarin.
He was born in December last year, more than four years after his parents died in March 2013.
When they were killed the embryos were frozen at -196C in a liquid nitrogen tank in a hospital in Nanjing.
Shen Xinnan, the father of Shen Jie, was quoted as saying that he only plans to tell the boy what happened to his parents when he is older and in the meantime will say they are living overseas.
The embryo was implanted in the surrogate’s womb in Laos, where commercial surrogacy is legal, and she gave birth to the boy in China.
The child’s grandparents had to submit blood samples and take DNA tests to prove that he is their grandson and that his parents were Chinese citizens in order for him to obtain citizenship.
