KANSAS CITY, KS (KCTV) -
All babies are unique, but a little girl just born is truly different from every other baby in the metro. She was born from a frozen egg.
It's the first time a baby has been born from a frozen egg in Kansas. KCTV5's Heather Staggers met the doctor who helped make it happen for one Kansas City family and introduces the baby.
Dr. Samuel Kim met for the very first time what some would call a mini-miracle, but her parents call her Morgan Bell.
Morgan came into this world setting records. Her birth marks the first time a baby has been born successfully from frozen eggs in the state of Kansas, even in the region.
"It's amazing because we know how to freeze sperm, blood cells, we know how to freeze embryo, but freezing eggs has always been a problem," said Kim, who heads the Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Clinic at the University of Kansas Hospital.
Morgan's parents, Jessica and Ryan Dickson of Kansas City, MO, had been trying to get pregnant for three years unsuccessfully. So they turned to Kim, a reproductive specialist. They had no idea when they decided to freeze Jessica Dickson's eggs last February that successful pregnancies were rare.
"I guess that took some of the stress away. We didn't have any reservations about it. We just thought it was done all the time," Jessica Dickson said.
But it wasn't, at least not in this region. Kim said egg cells are very large, delicate and difficult to freeze, so he perfected a process in his clinic known as vitrification, which freezes the eggs almost instantly.
"The problem with freezing when you freeze eggs, ice crystals form that can destroy the fine structures of the cell, so that's the problem. By doing vitrification, we avoid the ice crystal formation," Kim said.
First it was a successful freeze, then thaw and then fertilization. And now the new parents have a 2-week-old healthy baby girl.
"I'm a little biased; she is the most special," Jessica Dickson said.
Kim said by perfecting the freezing process of an egg, they can offer help to people who need to preserve their fertility, like a young cancer patient or women who would prefer to wait.
Copyright 2012 KCTV (Meredith Corp.) All rights reserved.
Ryan and Jessica Dickson and their 2-week-old baby girl, Morgan Bell.
Photos Courtesy: KCTV5's Heather Staggers
