23 October,2022 09:35 AM IST | Texas | A Correspondent
Brooke and Chris Martin
A Texas couple experienced a sweet moment, when they met the children who were born from their donated frozen embryos 20 years ago.
Brooke and Chris Martin faced infertility struggles in their late 20s and eventually resorted to in vitro fertilisation (IVF) to get pregnant. The couple, who lived in Tennessee at the time, went to a fertility clinic in Nashville to start the process.
The Martins ended up with two implanted embryos, and their twin boys Matthew and Christopher were later born. They still had eight frozen embryos remaining and had to decide what to do: use them, let them thaw out, donate them to science or give them back to the fertility clinic.
Fast-forward almost 20 years later and the Martins were told by a family member that a boy, who could be their son, found them and reached out.
Thomas Monroe, one of the triplets, called the family member and said something along the lines of "Hey, I'm on your family tree. I don't know if you know anybody in your family who donated embryos or just gave away some kids."
"I saw his picture and my husband and I burst into tears and said that's our kid. There's no doubt, he looked just like our boys," Brooke said.
This is when the Martins found out Thomas is a triplet, which meant they had three biological children out in the world two decades after deciding to donate their embryos. The now 18-year-old triplets, two boys and a girl, grew up in Nashville with their loving parents Trey and Becky, who told the kids about the embryo adoption when they were younger.
After losing Becky to cancer, Trey decided to fulfil Thomas's wishes for a DNA test and gifted it to him on his 18th birthday. "I had a little trepidation, but I also had a history of having found my own biological family through DNA testing and that has been nothing but wonderful, so I was positive that it could work very well," said Trey.
Brooke said even though the children all grew up separately, there are similarities between all five of them, from music interest to athletics to having similar posture when walking.
Brooke added that she wants to make sure people are aware of the option to adopt embryos: "Now, you can actually go through an official adoption where you can choose the family that adopts the embryos and goes through in vitro, so it's a lot more technological now."
Police investigate a Halloween display
A UK woman's Halloween display was so lifelike that it prompted a real police investigation. The police mistook it for an actual body, according to a TikTok clip of the mix-up with over 5.9 million views.
The user @DanielleIt23 posted the video with a caption "Not everyday you get blue lights and sirens outside," which was posted last week by TikTok.
The footage shows police officers approaching what appears to be a body wrapped in garbage bags with sneaker-clad feet poking out and a guitar resting nearby like something out of a true crime documentary.
The cop takes an exploratory kick at the macabre prop, accidentally knocking its shoe loose.
The clip concludes with the officer preparing to leave the scene, apparently satisfied that the display wasn't actually stiff. The viewers were in hysterics over the misunderstanding.
A new study finds that some people really are "mosquito magnets" and it probably has to do with the way they smell. The researchers found that people produce a lot "greasy molecules" that are skin's natural moisturising layer, with a smell that attracts mosquitoes, and people produce them in different amounts. "If you have high levels of this stuff on your skin, you're going the one targeted," said study author Leslie Vosshall, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University in New York.
Victoria Browne took her fangirling a step further by dedicating her wedding day to her idol Taylor Swift. The fan shared a video, which garnered 1.8 million views on TikTok, where she even mentioned the star in her vows.
A New York City man has been charged with smuggling three venomous snakes in his pants at a US-Canadian border crossing. Calvin Bautista, 36, was accused of bringing a Burmese python, one of the world's largest snakes, listed as injurious to human beings.
The Northeastern University School of Law in Massachusetts was found guilty of accidentally sending acceptance emails to thousands about 200 current, 4,000 former applicants and some who are already enrolled. They blamed a "technical error" for sending erroneous emails.
A Massachusetts woman who released a swarm of bees on cops as they tried to serve an eviction notice is facing multiple assault and battery charges. Rorie Woods, 55, had arrived in an SUV towing a trailer carrying beehives and broke the cover off one and causing hundreds of bees to swarm out and sting a cop.
