Happy 25th Birthday to Elizabeth Jordan Carr

Who? Elizabeth Jordan Carr is America's first test-tube baby. She was born to Judy and Roger Carr on December 28, 1981 with the help of one of America's first IVF clinics, the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Va. As American Heritage tells the story:

One of the first to try the hormone therapy, in early 1981, was Judy Carr, a 28-year-old Massachusetts schoolteacher who had had her fallopian tubes removed during emergency surgery following an unsuccessful pregnancy months before, making her entirely unable to become pregnant by normal methods. After weeks of hormone injections, the Joneses managed to extract two of Carr's eggs, fertilize one in a laboratory with her husband Roger's sperm, and implant the egg in her uterus. The procedure worked. Nine months later, on December 28, 1981, Judy Carr gave birth to a healthy baby daughter, Elizabeth Jordan Carr.

Whole article here .

Since the birth of the first test-tube baby in Britain, Louise Joy Brown, in 1978, it is estimated that as many 3 million babies have been born with the help of assisted reproductive techniques.