A surrogate mother has given birth to a baby boy in China four years after his parents died in a car crash, Chinese media reported.
Shen Jie and Liu Xi died in Nanjing in 2013, but had already frozen several embryos hoping to have a child through IVF.
After the accident, the couple’s parents fought a legal battle to use the embryos, and the boy was born in December.
At the time of the accident, the embryos were stored safely in a Nanjing hospital, frozen at minus 196 degrees Celsius in a tank of liquid nitrogen.
A long legal battle gave the family the right over the fertilised eggs, the report said.
But because surrogacy is illegal in China, the grandparents had to find a surrogate mother outside the country, eventually finding a woman in neighbouring Laos.
The baby was eventually born last year in a hospital in the city of Guangzhou. He has been named Tiantian, or “Sweet”. The family recently celebrated his first 100 days by holding a small party.
Liu’s mother, Hu Xinxian, told Beijing News: “Tiantian’s eyes look like my daughter’s, but overall he looks more like his father.”
The grandparents have not yet decided how to tell Tiantian about his unusual background. Shen Xinan, Tiantian’s paternal grandfather, said they would tell him that his parents are living overseas until he is older.
He said: “This boy is destined to be sad on his arrival into the world. Other babies have their fathers and mothers, but he doesn’t.
“We will definitely tell him in the future. How can we not?”
