MY WORLD FIRST DONOR-EGG TWINS

SUSAN OOI was a Malaysian woman living in Britain who came to the Park Clinic for IVF. Because of her condition — failed ovarian function — I couldn’t collect any eggs from her, so the only way that she could have a baby was to use someone else’s.

I asked the hospital ethics committees and we concluded that egg donation could be beneficial only if it was from family members.

We flew Susan’s sister over from her home in New York for an egg donation, synchronising the two women to undertake a fresh embryo transfer, but also freezing any remaining embryos.

The first embryo transfer in November 1986 was successful, but it sadly resulted in miscarriage. When Susan returned, we built up the lining of her womb with oestrogen and progesterone and transferred two frozen embryos on Saturday, March 7, 1987.

Her twin boys, Robin and Simon (who was very kindly named after me), were born in September that year at 28 weeks.

This was not only the UK’s first IVF with donor eggs, but the world’s first twins born from frozen embryos created by donated eggs.

It generated a lot of publicity. Now sister-tosister egg donation is relatively commonplace, and even daughter-to-mother or vice versa.