(April 10) - Two decades ago, Chris Biblis was a teenager battling leukemia, unsure whether he had a future at all -– let alone whether he would one day want to be a father.
But today the North Carolina man is the proud papa of a baby girl, thanks to the foresight of his own mother.
Stella Biblis was born Feb. 25. She was conceived through in vitro fertilization using sperm that had been frozen for more than two decades.
As a 16-year-old, Chris Biblis was too busy fighting to stay alive to care much when doctors told him the treatments for his leukemia would probably leave him sterile.
"I was trying to get through high school and living one day at a time, hoping I was honestly going to make it," he said Friday on ABC's 'Good Morning America.' "It was the furthest thing from my mind -- being married or having a child."
But his mother believed Chris would beat the cancer, and that one day he might want to have family of his own. She suggested that he freeze some sperm. In April 1986, three vials went into a freezer at Xytex International Ltd. in Atlanta.
When Chris Biblis and his wife, Melodie, decided to have a child, some of the sperm was defrosted on June 12, 2008 – 22 years after it had been frozen.
It was used to impregnate Melodie. Nine months later, Stella arrived.
"From my life being saved to being able to create a life, words just can't describe where we are now," Chris Biblis, now 39, told WCNC, NewsChannel 36 in Charlotte.
Doctors believe Stella may set a world record for the length of time sperm has been frozen before the birth of a baby.
"I don't recall a case where the sperm has been frozen for 23 years," Dr. Richard Wing, founder of Reproductive Endocrinology Associates of Charlotte, told WCNC. The clinic helped the couple conceive through in vitro fertilization.
Doctors said the use of frozen sperm does not increase the risks of genetic abnormalities in the baby. Stella is perfectly healthy.
"It's an amazing testament that there is life after cancer," Melodie Biblis said. "You can still have a family after that."
She's very glad her mother-in-law spoke up all those years ago. "It's amazing that his mom had the forethought to think about that 23 years ago."
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