Birthday for first test tube baby
Updated on 14 July 2008
Three decades ago, scientists held their breath as they waited for news of the world's first "test tube baby".
But now the woman who started life as a medical marvel just wants to spend her 30th birthday quietly with family and friends.
Louise Brown, who lives with her husband Wesley in Bristol, has not even planned a party.
But even if Louise is not focusing on what her birthday means, many others are. The birth of Louise Joy Brown on July 25, 1978, at Oldham and District General Hospital was also the birth of IVF.
So far, more than three million babies have been born worldwide thanks to the technology that created her. Scientific advances mean success rates are slowly improving, giving hope to millions of infertile couples.
Louise likes to lead a quiet life and generally shuns the media spotlight. But her memories of how she discovered she was a special child are always with her.
"Before I went to school, Mum and Dad showed me the video of when I was born and tried to explain it to a four-year-old," she said.
"I think it was to say I was the same as everybody else but just a little bit different... The children used to ask questions like 'How did you fit in a test tube?' and things like that but that was really the only thing they could say.
"They could see I was normal, they could see I was the same as them. I just had a normal childhood, the same as any other child."
Weighing 5lb 12oz, Louise was delivered just before midnight by Caesarean section to the delight of her parents, Lesley and John. Louise now works full-time in the office of Brunel Shipping in Bristol, met her husband, Wesley Mullinder, in 2002. The couple live with their baby son on the outskirts of the city.
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