World’s first test-tube baby is pregnant

THE world’s first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, is reported to be pregnant.

Louise, 27, who married former bank security officer Wesley Mullinder, 36, two years ago, is due to give birth in January, according to the Daily Express.

The ex-postal worker from Bristol, England, told the newspaper it was a “dream come true”.

The couple started trying for a child after their marriage in September 2004.

Her husband also told the Express: “We are overjoyed that Louise is expecting.

“We are so excited about becoming parents, and I know that Louise will make a fantastic mother. We are already beginning to think about getting the house kiddy-proof.”

Louise’s birth on July 25, 1978, created headlines throughout the world and followed a decade of research on finding ways to fertilise human eggs outside the body.

She was born by caesarean section at the Royal Oldham Hospital thanks to the efforts of Dr Robert Edwards, who jointly invented the IVF technique that led to her birth, and the late Dr Patrick Steptoe, a gynaecologist at the hospital.

The two men successfully removed a single ripe egg from the ovary of Louise’s mother, Lesley, and fertilised it in a glass dish with sperm from her husband. The resulting embryo was implanted back into Lesley’s body, and she became pregnant.

Lesley had tried for nine years to have a baby with husband John before the IVF birth, and the couple later had their other daughter, Natalie, through the same process.

Dr Edwards was a guest of honour at Louise’s wedding at the Church of St Mary Redcliffe in Bristol.

Wesley met Louise in 2002 at a Bristol nightclub where he worked as a doorman. He said he had “no idea” who she was when he first met her but added the fact she was famous was just a “minor detail”.

The pair worked together in a Bristol sorting office before Louise left to become a nursery nurse. She now works as an admin assistant for a shipping company.