Where is first IVF 'Test Tube Baby' Louise Joy Brown now from middle name to list of pets

The true story of the world’s first IVF baby is out in Cinemas now (November 15) and will be showing on Netflix on November 22, but where is she now?

Wanting a family so badly, Lesley and John Brown decided to become a part of a research experiment by Robert Edwards and his gynaecologist colleague Patrick Steptoe along with the world's first embryologist Jean Purdy. Not long after, Louise Joy Brown was welcomed into the world at Oldham General Hospital, in Greater Manchester on July 29 1978 at just 5lb 12oz and become an ‘icon’ in the scientific world forever for being the first human to have been born after conception by in vitro fertilisation (IVF) experiment.

Her birth was called "the most remarkable medical breakthroughs of the 20th Century" and was the long-time coming result of Edwards and Steptoe’s decade research where they had had attempted implantation in 282 women. Five had become clinically pregnant but none then had given birth to a live baby. It was also a relief for the medical professionals after they faced months of tension from across the world due intense competition between fertility researchers and many people accusing them of creating ‘Frankenbabies’.

READ MORE: Our Farm Next Door star Amanda Owen flooded with support as she shares daughter announcement

READ MORE: Gardeners' World legend Monty Don 'lying on the floor for hours' during health battle

When the big day came, doctors filmed the caesarean section in order to capture Lesley’s damaged Fallopian tubes and prove to the public that Steptoe and Edwards’ claims were not a hoax. Some were critical of Lesley and her husband John for making their daughter’s birth so public as members of the press caused a bomb scare which to the evacuation of Oldham General Hospital’s patients, according to Time Magazine.

Despite being named a ‘test tube baby’, the treatment involved an egg being removed from one of Lesley’s ovaries and mixed in a petri dish – not a test tube – with John’s sperm and the resulting embryo being implanted in Lesley’s womb two days later. The desperate couple had had been trying to conceive naturally for nine years, but Lesley faced complications of blocked fallopian tubes. Four years later, Louise's younger sister Natalie Brown became the world's 40th child born after conception by IVF.

In a Sun article, she told readers that she had a fairly normal childhood, apart from playing 'spot the photographers' in her street with her sister and attended primary and secondary school - but did not realise why she was a big deal when a topic of sex education came up.

Louise then met her husband, Wesley Mullinder who was a nightclub doorman in 2002 - to which she told the Sun that he did not know she was the 'the world's first IVF baby' until a few months of dating each other.

The pair married in 2004 then welcomed a son two years later followed by another in 2013. Louise had made history once again as both sons were conceived naturally and without fertility treatment. According to Time magazine, when she got pregnant with her first child, she immediately wrote to Bob to tell him before anyone else.

Now, Louise lives a “very normal life” with her husband and sons. She works for a shipping company and has two dogs, three cats, a kitten, a tortoise, a hamster, a rat and two rabbits, according to The Sun.

She also remains as an ambassador for several IVF foundations. On her website, Louise Brown: World's First IVF Baby she said: "I was given the middle name “Joy” by Patrick Steptoe, who successfully delivered me by Caesarean section. He said my birth would bring Joy and Hope to childless people around the world. It has!

"Being the world’s first IVF baby has taken me to all corners of the world. I am passionate about breaking the silence on all things fertility and ending the taboo about getting help for fertility issues or being born through scientific means. I enjoy making media appearances and attending events to explain how IVF came about and lending help and support to all those trying to conceive and those who work in IVF and the science that brought me into the public eye.

"My birth was the result of pioneering work by Patrick Steptoe, obstetrician and gynaecologist and Robert Edwards, biologist and physiologist, helped by research assistant and nurse Jean Purdy. It was the most remarkable medical breakthrough of the 20th Century – and also meant the end of a 10 year journey by my parents Lesley and John Brown, who had been trying to conceive. "

Get all the latest celebrity and TV news straight to your inbox by signing up to our newsletter here.