1st Test-Tube Baby Interns at 'Virginian-Pilot'

By: Elizabeth Jordan Carr, America's first test-tube baby, returned this summer to Norfolk, Va., where she was born. Now 21 years old, Carr interned at The Virginian-Pilot, the "newspaper that not only broke the story of her birth but may have made it possible," according to the paper.

Carr was born Dec. 28, 1981, at Norfolk General Hospital, and The Ledger-Star announced her historic birth with a New Year's Eve front page story. The headline announced, "She's a cutie!" (The afternoon Ledger-Star was folded into the Virginian-Pilot in the '90s.)

The in-vitro program at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk was started when a Ledger-Star reader donated funds for the program after reading a story about reproductive specialists Dr. Howard W. Jones Jr. and his wife Georgeanna Jones.

As the first test-tube baby in the U.S., Carr's early years were followed closely by the media in her home town of Westminster, Mass., and nationally.

At age 10, Carr's family was besieged by reporters wanting to know if she was "normal."

All this exposure to the media eventually led Carr to pursue a career in journalism. "My whole life it's been about my story," she said. "I want to find out about the average Joe. They have stories too."

A rising senior at Simmons College in Boston, Carr covered regional issues for the Virginian-Pilot. She has also interned for The Boston Globe.