Actor Lee Si-young announced that she has given birth to her second child — a daughter — through in vitro fertilization (IVF) following her divorce earlier this year.

On Wednesday, Lee shared a photo on her social media account holding her newborn baby, writing, “I believe this is a gift from God, and I will spend the rest of my life making Jeong-yun and our baby happy.”


Jeong-yun is the name of Lee’s firstborn son.

In the post, she also thanked her doctor, showing an excerpt from the handwritten letter she had written.

In July, Lee publicly revealed she was pregnant, explaining that she wanted to prevent misunderstandings. At the time, she wrote that the embryo was created via IVF during her marriage and had been stored in a fertility clinic. As the storage period neared expiration during her divorce proceedings, she decided to proceed with the transfer rather than discard the embryo.

Lee said she had made the decision without her ex-husband’s consent. The former couple divorced in March after seven years of marriage.

Lee’s story sparked public discussion in Korea over IVF procedures, embryo storage and nonmarital childbirth.


This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY SHIN HYE-YEON [shin.minhee@joongang.co.kr]