A Florida couple is taking legal action against a fertility clinic over an alleged ’embryo mix-up’ and has now shared an update after their newborn’s biological parents were located.
Tiffany Score and Steven Mills welcomed their third child in December last year. After having difficulty conceiving naturally, they chose to pursue IVF in hopes of expanding their family.
The couple underwent the procedure, in which an egg and sperm are fertilised outside the body before an embryo is transferred, believing everything had proceeded as expected.
But a lawsuit filed against The Fertility Center of Orlando alleges a serious error. It notes that Tiffany and Steven are white, while their IVF-conceived newborn is ‘a racially non-Caucasian child’.
Genetic testing later indicated that baby Shea is not biologically related to them. Tiffany and Steven have since said that Shea’s biological parents have now been identified.
Speaking to People, the couple’s attorney, Jack Scarola, said the latest test results confirmed the match.
“The results of testing delivered to us today confirm that our baby’s genetic parents have been identified.”
Tiffany and Steven say they will keep the biological parents’ identities private and that they intend to respect their wishes.
Through their attorney, they added:
“This ends one chapter in our heartbreaking journey, but it raises new issues that will have to be resolved. In addition, questions about the disposition of our own embryos are still unanswered and are even more unlikely to ever be answered.
“Only one thing is as absolutely certain today as it was on the day our daughter was born —we will love and will be this child’s parents forever.”
The couple has previously said they want to continue raising Shea even though she is not biologically theirs.
It is not yet clear who will have parental responsibility for the four-month-old moving forward.
Scarola said the existing court case will continue as the remaining issues are addressed, including compensation and the emotional impact on his clients.
“The current legal proceeding will remain open to address those matters. However, we expect that we will now also begin to focus on the need for our clients to be compensated for the expenses they have incurred and the severe emotional trauma that they endured and will continue to experience.”
The Fertility Center of Orlando previously posted a statement on its website, though it has since been deleted.
In it, the clinic said it were ‘actively cooperating with an investigation to support one of our patients in determining the source of an error that resulted in the birth of a child who is not genetically related to them’.
The statement was removed after a hearing in the case in January.