IVF Mom Gives Birth To The Wrong Baby, Makes Clinic Pay The Price
A couple from a California in vitro fertilization clinic was stunned after learning that the mom was carrying two boys despite the fact that they had thawed and implanted two female embryos.
A doctor at CHA Fertility Center in Los Angeles informed the couple that sonograms get it wrong sometimes. He even reassured the couple that “they were having girls and that nothing was wrong,” according to a federal lawsuit filed by the couple and acquired by USA TODAY.
However, everything went the opposite way when the mom delivered two boys. What’s more intriguing is DNA testing determined the boys were not a genetic match to the couple, who were Asian, but neither of the boys was Asian.
Further, the lawsuit asserted that “the two male babies were not genetically related to each other.” The couple filed a federal suit last week in the Eastern District of New York denouncing the clinic, the co-owners, and directors of medical malpractice, negligence, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The couple’s attorney, Michelle Greenberg from New Jersey firm Frier Levitt, said in a statement:
“Frier Levitt is representing a couple who sustained traumatic emotional injuries and financial losses as a result of an incomprehensible series of events that left them pregnant with someone else’s babies, neither of whom were relate. Our goal in filing this lawsuit is to obtain compensation for our clients’ losses, as well as to ensure that this tragedy never happens again.”
The lawsuit also mentions CHA’s website described the clinic as a “mecca of reproductive medicine” and one of the “premier fertility treatment networks in the world.”
But after finding out that the two boys were not theirs, the couple relinquished custody. It was also reported that the couple spent $100,000 on the IVF procedures, travel expenses, and other costs “to conceive, deliver and raise children of their own.”