Tiffany Score and Steven Mills were shocked when their daughter was born with a "non-Caucasian" appearance. Photo / Mara Hatfield via Orlando Sentinel
Tiffany Score and Steven Mills were shocked when their daughter was born with a "non-Caucasian" appearance. Photo / Mara Hatfield via Orlando Sentinel
A Florida husband and wife are suing their IVF clinic after discovering they were impregnated with another couple’s embryo in an astonishing mix-up.
Tiffany Score and Steven Mills hired IVF Life to help them conceive a child in 2020, producing three viable embryos – one of which was purportedly successfullyimplanted by the Fertility Center of Orlando in April last year, according to People magazine.
When their baby daughter Shea was born on December 11, it quickly became evident she “displayed the physical appearance of a non-Caucasian child”, with genetic testing later proving she had different biological parents.
Score and Mills filed a suit against IVF Life and the presiding dcotor, Dr Milton McNichol, on January 22 as they seek to identify the baby’s natural family.
The couple’s lawyer, Jack Scarola, said they have “fallen in love” with the 7-week-old girl, despite it being “obvious” she was likely not biologically theirs at birth.
“Their concern is that this is someone else’s child, and someone could show up at any time and claim the baby and take that baby away from them,” Scarola said.
The Orlando Sentinel reported the Fertility Center of Orlando had stated they 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 deleted from their website following an emergency hearing last week.
Tiffany Score and Steven Mills were shocked when their daughter was born with a "non-Caucasian" appearance. Photo / Mara Hatfield via Orlando Sentinel
Score and Mills told People they hope the case will provide answers, with questions lingering around the status of their own biological embryos.
“Our joy over her birth is further complicated by the devastating reality that her genetic parents – whom we do not yet know – or possibly another family entirely, may have received the child we conceived.”
They believe the suit will help them to “begin living more freely and to finally celebrate the one beautiful thing that has come from all of this: our daughter. Shea is completely innocent and so undeserving of any of this.”
Score and Mills have requested the clinic notify other patients of the error and pay for genetic testing of all babies conceived through their services in the past five years.
Scarola told the Orlando Sentinel legal precedent for a case of its kind is scarce as “fortunately, it is very uncommon for such a horrendous error to have occurred”.
An expedited agreement between the couple and the clinic is continuing to be developed, with IVF Life lawyer Francis Pierce III noting the clinic’s other parents would have to consent to the genetic test.
