A white Florida couple is suing a fertility clinic after allegedly welcoming a dark-skinned baby girl who does not appear to be genetically related to them. In the lawsuit against IVF Life, Inc., and endocrinologist Dr. Milton McNichol, Tiffany Score and her husband Steven Mills said they demand to know what happened to the three embryos they froze at the Fertility Center of Orlando and to find the biological parents of the child they have birthed.
When she went to the clinic in April, Score said she thought she was implanted with one of the three embryos. Throughout her pregnancy, Score said she never suspected that something had gone wrong, People reported. The first-time expectant couple instead focused on normal activities any parent would do during pregnancy, such as buying all the necessities for the baby they were welcoming.
Tiffany Score and Steven Mills say the baby doesn’t look anything like them
On Dec. 11, the new parents welcomed their baby girl and named her Shea Score Mills. At the same time, the white couple was shocked when they saw how the dark-skinned baby didn’t look anything like them.
The new parents then followed up with genetic testing and concluded that the child is not related to either one of them. While they are still happy to be parents to the baby girl despite the unusual circumstance, the pair said they also have “a moral obligation to find her genetic parents.”
“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,” the couple said in a statement, per People. “We are heartbroken, devastated, and confused.”
As they explained their reason for the lawsuit against the fertility clinic, the couple said they fear how their baby could eventually be taken and given to her biological parents. Score and Mills said they hope they can “begin living more freely” with legal protection. They said they want “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,” the pair said.
What did the Florida clinic say about the alleged mix-up?
According to the Orlando Sentinel, the Florida IVF clinic has now deleted a statement on its website which stated that the facility is “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 added that “multiple entities are involved in this process,” and the clinic is “working diligently to help identify when and where the error may have occurred.”
Attorney Jack Scarola, who is representing the couple, said the couple isn’t asking for monetary damages in their lawsuit, but they want to find their daughter’s biological parents and need information about their own embryos.
According to Global News, the couple had their latest hearing on Jan. 28, and their lawyers said the clinic is working to meet their demands.
Score and Mills decided to have a family five years ago and hired IVF Life, Inc. to start the process of in vitro fertilization (IVF), which begins when a woman’s egg is fertilized by sperm in a laboratory, per Global News. The embryos stay frozen until the couple is ready to implant them into the mother’s uterus.