The biological parents of a baby at the center of an embryo mix-up have been identified, according to attorneys for the Florida woman who gave birth to the infant.
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Tiffany Score and Steven Mills sued the Fertility Center of Orlando and its head reproductive endocrinologist in January after learning that their newborn, Shea, was not genetically related to either of them.
Score and Mills, who are both white, had undergone in vitro fertilization at the Longwood, Florida, clinic and decided to pursue genetic testing because their baby “displayed the physical appearance of a racially non-Caucasian child,” their lawsuit says.
This month, Mara Hatfield, an attorney representing Score and Mills, told NBC News that DNA testing revealed Shea is 100% South Asian. Hatfield added that the clinic said it had identified one South Asian couple from 16 sets of potential parents whose egg retrieval and embryo transfer dates were around the same time as Score’s.
In court documents, the defendants have not disputed that Score and Mills’ baby “should be, but is not, the genetic child” of the plaintiffs, and they said they were cooperating with requests to help identify the girl’s biological parents.
Score and Mills said this week that a match confirmed the baby’s genetic parents. They said the couple’s identity would remain confidential.
“This ends one chapter in our heartbreaking journey, but it raises new issues that will have to be resolved,” the statement released by their law firm said. “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.”
Their attorneys said there are still questions over what happened to the embryos believed to belong to Score and Mills, though there is no indication that they resulted in a child being born to another couple.
Neither the defendants nor their attorneys responded to requests for comment on news of Shea’s biological parents being identified, which follows a period of tumult for the Fertility Center of Orlando. The clinic announced several weeks ago that it was closing and said another IVF network would open in the same location, a decision the Fertility Center of Orlando said it made after “thoughtful consideration.”
