Florida couple in IVF mix-up will keep baby who is not genetically theirs

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Tiffany Score and Steven Mills sued the Fertility Center of Orlando and its lead reproductive endocrinologist in January after learning that the daughter whom Score had given birth to a month earlier was not genetically related to her or Mills.

Score and Mills, who are both white, had undergone in vitro fertilization at the Longwood, Florida, clinic and pursued genetic testing because their baby “displayed the physical appearance of a racially non-Caucasian child,” their lawsuit said. The testing revealed that the baby, named Shea, was 100% South Asian, according to Score and Mills’ attorney.

The suit prompted a search for the couple whose embryo had been mistakenly implanted into Score and, in April, attorneys for Score and Mills announced that Shea’s biological parents had been found. Identified in court documents only as Patient 004, the biological parents’ names have been kept confidential.

In a court filing Friday, attorney for Score and Mills, Mara Hatfield, wrote that her clients and Patient 004 had “come to a mutually devised custody agreement” that recognizes Score and Mills’ rights as the “permanent custodial parents of their daughter.” No additional details were provided.

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The custody agreement is a significant development in Score and Mills’ extraordinary situation, which has little precedent: Embryo mix-ups are known to have happened to only a handful of other families.

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