A Florida Couple Gave Birth to the Wrong Baby: They Know Who the Right Parents Are, But Answers Are Still Scarce

The baby girl was born on December 11, and her parents named her Shea. For Tiffany Score and Steven Mills, it should have been one of the more remarkable days of their lives: a child conceived through in vitro fertilization, the culmination of a process fraught with hope and uncertainty. Within weeks, it became something else entirely.Ms. Score and Mr. Mills, both white, noticed their newborn “displayed the physical appearance of a racially non-Caucasian child.” DNA testing later confirmed she was 100 percent South Asian and bore no biological relationship to either parent, the result of what they allege was a catastrophic embryo mix-up at an almost-shuttered Central Florida fertility clinic.At a February 18 court hearing, co-counsel Mara Hatfield told the court the mix-up likely happened six years ago during the fertilization process. However, it was also possible that the error occurred in April 2025 when Ms. Score was implanted with an embryo at the clinic.This week brought one answer. DNA testing confirmed the identity of the baby’s genetic parents, identified in court documents as Patient 004, months after the couple learned the child they had carried and delivered was not biologically related to either of them. The identities of the biological parents are being kept confidential out of respect for their privacy.“This ends one chapter in our heartbreaking journey, but it raises new issues that will have to be resolved,” Ms. Score and Mr. Mills said in a statement. “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.”What happens, however, when the system built around one of the most intimate decisions a family can make fails, and the clinic responsible closes its doors?A Clinic Already on Thin IceThe Fertility Center of Orlando was a clinic in crisis before Ms. Score and Mr. Mills walked through its doors.Founder and head reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Milton McNichol was reprimanded by Florida’s Board of Medicine and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine in 2024, after a 2023 inspection found equipment that did not meet current performance standards, missing risk management documents, and an absence of emergency medications, including lidocaine. That same year, the clinic filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy — later reorganized, but with outstanding debts still undischarged.In January, Ms. Score and Mr. Mills sued after testing revealed their baby was not their biological child. In March, a separate lawsuit alleged the clinic used a woman in her early 20s as a surrogate despite her “long history of severe mental illness” — and that the baby she carried was born with a fatal genetic condition and died days after birth. Within weeks, the clinic announced it was closing. Attorney Hatfield questioned the timing.“I’m hopeful this is just an evolution of a business transition that the doctor had planned before he got our January notice,” Ms. Hatfield said. “But I’m concerned that it is an attempt to dodge responsibility.”The clinic issued a statement in January acknowledging an error had occurred, saying it was “actively cooperating” with investigators and that transparency was its “priority.” Dr. McNichol has not formally responded to the allegations in court filings.Questions With No Clear AnswersLead attorney for Ms. Score and Mr. Mills, Jack Scarola, joined by co-counsel Ms. Hatfield, said “remaining questions about the fate of Tiffany and Steven’s unaccounted for embryos are still pending,” with the legal proceeding staying open to address those matters and secure compensation for the couple’s expenses and emotional trauma.Meanwhile, the biological parents are only beginning to absorb what happened. Their attorney, Rob Marcereau, told WFTV — an ABC affiliate serving Central Florida — his clients were “still processing the reality that a child who is biologically theirs exists and is with another family.”“As you can imagine, they are devastated,” Mr. Marcereau said. “We are currently evaluating all options and are not able to comment further at this time.”Professor Glenn Cohen of Harvard Law School tells the New York Sun that in cases like this, both sets of parents are effectively victims.“A mother who gestates a fetus and learns it is not her own and must return it to the genetic parents post-birth is a kind of ‘involuntary surrogate,’” Mr. Cohen said. “But where, as here, the clinic has shut down, whether recovery is available may depend on the specifics of what has happened with its assets, bankruptcy, insurance, etc.”In plain terms: if there is no solvent clinic left to sue, the families may never see a dollar in compensation, no matter how clear the negligence.A Regulatory Floor With Too Many GapsIVF, however, is not governed by the same regulations that hold other medical practitioners accountable for errors. Embryology labs are not subject to federal inspections the way blood banks are. There is no established legal claim for lost or swapped embryos equivalent to medical malpractice.An analysis of federal and state legal databases found more than 300 lawsuits filed from 2019 to 2024 alleging embryos, eggs, or sperm had been lost, destroyed, or swapped — across 19 states. Professional guidelines exist, yet compliance is voluntary. Approximately 100,000 babies are born each year in the United States through assisted reproductive technologies, and every one of those families trusted a system with no federal requirement to report when something goes wrong.Stanford Law Professor Hank Greely tells the Sun the case exposes exactly how little oversight exists.“It reveals that current oversight, which is minimal, didn’t prevent this mix-up,” Mr. Greely says. “Could better regulation make it happen less frequently? Very probably, but it can never prevent these kinds of mistakes entirely.”What Happens Next — and Who Gets To Keep SheaThe Florida case is not the first to force families into this impossible calculus. In Georgia, Krystena Murray gave birth in December 2023 after a clinic implanted someone else’s embryo. Told she would likely lose a custody fight, she voluntarily handed the baby over at a family court hearing in May 2024 — the last time she saw him. ““I walked in a mom with a child and a baby who loved me and was mine and was attached to me, and I walked out of the building with an empty stroller,” Ms. Murray told NBC News. “And they left with my son.”In 1999, a New York woman of Korean descent was ordered to surrender a Caucasian baby she had delivered through an embryo mix-up when the child was six months old.Not every court has reached the same conclusion. In May 2025, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled four-to-one that a toddler known as Sophia — born after a 2022 embryo mix-up — would stay with the woman who carried and raised her, not her genetic parents, with structured visitation granted to the biological family.In Florida, legal experts say a private agreement between the two families is the most likely path forward. Ms. Score and Mr. Mills have said they intend to keep Shea. Attorney Scarola has confirmed that the biological parents have made no custody request. What is certain is that the clinic whose negligence set all of this in motion is closing its doors, its debts undischarged, its founder silent.“What to do about parentage in switched embryo cases is largely a matter of state law,” Mr. Cohen adds. “I view both sets as parents as victims.’”

A Florida Couple Gave Birth to the Wrong Baby: They Know Who the Right Parents Are, But Answers Are Still Scarce

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