US mums give birth to wrong babies after IVF clinic mix-up

A mum in the US gave birth to another couple’s baby and spent months raising it following a mix-up at an IVF clinic.

A mum gave birth to another couple’s baby and spent months raising it following a mix-up at an IVF clinic.

Both Daphna and her husband Alexander Cardinale were immediately suspicious something was wrong after the baby she gave birth to in 2019 had a darker complexion than they do, The Sun reported.

The couple, though, didn’t say anything at the time because they fell in love with the baby and trusted the doctors at the IVF clinic in California.

It was only some three months later that the couple learned the truth: the clinic where the couple had gone for treatment had mistakenly implanted another couple’s embryo into Daphna and put the Cardinale’s embryo into the other woman, the Cardinales have claimed.

Having found out what the situation was, Daphna, 43, then swapped babies with the other couple four months after giving birth in January 2020.

Daphna and Alexander Cardinale. Picture: Supplied

“This is something that’s just changed who we are,” Daphna told People. “It’s still a daily struggle and will continue to be.”

The Cardinales are now suing the fertility clinic and its owner – the Los Angeles-based California Center for Reproductive Health and Dr Eliran Mor – for medical malpractice, negligence and fraud, among other things.

The lawsuit demands a jury trial and seeks unspecified damages.

“People make mistakes,” said the couple’s lawyer, Adam Wolf.

“And in most industries those mistakes are fairly harmless. They can be corrected. With fertility clinics, those mistakes can have lifelong consequences. This has fundamentally changed the lives of Daphna and Alexander, as well as their two children.”

“If we hadn‘t done IVF, I would’ve just chalked [the lack of resemblance] up to genetics,” Alexander said.

“She just looks how she looks. No big deal. But because we’d done IVF, my brain started going to the dark place.”

Alexander and Daphna's oldest daughter Olivia with the other couple's baby. Picture: Supplied

‘Everybody is getting to know each other and falling in love with each other. Picture: Supplied

Despite their initial misgivings the couple, along with their five-year-old daughter Olivia, fell in love with the dark-haired little baby, who has not been identified by the couple out of respect for the child’s biological parents.

“It was this moment of sheer bliss when everybody is getting to know each other and falling in love with each other,” says Daphna, a therapist.

“She just really folded into our lives and into our hearts.”

A month after Daphna gave birth, the couple got a call from an employee at the IVF clinic asking if they could send them a photograph of their baby, the couple claimed.

Growing frustrated with the comments from her husband and friends, Daphna then brought home a DNA test kit in the hope of putting an end to the speculation.

‘Our world started falling apart’

“We got an email that basically said that she was genetically related to neither of us,” said Alexander. “That’s when our world started falling apart.”

On learning the news, the Cardinales were terrified they would lose the little girl they had come to love and also afraid they might have a biological child who was alive.

Alexander holding his biological child. Picture: Supplied

Days later, their lawyer was informed that the Cardinales’ embryos were mixed up in the lab used by the fertility clinic. They then learned that the clinic had located their daughter’s biological parents, who had recently given birth to a baby girl of their own.

In December 2019, both couples and their babies underwent DNA testing and on Christmas Eve learned that they had given birth to each other’s children.

After weeks of meeting up with the other couple nearly every day, in mid-January 2020 the couples decided it was time for the children to live with their biological parents.

Two years on, and the families have forged a strong bond with one another.

“There’s no book for this,” Alexander said. “There’s no person to give you advice. So we ended up just sort of huddling together, the four of us, and it’s a blessing that we all are on the same page. We’ve spent every holiday together since then. We’ve spent every birthday together since then – and we’ve just kind of blended families.”

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission