The nightmare scenario for any fertility patient is not a failed cycle, it is a successful one that turns out to be someone else’s baby. That is exactly what a Central Florida couple says happened after an IVF procedure left them raising a child who, genetic tests later showed, is not biologically related to either of them. Their lawsuit is now forcing hard questions about how clinics handle the tiniest, most high‑stakes pieces of human life.
What sounds like a one‑in‑a‑million mistake is starting to look less like a freak accident and more like a systemic warning sign. From Florida to Los Angeles, couples have discovered after birth that embryos were swapped, misplaced or implanted in the wrong woman, and they are turning to the courts to sort out the fallout.
The Florida couple at the center of the latest IVF storm
The newest case comes out of PALM, BEACH, COUNTY, Fla, where court records describe a Florida couple who say they went through IVF expecting a child genetically related to them, only to deliver a baby girl who is not biologically theirs. The parents, identified in filings as John and Jane Doe, are described as Caucasian, while the baby is referred to as a “non-Caucasian child,” a detail that first raised red flags and eventually pushed them toward legal action. The couple says they trusted an Orlando‑area clinic to handle their embryos, only to discover after birth that something had gone terribly wrong.
Genetic testing later confirmed that the baby, identified in one complaint as Baby Doe, has “no genetic relationship to either of the Plaintiffs,” according to a lawsuit that names the facility, IVF Life Inc., and its physician, Dr. Milton McNichol. The parents say they learned the truth after a DNA test performed when the child was about a month old, a result that is detailed in filings tied to an IVF mix up claim. Another complaint, which also refers to the child as Baby Doe, repeats that Genetic testing showed no biological tie to the Plaintiffs, underscoring how central that lab result is to the couple’s case against the Florida couple.
A ‘horrendous error’ and a search for the baby’s genetic parents
In their lawsuit, the parents describe the situation as a “horrendous error” that has upended their sense of family and identity. Reporting on the case notes that Tiffany Score and Steven Mills, another Central Florida pair, have also been publicly identified as plaintiffs accusing an IVF facility in Longwood of a similar mistake, with one account describing how Tiffany Score and Steven Mills hold the baby they love while grappling with the fact that she is not genetically related to them, a detail highlighted in an Orlando lawsuit. Another report repeats that What is at stake for these Subscribers to IVF services is not just money, but the basic trust that clinics will not mix up embryos in the first place.
Beyond the courtroom, the couple is now trying to find the baby’s genetic parents, a search that adds another emotional layer to an already brutal story. One detailed account describes a Florida couple seeking the baby’s genetic parents after being implanted with the wrong embryo at an Orlando fertility clinic, with the mother writing that the child “is not genetically related to my husband or me,” a line captured in a Florida couple seeking story. Another piece, focused on PALM, BEACH, COUNTY, Fla, notes that the parents are urgently seeking answers after discovering that the baby they carried and delivered has no genetic relation to the Does, a fact laid out in court records. A separate account from Florida repeats that the couple is looking for the baby’s bio parents after being implanted with the wrong embryo at an IVF clinic in Orlando, a search described in another Florida report.
How the lawsuit is pushing Florida courts and regulators
The legal fallout is not limited to one family or one clinic. A separate filing describes a Florida couple suing a fertility clinic after an alleged embryo mix-up resulted in the birth of a “non-Caucasian child” not biologically theirs, language that appears in a complaint tied to a Florida case. Another version of that story repeats that a Florida couple is suing a fertility clinic after an alleged embryo mix-up resulted in the birth of a “non-Caucasian child” not biologically theirs, again emphasizing the word Caucasian in the context of how the parents realized something was wrong, as described in a separate complaint. Together, these filings are putting intense pressure on Florida’s courts to decide what accountability looks like when a clinic’s mistake reshapes an entire family.
Judges are already responding. One emergency court action in Central Flori has gone so far as to seek IVF testing for all clinic births in the past five years tied to the facility at the center of the mix-up, a sweeping step described in a report by Skyler Shepard that notes the order was issued on a Fri and later Updated Fri, with a gallery labeled 3VIEW ALL PHOTOS, all tied to a baby girl born on December 11, 2025, as laid out in the court order. That same report notes that the court is looking at as many as 47 births connected to the clinic, a number that hints at just how wide the review could go as regulators scrutinize safeguards around embryo handling and genetic testing.
Other couples, same nightmare: IVF mix-ups across the country
For anyone tempted to see the Florida case as a one‑off, there is a growing list of families who would disagree. In Los Angeles, two couples discovered that they had given birth to each other’s babies after a mix-up at their IVF clinic, then spent about four months raising the wrong children before the infants were swapped back, a wrenching sequence described in a video about two Los Angeles couples. Another report on the same incident notes that the babies were swapped back in January 2020 and that Mix-ups like this are exceedingly rare but not unprecedented, a point made in a separate lawsuit that calls for greater oversight of IVF clinics.
California has seen its own high‑profile case, where a couple discovered that the baby girl they brought home was not genetically related to them and that their own embryo had been carried by another woman. They ultimately decided to keep the name Zoe for the child they were raising, even after learning of the swap, and are now suing the California Center for Reproductive Health and its medical director over the alleged embryo mix-up, details that appear in a report on how They named Zoe. Another account of that broader pattern notes that parents sued after an Encino fertility clinic’s mix-up resulted in two babies being swapped and later returned, with the lawsuit claiming that CCRH mistakenly transferred the wrong embryos and calling for greater oversight for IVF clinics, as described in a separate Encino case.
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