IVF Malpractice Lawsuit Filed After Embryo Mix-Up Caused Woman to Give Birth to Wrong Baby

After losing custody of the child she carried to term, Georgia woman’s lawsuit raises concerns that her embryo may have been implanted in yet another woman, who may now be raising her child.

A Georgia woman has filed a lawsuit against a fertility clinic after she gave birth to another couple’s child, due to an embryo mix-up.

The complaint (PDF) was brought by Krystena Murray in the Chatham County state court in Georgia on February 13, pursuing damages from Coastal Fertility Specialists, LLC, Dr. Jeffrey Gray and five other unnamed individuals as defendants.

According to the malpractice lawsuit, Murray went to the clinic to undergo invitro fertilization (IVF). They extracted some of her eggs and used them to create embryos, which they then indicated were successfully transferred back into Murray’s body.

The procedure resulted in a pregnancy, and Murray carried the child to term. However, the lawsuit indicates that after birth, it was obvious the clinic had made a mistake, because Murray is white and the child was African American.

Murray began to raise the child and became attached. However, five months after the child’s birth, Coastal Fertility discovered that they had implanted Murray with another couple’s embryo. That couple sued Murray to get the child back.

“As a result of that lawsuit, Ms. Murray’s Baby was ripped away from her,” the lawsuit states, indicating the child was given back to its true parents, given a new name and now lives in another state.

“Coastal Fertility promised to safeguard and protect the Plaintiff’s frozen embryos, vouching to maximize her opportunity to become pregnant with her own child,” the complaint notes. “Despite their agreement to maintain this position of extreme trust and fidelity, Coastal Fertility recklessly, negligently, and/or knowingly lost Plaintiff’s embryos and implanted the wrong embryo in Ms. Murray.”

Murray notes that she has no idea whether her embryo was transferred to another couple, or whether there is a biological child of her own somewhere, being raised by someone else.

She presents claims of negligence, gross negligence, bailment, breach of fiduciary duty, fraudulent concealment, battery/lack of informed consent, violations of Georgia and South Carolina trade practice laws, and seeks both compensatory and punitive damages.