{"id":1402,"date":"2026-06-18T06:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T06:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=1402"},"modified":"2026-06-18T06:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T06:07:13","slug":"biological-parents-of-baby-in-embryo-mix-up-made-heartbreaking-decision-not-to-fight-for-custody-attorney-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=1402","title":{"rendered":"Biological parents of baby in embryo mix-up made \u2018heartbreaking decision\u2019 not to fight for custody, attorney says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The biological parents of a baby born to another couple because of an embryo mix-up in Florida are doing their best to navigate an \u201cabsolutely impossible situation,\u201d their attorney said.<\/p>\n

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Speaking days after the biological parents reached an agreement that allows the child\u2019s birth parents to keep custody of the infant, their lawyer, Rob Marcereau, told NBC News that the last several months have been devastating for his clients. <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cThey are heartbroken over what has happened, and they also understand that the birth couple are also suffering,\u201d Marcereau said. \u201cThey had to make the heartbreaking decision to not fight for custody.\u201d<\/p>\n

The baby girl, named Shea, was born in December to Tiffany Score and Steven Mills, a couple who had undergone in vitro fertilization at the Fertility Center of Orlando in Longwood, Florida. Score and Mills sued the clinic this year after testing revealed that Shea was not genetically related to either of them.<\/p>\n

The revelation prompted a search for the couple whose embryo had been mistakenly implanted into Score, and in April, Score and Mills\u2019 attorney announced that the biological parents had been found. The identities of the biological parents, referred to in court documents only as Patient 004, have been kept private. <\/p>\n

The custody agreement will allow Marcereau\u2019s clients to remain in Shea\u2019s life, he said.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

They care deeply about the baby and would have preferred to keep her as their own, Marcereau said, but it \u201cwould have been an incredibly uphill legal battle, and they just didn\u2019t feel that that was going to be what was in the best interest of Shea.\u201d<\/p>\n

The decision came after several meetings with the birth parents, at which they shared \u201ca lot of tears and hugs,\u201d Marcereau said.<\/p>\n

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Score and Mills, who are white, pursued genetic testing on Shea because their baby \u201cdisplayed the physical appearance of a racially non-Caucasian child,\u201d according to their lawsuit. The testing revealed Shea was 100% South Asian, their attorney, Mara Hatfield, has said.<\/p>\n

In a statement this week, Hatfield said Score and Mills have \u201cbegun and intend to continue to foster a relationship of friendship and trust\u201d with Shea\u2019s biological parents.<\/p>\n

The clinic, which has since closed, did not respond to a request for comment regarding news of the custody agreement. <\/p>\n

The extraordinary case has put a spotlight on IVF in the U.S., which experts say lacks oversight compared with other developed countries. Still, there is little precedent for such an extreme mistake: Embryo mix-ups are known to have happened to only a handful of families across the U.S.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Score and Mills\u2019 lawsuit names both the fertility center and its lead reproductive endocrinologist, Dr. Milton McNichol, as defendants. The defendants have not disputed that Shea \u201cshould be, but is not, the genetic child\u201d of the plaintiffs, according to a judge\u2019s summary in court filings. McNichol did not respond to a request for comment this week.<\/p>\n

Shea\u2019s biological parents intend to sue the clinic and the doctor, Marcereau said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey have been placed in such a difficult situation that no one should be placed in, and the decision they have been forced to make has just been agonizing,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just inexcusable.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The parents are trying to navigate an \u201cabsolutely impossible situation,\u201d the lawyer said. The custody agreement allows them to remain in the baby\u2019s life, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBiological parents of baby in embryo mix-up made \u2018heartbreaking decision\u2019 not to fight for custody, attorney says - Trusted Moving Group<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=1402\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Biological parents of baby in embryo mix-up made \u2018heartbreaking decision\u2019 not to fight for custody, attorney says - Trusted Moving Group\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The parents are trying to navigate an \u201cabsolutely impossible situation,\u201d the lawyer said. 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