The biological parents of a baby born to another couple due to an embryo mix-up in Florida are doing their best to navigate an “absolutely impossible situation,” their attorney said.Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.Speaking days after the biological parents reached an agreement that allows the child’s 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.“They are heartbroken over what has happened, and they also understand that the birth couple are also suffering,” Marcereau said.
“They had to make the heartbreaking decision to not fight for custody.”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 earlier this year after testing revealed that Shea was not genetically related to either of them.Tiffany Score and Steven Mills with their baby, Shea.Courtesy of family attorney via WESHThe revelation prompted a search for the couple whose embryo had been mistakenly implanted into Score, and in April, Score and Mills’ attorney announced that the biological parents had been found.
Referred to in court documents only as Patient 004, the biological parents’ identities have been kept private.The custody agreement will allow Marcereau’s clients to remain in Shea’s life, he said.They care deeply about the baby and would have preferred to keep her as their own, Marcereau said, but it “would have been an incredibly uphill legal battle, and they just didn’t feel that that was going to be what was in the best interest of Shea.”That decision came after several meetings with the birth parents, where they shared “a lot of tears and hugs,” Marcereau said.Score and Mills, who are both white, pursued genetic testing...