Savannah, Ga., A Georgia woman sued a fertility clinic after an in-vitro fertilization (IVF), which allegedly led to employees implanting the wrong embryo and giving birth to it that gave birth to the biological child of another couple.
The 38 -year -old Krystena Murray from Savannah said she chose a sperm donor who looked like “with dirty blond hair and blue eyes”. She became pregnant and gave a baby to the lawsuit in December 2023.
Murray, who white and who had a white sperm dispenser after the complaint, was shocked when she gave birth to and the baby she owned was African American, the lawsuit said.
Murray connected to the baby and wanted to keep it, although he knew that the clinic, the coastal fertility specialists (CFS), had probably implanted someone else's embryo.
She asked a DNA test that confirmed her fears that the baby was not genetically related to her. When Murray contacted the clinic, the staff alerted the baby's biological parents according to the lawsuit.
The other couple sued Murray for custody, and she turned the baby around five months after the birth. She said she hadn't seen him since then.
“I asked first if I should be a mother because I had tried so long,” she told ABC News. “This is something that actually happens and it is devastating and can ruin and realize the life of a person and realize that it is an actual possibility.”
On Tuesday afternoon, a lawsuit was filed at the Catham County State Court in Georgia.
Murray said she dreamed of being a mother. When she was asked what she wanted to be at a young age, her answer was: a mother.
“She actually referred to her career, but my young mind, I wanted to start with my life, was a mother,” she said. “I spent the majority of my recent years with the fact that I had to have the perfect person or the spouse to start a family, and when I got older I realized that my priorities changed, and I wanted to be a mother sooner than later.”
About 18 months before contact with CFS, she said that she tried without success intrauterine insemination. During a press conference on Tuesday, Murray said that she contacted CFS at the end of 2022 or early 2023, which was operating clinics in Georgia and South Carolina.
For several months, Murray said that she had participated in many appointments that included follow-up exams and blood tests. She also underwent a period of two weeks a day to stimulate the ovaries to increase egg production, the lawsuit says.
Murray went through an egg retrieval surgery and became pregnant during her second transfer in May 2023, she said. It gave birth to at the end of December 2023.
“The first time I saw my son, like every mother, he was beautiful and literally the best I've ever seen, but it was immediately obvious that he was African American,” said Murray during the press conference. “I would like to say my first thought is: 'He is beautiful.' My second thought was: “What happened? It was all in the course of the first 10 or 15 seconds when I saw him. “
Murray said she loved the baby and connected to him, breastfeeding and brought it to the doctors, but she knew that the clinic had somehow made a mistake.
She bought a DNA test at home and received results at the end of January 2024, which confirmed that the baby was not genetically related to her, according to the lawsuit.
Murray's lawyers turned to CFS in February 2024 to share Murray's fears, the lawsuit said. In March 2024, the clinic recognized its mistake and turned to the biological parents to inform them that their embryo had been transferred to Murray according to the lawsuit.
The biological parents sued Murray for custody for the child. Another DNA test confirmed that the baby was genetically related to them, the lawsuit said.
Murray said she wanted to keep the baby and hired a family law lawyer, but after an “enormous amount of money and time”, they told her that she would probably lose her case.
During a hearing from the family court in May 2024, Murray said that she voluntarily handed over the baby to the other couple and lasted the last time she saw it.
See also: Trump signs new instructions, including one to make fertility treatments “more affordable”.
Murray said it was “the most difficult day of my life” to hand it over to his biological parents.
“I think of him every day. There is no day when I don't wonder what he is doing,” she told ABC News. “I raised him for five months, but I didn't see his first steps. I don't know what his first words are. I don't know what milestones he strikes.”
“I am not inaugurated in the kind of person he becomes or how he grows and develops, and it is very difficult, and I think of him every day and wonder how he is doing,” she added.
According to her lawsuit, Murray said she did not know what happened to her own embryo, regardless of whether it was incorrectly transferred to another couple or led to pregnancy.
Murray said the trial made her question of motherhood, but she said she was currently being treated in another clinic and hope that she can soon be a mother.
Your lawsuit against CFS and some of his employees was given by the Pefer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise law firm for negligence, gross negligence, deposit, violation of the trust, fraudulent covering, battery, battery, lack of declaration of consent, violations of the Georgia Fair Business Practices Act and violations of the unspering from Georgia and the law on the recurrence of the Georgia Fair Practice submitted.
The lawyers apply for a judgment of more than $ 75,000 as well as a substitute for punishment, recovered attorney fees, compensation and all other costs. CFS did not immediately answer the request from ABC News for comment.
Murray's lawyer, Adam Wolf, said that he represented more than 1,000 people against fertility clinics, since errors were supposedly occurred during their treatments. He described Murray's experience as a “wildest fear” of a patient.
“After 13 years, when you go to a fertility clinic, there is a risk that you may not get as many eggs as you hoped to create or create as many embryos as you wanted,” he told ABC News. “You could get out of this process without having embryos. But what you never think in your wildest fear is that your fertility clinic will be transferred to you an embryo that belongs to someone else. This is beyond pale and should never happen in a fertility clinic.”
He hopes this CFS to change its processes and procedures so that such a mistake does not occur again and that further protective measures are set up throughout the fertility industry.
Murray said she hoped to raise more awareness by sharing their history and making other patients know something similar that they are not alone.
“You are not alone and use your voice. Don't let yourself be silenced,” she said. “I have the feeling that if we do not come forward and do not say our truth and we do not share our experiences, then there will never be changes, and this will only be a repetitive cycle. And use your voice, if not for you because we cannot change the situation in which we are in ourselves, then do it for someone else.”
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