US Couple Races Against Time After IVF Clinic Implanted the Wrong Embryo in a Devastating Mix-Up

• Score and Mills have bonded with baby Shea, but live in constant fear that her biological parents could seek custody at any moment
• More than a dozen families have come forward since the lawsuit broke, with many wondering if the children they are raising are truly theirs
• The couple’s own embryos remain unaccounted for, and their attorney says a biological child of theirs could be living in someone else’s home

A US couple had a dream of starting a family, but it all turned into a legal battle that they never saw coming their way.

Tiffany Score and Steven Mills welcomed their daughter on 11 December 2025, or so they thought. Something was not right from the very beginning.

Mills and Score, who are both white, noticed that the child did not look anything like either of them. The couple had previously undergone an IVF treatment at a fertility centre in Florida. This practice belonged to Dr Milton McNichol. Genetic testing confirmed that baby Shea was not their child. Jack Scarola, who is the couple’s attorney, now leads the charge to find the real parents of the baby. He also aims to track down what exactly happened to the embryos belonging to the couple.

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A doctor’s catastrophic error

The couple had been clients of the clinic for about five years. Their embryos, one male and two female, were created using Score’s eggs and Mills’s seminal fluid. An embryo was implanted in April 2025, and Shea was born that December.

Court filings alleged that the clinic used a chaotic, handwritten labelling system on the tiny straws used to store embryos. This is a practice that, if true, would amount to a stunning failure of basic medical care.

IVF mix-ups of this kind are rare but not unheard of. In 1999, a similar case in New York led to a legal battle. A clinic implanted the wrong embryo in a woman, and it resulted in her giving birth to twins of a different race.

More families step forward

More than a dozen people have come forward since the lawsuit broke out. Scarola said that many families believe that they may be connected to Shea genetically.

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A judge ordered the clinic to contact all the patients who underwent embryo transfers in April 2025. A couple from that group is expecting DNA results by the first week of this month. Another group of 20 will be tested.

Lawyers for the clinic and McNichol have argued that federal health privacy law prevents them from disclosing patient information without written consent. According to a report by People, both sides have so far declined to comment publicly on the matter.

See the full report from People here:

Every day counts

Score and Mills will continue parenting until the matter is resolved. Scarola said the couple have bonded with Shea, who has already celebrated her two-month birthday. Score’s sister Alexa set up a GoFundMe to help cover the costs of the legal battle, past medical bills, and a potential future IVF cycle using eggs Score froze at a different clinic seven years ago.

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Source: Briefly News