US woman sues after carrying wrong baby in IVF error

A US woman who unknowingly carried and delivered a baby boy who was not biologically hers is launching legal proceedings against an IVF clinic over the mix-up, after being forced to give up custody.

Krystena Murray, from the state of Georgia, became pregnant after IVF treatment at the Coastal Fertility clinic in May 2023.

But it became clear that the embryo she had been carrying in fact belonged to another couple - after Ms Murray gave birth to a boy who was of a different ethnicity to both her and the sperm donor she had chosen.

Despite the error, Ms Murray wanted to keep the child, and raised the baby for several months until the biological parents were granted custody.

In a statement released through her lawyer, Ms Murray said: "To carry a baby, fall in love with him, deliver him, and build the uniquely special bond between mother and baby, all to have him taken away. I'll never fully recover from this."

Ms Murray, a white woman, gave birth to a black baby in December 2023. She never posted photos of the child online or allowed her friends and family to see him.

She eventually purchased an at-home DNA kit, and the test results she received in late January 2024 confirmed they were not biologically related, according to the complaint filed against the clinic.

She informed the clinic about the mix-up the following month. It alerted the biological parents, who sued for custody when the baby was three months old.

Ms Murray voluntarily gave up custody after being told by her legal team she stood no chance of winning in family court. The baby now lives with his biological parents in another state under a different name.

The complaint says to this day Ms Murray does not know whether the clinic, Coastal Fertility Specialists, mistakenly transferred her embryo to a different couple, or what might have happened to it afterwards.

In a statement to CBS News, the BBC's US partner, Coastal Fertility acknowledged the mistake and apologised for the distress that was caused.

"This was an isolated event with no further patients affected," the statement said. "The same day this error was discovered we immediately conducted an in-depth review and put additional safeguards in place to further protect patients and to ensure that such an incident does not happen again."

There have been several lawsuits in recent years brought against US fertility clinics over IVF mix-ups.

IVF is a procedure during which a woman's eggs are fertilised by a man's sperm in a laboratory before the embryos are implanted into a woman's uterus.