Non-Bio Child - your thoughts?

[DoubleShotEspressox]

Apologies for the rag link but this story has cropped up a few times for me and it’s finally reached an outcome.

In a nutshell, couple in the US were wrongly implanted with an embryo that wasn’t theirs during IVF. Discovered when a black baby was born to white parents.

The biological parents are aware and have decided not to pursue a lengthy and expensive court battle for their biological child. Leaving the baby with the mother who gave birth to her. Allegedly the laws in their state highly favour the birth parent and it’s unlikely they would have won.

Honestly, thank God I’ll never find myself in this situation because I’ll have no idea what side of the fence I’ll sit on. On one hand, I couldn’t leave a child that is 100% biologically mine to someone else, but on the other, the second mother went through the entire pregnancy and birth to have her, through no fault of her own.

Awful situation for everyone.

https://mol.im/a/15911703

And the couple have no idea where their original embryos are - if they were wrongly implanted into someone else, destroyed or still frozen.

The mother is the one who carried and gave birth to the baby.

If it was an egg or sperm donation, no one would say that she should hand the baby over to the person that made the donation.

It is awful and I feel for all of them.

It’s an interesting one because on the whole I agree - but neither of the birth parents are biologically linked in this scenario.
And the biological parents obviously wanted a baby to go through the entire IVF process.

The nuance with donation is, generally speaking, the donor knows the outcome will be that baby is for someone else.

Oh what an awful situation. Like you say I can’t imagine not fighting for my child. But I appreciate/ hope they are considering the child’s needs as the priority. It will be hard to find age appropriate ways to explain this to the child when she is young.

The mother is the woman who spent nine months creating the baby from the resources of her own body and who then gave birth to it. It would be inhumane to try to take the baby away from the only mother it knows, and for the mother to have her baby taken away from her.

The resolution that both sets of parents seem to have come to makes the most sense, so that the baby can know both sets of people involved in their creation and birth. Better to do that by building relationships than by court enforced contact or court enforced changes to custody arrangements.

It's a very difficult situation, but people seem to be centering the adults here. This child is not only not related genetically to the 'parents' but is a completely different race. We know from adoption studies in the west that this has a negative impact on the child.

I can’t imagine not fighting for my biological child. But looking at the best interests of the child she probably is better staying with her birth parents (as in the mother who gave birth to her), they love her and have bonded.
A kind of access arrangement would probably be best so the child gets to keep in touch with her biological family which will probably be more important as she grows up

I agree , I think the child being a different race does change things and would think being with their biological parents in the long run is what is best for the child. I imagine when they get older they will naturally gravitate more to them anyway. It wasn’t like it was years down the line when they discovered the mistake , they knew the minute the child was born. Horrendous all round but I think they child should have been returned

The bio parents have understandably kept their cards close to their chest and chosen not to be identified for the sake of the child.

We don’t know a huge amount about them but I can’t help but wonder if they did go on to have their own children, or are still childless, having paid out and gone through IVF and their bio baby is out in the world. It’s really heart wrenching.

I think one of the lawyer statements said that the bio parents would continue to have contact with the child. Not easy, but hopefully they can all make it work for the child’s sake.

What an astronomical fuck up on this clinic’s part. I didn’t click on the link but I hope both parties are suing.

I have no idea where I sit on this because both parties will be emotionally distraught.

It’s also going to be fucking tough for this child growing up if they stay with their birth parents because you cannot ignore the fact that they are a different race. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that whatsoever, but because of someone’s incompetence kids and adults their entire life will be asking if they were adopted, or ask about the detail of their birth. There will be staring and whispering.

Also hideous for the birth parents that one of their embryos they thought was stored is unaccounted for. So they may find themselves on the opposite side with a biological child born to another couple - or may spend years wondering if that has happened and not knowing if they have a biological child out there.

We also know that there is damage removing a birthed child from the birthing mother.

I wonder how frequent this actually is but you would never think to look in to because it’s not so obvious (race wise).

@WhatAMarvelousTune Fucking terrifying really isn’t it. I’ve never had IVF but surely that’s like not knowing where your baby is?!

@TY78910 Imagine that when you’re starting school or joining clubs, meeting new people as a child - you’re black but your parents are both white - oh yes my mum did actually give birth to me but a doctor put the wrong baby in her tummy.

@DoubleShotEspressox

Its a badly written article but Steve IS the biological father...

The fertility clinic has admitted that they had implanted the wrong embryo, as testing showed Steven's sperm was mixed with an egg from another woman and Shea is 100 percent South Asian.

So its biologically his child and his wofe carried the baby.

I get why they dont want to "give the baby away"
Given the mother's probable age (based on the photos) time wasnt on their side either

It's a black mirror-esque nightmare.
Absolutely horrific situation all round with no winners irrespective of outcome

It's very unclear from the linked article. For example, this sentence makes no sense:

"The fertility clinic has admitted that they had implanted the wrong embryo, as testing showed Steven's sperm was mixed with an egg from another woman and Shea is 100 percent South Asian."

If Steven is the biological father then baby Shea can't be "100 percent South Asian".

The Guardian has a clearer article, where it says that genetic testing shows that baby Shea is not genetically related to either Tiffany Score or Steven Mills.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/17/florida-couple-wrong-embryo-permanent-custody

It's a difficult situation all round with no ideal outcome, but I think the outcome reached is probably the least worst as I cannot imagine a world in which people would be ok with a baby being removed from the mother who had given birth to her, cared for her and bonded with her without there being significant concerns for the welfare of the child. That would just be cruel beyond words to the mother and baby.

Yes, the racial element makes it difficult for many reasons and there may be issues for both the parents and child going forward, but imo it's important to recognise that while, when a child is being placed for adoption, a great deal of emphasis is rightly put on whether the child can be matched with a family who share their racial/ethnic background, this is only one (admittedly significant) factor that feeds into the decision of what is in the best interests of the child. It is not the overriding consideration as to what is best for the child, and in this case would have to be weighed against the harm of a tiny baby being snatched away from their birth mother with whom they've established an emotional and physical bond. The compromise solution, which seems to be the one reached by the parties involved, is to leave the child with the birth parents but find ways to help the child connect with her biological identity while growing up, though I imagine it won't be easy.

The poor child.

It's not the overriding consideration in adoption simply because there is such a lack of potential adopters. Guidelines state that the child should matched with a family that it is plausible they came from, but obviously due to shortages of potential families and high number of non shite children, this is impossible.

Absolutely, but the bar for adopting children is much higher than for children remaining with their birth parents, certainly in the UK but presumably in the US as well.

Children in the UK can only be removed from their parents if there is a risk of significant harm or neglect, whereas prospective adopters are subject to much more stringent criteria. Assuming the situation is broadly similar in the US, it's unclear what basis there would be for removing a child in this situation, given that being of a different race/ethnicity isn't considered harmful enough to be an absolute bar to adoption. What would be the argument for removing a child from those legally deemed to be their 'parents'?

This is why these practices are condemned by certain authorities. Human life shouldn't be messed about with in this way.

I kinda hope that most children aren’t shite ;)

I know it’s a typo but it’s admit to a double take over it.

Definitely a typo, I'm laughing though at the thought of social workers advertising the non shite children at adoption recruitment days 😅