A US woman has launched legal proceedings against an IVF clinic after she unknowingly carried and gave birth to a baby boy who was not biologically hers, after being implanted with the incorrect embryo. The woman was forced to give up the five-month old infant after the mix-up was discovered.
Krystena Murray, from the State of Georgia, underwent IVF treatment at the Coastal Fertility clinic in May 2023. After a successful pregnancy, she gave birth to a baby on 29 December 2023. The child was African American, and it became apparent that the embryo she had been carrying in fact belonged to another couple.
It is understood Murray, who is white, had chosen a sperm donor who looked similar to her, with blue eyes and dirty blonde hair.
“He was beautiful, and literally, the best thing I’ve ever seen. But it was also immediately apparent that he was African American,” Ms Murray told a media interview.
After delivering the baby, she didn’t know what to do but take care of him – including breast-feeding him and bringing him to doctor’s appointments.
An attorney representing the Georgia woman said that the following months were filled with anxiety, and the new mother never posted photos of the baby online or allowed her friends or family to see him. She eventually bought an at-home DNA kit, with the test results, from late January 2024, confirming what she already knew – according to the legal complaint against Dr. Jeffrey Gray and Coastal Fertility.
On 5 February 2024, Ms Murray contacted the IVF clinic who later told the biological parents of the little boy about what had taken place, according to legal documents. The child was three months old when the couple, who lived in a different state, sued Murray for custody of the baby.
“The child was ultimately taken from me because the clinic had implanted into my womb the embryo from a stranger. I’ve never felt so violated, and this situation has left me emotionally and physically broken,” Murray said.
“I can tell you that carrying a child who is not yours, unknowingly, loving them, creating a whole life for them, birthing them, knowing they’re not yours – loving them anyway – and wanting them, I honestly would have just chosen not to become a mother.”
“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,” she also said through her attorney.
Murray voluntarily have up custody of the child in May 2024, after her family law counsel concluded that she would be unsuccessful in the legal battle. She has not seen the baby since, and is now seeking a jury trial, along with $75,000 in judgment and other damages, according to the lawsuit.
Ms Murray said that the fertility clinic had hurt her in ways she has “yet to discover,” adding: “There are literally no words or unit of measure that can describe the damage.”
Coastal Fertility Specialists told American News outlet NBC that it was “an isolated event” and that it “deeply regrets the distress caused by an unprecedented error.”
The clinic pledged to conduct an in-depth review and to put additional safeguards in place to “further protect patients and to ensure that such an incident does not happen again.”
IVF has been thrown into the spotlight this week, after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to study how to expand the practice. According to the Pew Research Centre, fertility treatments such as IVF have shot up in popularity, up 33 per cent from 2018 to 2023 in the US – with a growing share of the population saying they’ve undergone fertility treatments or know someone who has.
At the same time, a number of high-profile lawsuits like Murray’s have begun to emerge. In New York, a couple said an IVF centre transferred their embryo to a complete stranger, who was a client, and who later gave birth to their biological child, along with another couple’s baby. In the State of Texas, a couple sued another clinic for using the wrong sperm in an IVF procedure.