After DNA testing proved that the girl they raised for months was the biological child of complete strangers, a Los Angeles couple filed a lawsuit against their IVF facility and physician.
During a virtual press conference on Monday, Daphna and Alexander Cardinale, along with their attorney, Adam Wolf of Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane & Conway, revealed the horror they’ve gone through. The couple said they started the IVF process with Eliran Mor, MD, at the California Center for Reproductive Health (CCRH) in order to conceive a second child. The Cardinales and another family they’d never met had to trade newborn daughters months after their 2019 births owing to an alleged embryo mix-up.
“It’s not easy to talk about this,” Daphna said during the news conference, “but we realize how vital it is to share our experience so that this never happens again.”
Daphna gave birth to her first child in September of this year. Something didn’t seem quite right immediately.
According to the couple’s complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Alexander was taken aback by his daughter’s appearance. The infant girl had substantially darker skin and jet-black hair than the rest of the family. Alexander’s sentiments of befuddlement and discomfort grew worse with time.
“Alexander was so unhappy that he would remain up at night staring at their newborn child, unsure if she was genuinely theirs,” according to the complaint. “When Daphna found out, she demanded that they undergo the DNA test, expecting the findings to put everyone’s minds at ease.”
That, however, was not the case. According to the allegation, the daughter they delivered was not linked to either of them.
Daphna and Alexander eventually contacted an attorney, who contacted CCRH and Mor. CCRH believed the embryos had been jumbled up when an embryology lab obtained biopsies to send in for genetic testing, according to the attorney, who contacted the Tuesday after Thanksgiving in 2019. The lab and its parent firm, which is claimed to be owned by Mor, are also named as defendants in the Cardinales’ complaint.
According to the lawsuit, Daphna was surgically implanted against her will or knowledge with strangers’ sperm and eggs, and the Cardinales’ embryo was transferred to them several weeks later.
The next three months were a “non-stop misery for Daphna and Alexander” after the revelation, according to the complaint. “At a time when they should have been celebrating and documenting their newborn’s latest achievements and milestones, they instead spent days talking to attorneys and sleepless nights worrying about their family being torn apart.”
Worse, according to the complaint, the Cardinales’ 5-year-old daughter was “connecting and falling deeper in love” with the sibling she’d always wanted.
CCRH purportedly located a couple who were perhaps the biological parents of the Cardinales’ daughter around the same time, and more genetic testing was arranged.
The Cardinales learned eight days later, on Christmas Eve, that the tests had confirmed that the Cardinales had given birth to couple two’s child, and vice versa, according to the complaint.
According to the complaint, the couple met at a law office shortly after and held their biological children for the first time days later.
According to the complaint, the spouses continued to meet nearly every day to spend time with one another and switch the babies for brief visits. “Every day was a challenge for both the adults and their children.”
The parents decided that “the frequent switching was just too harsh emotionally, especially on the older children, and the newborns would stay in their new homes for good” after the kids’ first overnight stays on Jan. 16, 2020, according to the complaint. “After the transition, life became quite difficult.”
The spouses had to turn to the judicial system to secure legal custody of their own children, despite “the beautiful vision of parenthood offered by [the] defendants,” according to the complaint. “To formalize the transaction, they signed long gestational carrier contracts.”
During a press conference on Monday, Alexander described the exchange as “heartbreaking.” He and his wife thought they were seeking help from “a very professional industry,” and that they had no idea something like what they’d gone through could happen.
Daphna claimed there’s “no way to convey the suffering” her family has gone through. They continue to see mental health doctors for trauma, she added.
“Fertility disasters are becoming increasingly regular,” the Cardinales’ counsel, Wolf, said. “There is a dire need for regulation in this industry.”
The Cardinales are suing for emotional distress, as well as compensatory and property losses, as well as additional expenses. A jury trial was also requested in their claim.
CCRH did not respond to a request for comment right away, and Mor could not be reached.