An IVF mixup of babies

 Here are the stories, from the Guardian, and the NY Times:

Guardian:

California women gave birth to each other’s babies after IVF mix-up. Couples to sue clinic after raising girls for months that were not theirs, says lawsuit, before babies were swapped back

"Two California couples gave birth to each other’s babies after a mix-up at a fertility clinic and spent months raising children that were not theirs before swapping the infants, according to a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles.

"Daphna Cardinale said she and her husband, Alexander, had immediate suspicions that the girl she gave birth to in late 2019 was not theirs due to the child’s darker complexion.

"They suppressed their doubts because they fell in love with the baby and trusted the in vitro fertilisation process and their doctors, she said. Learning months later that she had been pregnant with another couple’s baby, and that another woman had been carrying her child, caused enduring trauma, she said.

...

"The two other parents involved in the alleged mix-up wish to remain anonymous and plan a similar lawsuit in the coming days, according to the attorney Adam Wolf, who represents all four parents.

"The lawsuit claims CCRH mistakenly implanted the other couple’s embryo into Daphna and transferred the Cardinales’ embryo – made from Daphna’s egg and Alexander’s sperm – into the other woman.

"The babies, both girls, were born a week apart in September 2019. Both couples unwittingly raised the wrong child for nearly three months before DNA tests confirmed that the embryos were swapped, according to the filing.

“The Cardinales, including their young daughter, fell in love with this child, and were terrified she would be taken away from them,” the complaint says. “All the while, Alexander and Daphna did not know the whereabouts of their own embryo, and thus were terrified that another woman had been pregnant with their child – and their child was out in the world somewhere without them.”

"The babies were swapped back in January 2020.

"Mix-ups like this are exceedingly rare, but not unprecedented. In 2019, a couple from Glendale, California, sued a separate fertility clinic, claiming their embryo was mistakenly implanted in a New York woman, who gave birth to their son as well as a second boy belonging to another couple.

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NY Times:

‘We Had Their Baby, and They Had Our Baby’: Couple Sues Over Embryo ‘Mix-Up’  Daphna and Alexander Cardinale, the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against a Los Angeles-area fertility clinic, say they endured a painful custody exchange after DNA testing.  By Neil Vigdor

...

"Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane & Conway, the law firm representing the Cardinales, estimated that the couple had paid $50,000 to the fertility clinic for the treatments.

...

"Mr. Cardinale, 41, said during the news conference on Monday that the most upsetting aspect of the ordeal had been breaking the news to the couple’s older daughter, who begged her parents to keep the baby.

“How do you explain that to a 5-year-old?” Mr. Cardinale said."