A Florida couple has filed a lawsuit against an IVF clinic after a mix-up led to them giving birth to a child who is not biologically theirs.
Five years ago, Tiffany Score and Steven Mills turned to IVF Life, a fertility clinic operating as the Fertility Center of Orlando, in hopes of starting their family, Daily Mail reported.
The couple underwent in vitro fertilization (IVF), a procedure where eggs and sperm are combined outside the body and the resulting embryos are implanted into the woman’s uterus.
After years of anticipation, they welcomed a baby girl in April 2023. But soon they began to notice that their daughter had physical features that did not match their own.
Both Score and Mills are white, but the baby appeared to be "racially non-Caucasian," per the lawsuit cited by News6.
The concerned couple pursued genetic testing, and it confirmed that the baby was not genetically related to them.
This discovery prompted them to file a lawsuit against the clinic on January 22, 2026, after multiple attempts to contact the clinic went unanswered.
"They have fallen in love with this child," one of the couple's lawyers, Jack Scarola, told the Orlando Sentinel. "They would be thrilled in the knowledge that they could raise this child."
"But their concern is that this is someone else’s child, and someone could show up at any time and claim the baby and take that baby away from them," he added.
Legal Action and Emotional Toll
The couple expressed worries that one of their three frozen embryos might have been mistakenly implanted into someone else.
Their lawsuit demands that IVF Life investigate the situation and share information about other patients who may have been affected by errors during the year leading up to their daughter’s birth.
Additionally, they are calling for genetic testing of all children born from the clinic’s services over the past five years and for the clinic to account for its remaining embryos.
The couple stated that they "love [their] little girl,” but added: "We would hope to be able to continue to raise her ourselves with confidence that she won’t be taken away from us."
"At the same time, we are aware that we have a moral obligation to find and notify her biological parents, as it is in her best interest that her genetic parents are provided the option to raise her as their own," they added.
Clinic’s Response and Ongoing Investigation
The clinic, which has yet to cooperate with the investigation fully, briefly addressed the incident in a now-deleted statement on its website.
They acknowledged the error and pledged to support efforts to determine the source of the mistake.
A court hearing last week ordered the clinic to submit a thorough plan to resolve the situation.