A Florida couple has filed a lawsuit against an IVF clinic after learning the baby they carried, delivered, and brought home was not genetically theirs — a revelation that began with what should have been a tightly controlled medical process and ended in a nightmare no parent expects.
The Florida couple, Tiffany Score and Steven Mills, underwent in-vitro fertilization, a procedure in which a woman’s eggs and a man’s sperm are fertilized outside the body to create embryos that are frozen and stored until implantation. Their embryo transfer took place in April, using embryos they were assured had been properly handled and safeguarded.
Nine months later, they welcomed a baby girl. Almost immediately, the lawsuit says, troubling questions surfaced. Both parents are white, but the child had what the filing describes as the appearance of a racially non-Caucasian baby, raising fears that a grave error had occurred inside the lab.
NEW: Florida couple sues fertility clinic after embryo mix-up leads to birth of child who is not biologically theirs
Steven Mills and Tiffany Score fear at least one of their embryos, created in 2020 and frozen at a fertility clinic, was mistakenly implanted in another woman… pic.twitter.com/PtKUFFEr1G
— Unlimited L’s (@unlimited_ls) January 30, 2026
Those suspicions led to genetic testing, which allegedly confirmed the unthinkable: the embryo implanted was not theirs. The parenting lawsuit accuses IVF Life, which operates as the Fertility Center of Orlando in Longwood, of implanting the wrong embryo and allowing the mother to unknowingly carry another couple’s child.
By the time the truth emerged, the emotional damage was irreversible. The Florida mother had endured pregnancy, labor, and childbirth, and both parents had bonded deeply with the baby they believed was their own.
“They have fallen in love with this child,” attorney 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.”
The Florida lawsuit goes further, alleging the mistake may not have been isolated. The couple fears that one of the three embryos they had frozen at the clinic could have been mistakenly implanted into another patient, meaning their biological child may be living elsewhere without their knowledge.
As a result, they are demanding the Florida clinic fully disclose what went wrong and notify all patients who had embryos stored at the facility during the year before the birth. They are also seeking to compel the clinic to pay for genetic testing of every child born through its services over the past five years.
FLORIDA COUPLE SUE FERTILIZATION CLINIC AFTER DELIVERING A NON-WHITE BABY
Tiffany Score and Steven Mills were over the moon when they found out they were having a child. However this quickly turned to sadness when they realised the baby is not genetically related to either of… pic.twitter.com/dj4uhW8THz
— James Goddard (@JamesPGoddard90) January 30, 2026
The complaint accuses the clinic of negligence, breach of contract, and infliction of severe emotional distress, arguing that basic safeguards meant to prevent embryo mix-ups failed catastrophically.
Concerns about oversight at the Florida clinic are not new. Near the end of the lawsuit, attorneys point to the professional history of the clinic’s medical director, Dr. Mark McNichol. He was reprimanded by Florida’s Board of Medicine in May 2024 following a June 2023 inspection that uncovered multiple deficiencies at the facility.
According to records, Florida inspectors found equipment that failed to meet current performance standards, lapses in required risk-management protocols, and missing medications. McNichol was fined $5,000 over the violations, adding another layer of scrutiny to the clinic now facing the explosive lawsuit. The clinic has not publicly responded to the allegations.
For the IVF couple, the case is about more than compensation. Court filings describe a permanent emotional toll and a lingering fear that the child they love could be taken from them at any moment — all because of what they say was a preventable and devastating medical error.
