The couple at the center of an embryo mix-up case involving a Seminole County fertility clinic will raise the baby girl the woman gave birth to in December, according to an agreement they have reached with the genetic parents.
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A status hearing scheduled for 3:15 p.m. today before Circuit Judge Margaret Schreiber could reveal more details about the agreement between the two couples.
According to the “mutually devised custody agreement,” Steven Mills and Tiffany Score will “continue as the permanent custodial parents of their daughter.”
In April, Mills and Score announced they had learned the identity of their daughter’s biological parents and made it clear, as they have since their case became national news, that they wished to continue raising the baby girl.
But at that time it was not clear if the other couple would try to seek custody, and their rights to do so were murky under Florida law.
The identity of the genetic parents of the six-month old girl is being kept private, according to the document filed in Orange County court on Friday by attorney Mara Hatfield, who represents Mills and Score.
Score and Mills used the Longwood-based Fertility Center of Orlando for in-vitro fertilization to become parents. But soon after Score gave birth. the couple realized that their baby girl was not their biological child given that she is of another race.
They said they loved their baby and wanted to continue to raise her but also sued the clinic, seeking to find the child’s biological parents and to learn the fate of their embryos frozen at the facility.
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The fertility clinic later admitted that Score had been implanted with an embryo from another couple — that mother was known as Patient 004 — not with one created with her egg and Mills’ sperm.
As a result of a lawsuit filed by Score and Mills, the clinic conducted extensive DNA testing of other embryos created at the same time as Score’s and Mills’.
Patient 004 was identified this year as the biological mother of the girl, primarily because she was the clinic’s only other patient in March 2020, when Score and Mills had embryos created and frozen at the clinic.
The two couples have met in person in recent weeks to discuss their next steps, including who should receive custody of the girl.
Also, according to Friday’s court document, Score and Mills have secured another fertility center to receive the couple’s remaining frozen embryo from the Fertility Center of Orlando.
“That embryo will be tested for parentage and then the Plaintiffs [Score and Mills] will determine next steps,” Hatfield stated in the court document.
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