Mum forced to hand over twin babies after 'heartbreaking' IVF mix-up

A couple who struggled with infertility for years are now the victims of a devastating IVF mix up.

The couple from New York - identified in court papers only as Y.Z. and A.P - enlisted a Los Angeles fertility clinic to help them get pregnant after countless failed insemination attempts.

According to the New York Post, the clinic run by Dr Joshua Berger and co-owner Simon Hong promised they were a "mecca of reproductive medicine" and that they had successfully "fulfilled the dreams of tens of thousands of aspiring parents from Southern California and beyond in over 22 countries."

Reassured, the couple underwent a months-long regimen of medicines, vitamins, tests and procedures that got them eight embryos.

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According to the couple, they spent over US$100,000 on the facility, specialist and doctors' fees, medication, lab expenses and travel costs.

Last July they attempted to have the first embryo implanted, but it didn't work.

A month later they tried again with two female embryos. The procedure worked, and A.P fell pregnant.

While the couple assumed they were pregnant with twin girls, ultrasound technicians told them their sonograms showed twin boys.

Berger and Hong reportedly "dismissed" the sonograms, assuring the couple they are "not a definitive test," that they were definitely having twin girls and that nothing was wrong".

Berger then told the parents-to-be that when his wife was pregnant she had been told she was carrying a boy, only to have her give birth to a girl.

In March 2019, A.P gave birth to the twins via cesarean section. They were boys, and neither shared the couple's Asian ethnicity.

Genetic testing also revealed the baby boys were not even genetically related to each other.

Heartbroken, Y.Z. and A.P. were then forced to give custody of each infant to their respective biological parents, who were fellow clients of Berger and Hong.

According to their legal claim, the experience of carrying and delivering the babies only to hand them to their real parents has left the couple with "permanent emotional injuries from which they will not recover."

To this day, the couple also still don't know what happened to their two female embryos.

This article was first published on the NZ Herald and is republished here with permission.