Tiffany Score and Steven Mills will keep the baby at the center of the Florida IVF mix-up case after reaching a custody agreement with the child’s biological parents. The agreement, filed Friday and discussed in court Monday, gives the couple permanent custodial rights to their daughter, Shea.
Score and Mills had sued the Fertility Center of Orlando and its lead reproductive endocrinologist in January after learning that Shea was not genetically related to them. After birth, the couple sought genetic testing because the baby appeared to be a racially non-Caucasian child, and the testing showed Shea was 100% South Asian.
Friday filing in Florida
Mara Hatfield wrote in the Friday filing that her clients and Patient 004 had "come to a mutually devised custody agreement" and that the agreement makes Score and Mills the "permanent custodial parents of their daughter." The biological parents were identified in court documents only as Patient 004. Rob Marcereau said Shea’s biological parents intend to remain part of the child’s life and recognized "the impossible situation that both families have been placed in, through no fault of their own."
Judge Margaret Schreiber
On Monday, Circuit Court Judge Margaret Schreiber said, "I’m glad the parties have reached an agreement while this child is relatively young," according to the Orlando Sentinel. That courtroom step narrowed one part of the dispute, but the broader case remains pending while genetic testing continues on a frozen embryo that the clinic said belongs to Score and Mills. That embryo has been moved to a different facility.
Shea and the remaining case
Score and Mills said in their lawsuit that they have an "intensely strong emotional bond" with Shea and that they "love and will be this child’s parents forever." The custody deal leaves that bond intact while the lawsuit over the embryo mix-up continues against the clinic, which announced this spring that it would be closing before another IVF network opened in the same location.
For readers following the case, the immediate result is that Shea stays with the couple who raised her. The open issue now is the frozen embryo and the lawsuit tied to it, which still has to run through the testing the clinic said is underway.
