This couple must be devastated. The IVF process requires the saving of multiple embryos. It's a real pity the in this case the system is playing by the book and not covering up the mistake. Everyone would be better off if they didn't know the wrong embryo was implanted.
Pregnant mother Carolyn Savage must give up baby after IVF blunderBy staff writers
NEWS.com.au
September 23, 2009 12:01am
* Wrong embryo implanted in mother
* Has to give up baby to biological parents
* Didn't want abortion due to religious beliefs
A PREGNANT mother will have to deliver another couple's baby after a heartbreaking blunder by an IVF clinic.
The wrong embryos were implanted in Carolyn Savage and she will have to give the boy up to his biological parents as soon as he is born.
Mrs Savage, 40, thought she was expecting her fourth child with husband Sean, The Daily Mail reports.
"The hardest part is going to be the delivery. I remember communicating with the (unnamed) mother of this child as to what I was envisioning and hoping for," she said yesterday.
"I said, 'We want a moment to say hello and goodbye'."
Mrs Savage, from Ohio, is 35 weeks pregnant. The couple already have two sons, aged 15 and 12, and a daughter - born with the help of IVF - who is 18 months.
Mrs Savage learned she was pregnant with a boy in February after deciding to try again with the last of her frozen embryos.
They learned about the mix-up when Mr Savage received a phone call at work.
"I was upstairs in my bedroom and (my husband) came to the door and said, 'I have some really bad news'," Mrs Savage said.
"You're pregnant," he told her, "but they transferred the wrong embryo."
Mrs Savage said she just kept repeating: "You're joking." But when she looked at her husband "he was as white as a sheet".
The couple decided not to have an abortion because of their religious beliefs and have met the other couple and arranged a handover.
"We will wonder about this child every day for the rest of our lives," Mrs Savage said.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26113428-36398,00.html
