Seminole County Fertility Clinic Sued Again After Surrogate Baby Dies

A woman identified in court records only as "Jane Doe" was hired by the Fertility Center of Orlando as a surrogate for a separate couple in 2024. The baby she carried was born with severe birth defects and died within days. Now a lawsuit is pressing the Longwood clinic for answers it has not yet provided publicly.

The lawsuit claims the clinic implanted an embryo carrying thanatophoric dysplasia, a severe genetic anomaly that affects the unborn baby's bones and lungs, and is "incompatible with life." The baby died 10 days after being born. Most affected infants die of respiratory insufficiency shortly after birth.

Per the lawsuit, Doe argues the clinic should have been aware of the increased risks and psychological pressures imposed on a surrogate who carries a fetus with birth defects. The suit goes further, challenging whether Doe should have been cleared as a surrogate at all. The lawsuit says the intended parents are also at fault for convincing Doe to act as their surrogate, and the suit accuses the clinic and the intended parents of negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress, demanding a jury trial to settle the matter.

Court records detail what the lawsuit describes as the clinic's failure to properly evaluate Doe before proceeding. The filing alleges Doe had a long history of mental illness, including alcohol abuse, bipolar disorder and poor impulse control, and asserts she "did not have the capacity to consent to the IVF process." The surrogate was also a relative of one of the biological parents, according to the lawsuit, which further alleges the intended parents knew she was psychologically unfit and exploited her difficult financial circumstances. The suit claims the intended parents agreed to pay Doe a certain sum for the surrogacy but only partially paid her.

Once an FGFR3 pathogenic variant has been identified in an affected family member, prenatal and preimplantation genetic testing for thanatophoric dysplasia are possible. Preimplantation genetic testing examines embryos during IVF before possible transfer to a woman's uterus for a range of genetic problems that can cause implantation failure, miscarriage and birth defects in a resulting child. The lawsuit alleges the Fertility Center of Orlando proceeded with the embryo transfer despite knowing the defect was present.

This marks the second time the Seminole County facility has been sued this year. In January, another woman gave birth to a child that shared no genetic relation to her or her husband, an incident also attributed to errors at the facility. That case has its own significant details: Steven Mills and Tiffany Score feared that at least one of their own embryos, cryogenically frozen in 2020, may have been erroneously implanted in another woman. The pair filed a lawsuit against IVF Life Inc., which operates as the Fertility Center of Orlando, and Dr. Milton McNichol, who leads the center. An emergency motion in that case identifies two potential windows when the mix-up could have occurred: March 26, 2020, the date of the egg retrieval, and April 5, 2025, when Dr. McNichol transferred the embryos.

The Fertility Center of Orlando has addressed the previous error in public statements, with clinic officials saying they are currently working to locate the biological parents of the child born in January. The clinic has not issued a public statement in response to the new surrogacy lawsuit.

There is notably no federal regulation of IVF in the United States to prevent mix-ups, and there is also no federal mandate requiring U.S. clinics to report such incidents. For the Fertility Center of Orlando in Longwood, the absence of that regulatory backstop now means two families are making their cases in court instead.