Nationwide — Tiffany Score and Steven Mills, a white couple from Orlando, Florida, who gave birth to a Black baby after a clinic implanted the wrong embryo, learned the child was not genetically theirs. They have now reached a custody agreement to keep raising the child together.
The couple went through in vitro fertilization at the Fertility Center of Orlando last year to start their family. Score later gave birth to their daughter in December 2025 after a healthy pregnancy. The couple, both white, quickly noticed the baby did not match their expected appearance.
They requested genetic testing, which confirmed that the baby, Shea, is not biologically related to either of them. The results pointed to an embryo mix-up at the clinic that went undetected throughout the pregnancy.
In January, Mills and Score filed a lawsuit against the Fertility Center of Orlando. They asked the court to identify the child’s biological parents and to investigate whether other patients may have been affected by similar errors.
According to The Guardian, court documents later confirmed that the couple reached a custody agreement with Shea’s biological parents, identified as Patient 004. The details of the arrangement will remain private under the filing.
Records also show the couple had three embryos stored at the clinic. One resulted in a miscarriage, another was transferred to a different facility, and a third embryo remains unaccounted for.
The Fertility Center of Orlando shut down operations on May 20, according to its website. The clinic also faced separate allegations involving a 2024 surrogacy case in which a newborn died shortly after birth.
Despite the outcome, Mills and Score said they formed a strong bond with Shea and decided to continue raising her.
“Questions about the disposition of our own embryos are still unanswered and are even more unlikely to ever be answered,” Mills and Score said in a statement in April. “Only one thing is as absolutely certain as it was on the day our daughter was born – we will love and be this child’s parents forever.”