As I'm sure you've read about or you've seen on the morning TV news an Ohio woman undergoing fertility treatments was transferred the wrong embryo. The fertility clinic told them soon after the positive pregnancy test that it was not theirs (which I want to know how they figured it out this late in the game).
We probably all have our own thoughts about what we would do if that happened to us. Here is a blog post from Dr. Laura who gives a different spin to the situation.
What do you think? Would you rather be clueless and figure it out later as the child gets older and you see absolutely no resemblance to either you or your spouse, or when it's time for some sort of medical treatment and you get the shock of your life to find out the child you thought was yours for so many years actually isn't? Or would you prefer to know as soon as the mistake is discovered, and make your decision then?
My thoughts? I do have to give props to the fertility clinic for owning up to the mistake as soon as it was discovered (and I'm assuming it was discovered within a couple of weeks of the actual transfer). They could have chosen not to say anything and cross their fingers no one would find out, and then deal with the issue if it was ever found out. However, once finding their mistake, they told all involved parties, so that if the family that was pregnant decided against carrying the child, they would have plenty of time to rectify the situation. Also, the genetic family had the ability to decide if they even wanted the unintended genetic child, and if not, could have allowed the carrying family to keep the child, if they so chose.
As we all know, the genetic family did want the baby, the carrying family didn't want to abort it, and the baby was born and given to its genetic family. Now, how much the fertility clinic is going to end up paying for owning up to their mistake may never be known. But I think they did do the right thing in telling everyone. I would want to know.
