Carolyn Savage, 40, said she won’t have another chance to carry her own baby because of her age and difficulties during earlier pregnancies. She and her husband plan to hire a surrogate.
(J.D. Pooley/ Associated Press)
Couple to give up baby after mix-up
Wrong embryo implanted in Ohio woman
Carolyn Savage, 40, said she won’t have another chance to carry her own baby because of her age and difficulties during earlier pregnancies. She and her husband plan to hire a surrogate.
(J.D. Pooley/ Associated Press)
TOLEDO, Ohio - Carolyn Savage didn’t know what to think, what to say, where to look as the ultrasound wand glided over her belly. It was supposed to be her baby inside. Not someone else’s.
Yet here she was in her doctor’s office with the baby’s biological mother, both brought together by a terrible error at a fertility clinic. A doctor, they said, had given Savage the wrong embryo, and now she was carrying the other woman’s child.
“The wand is on my abdomen and the technician’s talking to someone else: ‘There’s your baby’s nose. There’s your baby’s head,’ ’’ she said. “It was surreal.’’
Embryo mix-ups at fertility clinics are extremely rare. In those few instances, they’ve degenerated into custody battles, ugly lawsuits, and at least one abortion. But not this time. Savage and her husband decided that the right thing - the only thing - to do was to give the baby to the biological parents.
“This was someone else’s child,’’ she said yesterday.
“We knew if our child was out there, we’d go to the ends of the earth to get our child back,’’ she said.
Savage, 40, is due to give birth to a boy within the next two weeks via caesarean section. When it happens, biological parents Paul and Shannon Morell, of the Detroit suburb of Troy, Mich., will be nearby.
“How do you thank somebody for what they’ve done?’’ Shannon Morell said. “I could say thank you a million different ways.’’
The Savages say the fertility clinic transferred the wrong frozen embryo to Carolyn’s womb in early February. Ten days later, Sean Savage got a call from a doctor saying his wife was pregnant with someone else’s child.
The doctor told them they could abort, but the couple didn’t consider that a viable option. “It wasn’t even something we had to discuss,’’ said Sean Savage, 39.
The Savages won’t reveal the name of the fertility clinic, saying only that it’s not in Ohio. They have hired attorneys to make sure the clinic accepts full responsibility.
The Morells, who live north of Detroit, learned of the mistake a day after the Savages. The two couples knew nothing about each other. Shannon Morell feared that the pregnant woman would choose abortion, ending their chance to give their 2-year-old twin girls a sibling.
“I felt helpless,’’ Shannon Morell said.
A few days passed before they learned that the Savages were not only willing to continue with the pregnancy, but also to give them the baby without hesitation.
Carolyn Savage won’t have another chance to carry her own baby because of her age and difficulties during her earlier pregnancies. She and her husband plan to hire a surrogate and try again for a fourth child.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
