Two couples discovered they're raising each other's genetic children—report
Truth is stranger than fiction. Two couples discovered that they're raising each other's genetic children.
The New York Times reported that Daphna and Alexander, who have Ashkenazi Jewish and Italian roots, respectively, had tried for three years to conceive their second child before turning to in vitro fertilization or IVF. Then they had May (not her real name), who had black hair. She didn't resemble Alexander, who has fair hair and light brown eyes, and Daphna, who is a redhead.
Alexander was jokingly saying the IVF clinic had made a mistake. He believed that his joke was a superstition to ward off something threatening.
But their loved ones were commenting on the striking difference in appearance, including his mother who assumed that one of May's parents was Asian.
Amid their growing anxiety, Alexander and Daphna sent off samples to a DNA testing company in November 2019 and waited for the results.
After three weeks, or when May was about two months old, Alexander received an email stating that it's a “99.9 percent likelihood, not a match for the father.”
But him not being May's genetic father wasn't what surprised them. Rather, it was when the results also showed that it's a "99.9 percent likelihood, not a match for the mother.”
Daphna learned that the law generally favors the genetic parents. In a news months ago, a New York woman lost a custody battle after authorities found that her two boys, who didn't share her and her husband’s Korean American ancestry—and were not related to each other—were found to be from two other couples, who own the embryos.
Though they had no legal obligation to do it, Daphna and Alexander contacted the clinic, the California Center for Reproductive Health, to share what they learned, fully aware of the possibility of losing May.
They also wanted to know what happened to their own embryos. They retained a surrogacy lawyer, Andrew Vorzimer, while the clinic opened an investigation.
A 'terrible mistake'
On Dec. 6, 2019, Vorzimer called Daphna, saying the fertility clinic had identified May’s parents: a couple living only 10 minutes away from a nearby suburb.
Alexander's mother was right, as the father was Asian American. The mother, meanwhile, was Latina.
Daphna was convinced that she was about to lose May.
And in another shocking turn of events, the other couple had a baby the same age as May, a little girl with blue eyes. Her name is Zoë, and she's Daphna and Alexander’s genetic child.
The clinic immediately called the other couple and informed them that there had been a "terrible mistake:" They had been raising the genetic child of another couple, who had been raising theirs.
Annie, and her husband, whose name was withheld for privacy, had their first child when she was in her early 40s.
When their son was 2, they turned to IVF to have a second one.
When she gave birth to a daughter with surprisingly fair hair, their loved ones took it in stride as "one of life's flourishes of fate, a reminder of the mysteries of biology."
Even Annie's pediatrician told her that recessive genes surprise parents all the time.
Annie felt uneasy all the time, and the clinic's phone call only reinforced that, sinking her into depression.
Meeting for the first time
The two couples exchanged voicemail messages after Christmas and agreed to meet the next day at a law firm near their homes.
In the awkwardness-filled conference room, Daphna approached Annie and stared at each other before hugging each other. The fathers, meanwhile, shook hands.
They talked about their surreal dilemma and cried together.
At the time, the babies were already three months old and had already been accustomed to the comfort of their respective mothers.
Alexander was convinced that they should switch the babies, and so was Annie's husband. Nevertheless, the mothers didn't know what to do.
Alexander and Daphna also had another dilemma: telling their eldest child, Olivia, that she has another sister, Zoë.
Olivia wondered if it meant losing May, but Alexander told her that they'll "always have her."
They told Olivia to not be scared, but she started shutting down.
The couple hired another lawyer, Adam Wolf, and filed a suit against the clinic, alleging medical malpractice, negligence, and breach of contract.
Wolf said that in Zoë and May’s cases, like the case of the twins carried by the Korean American woman in New York, the mistake was apparent because the children were a different race from the birth parents.
But even so, he noted that such mistakes rarely make the news because settlements, which have confidentiality agreements for fear of negative publicity on the clinic, happen before the filing of lawsuits.
Ultimately, the couples agreed to switch Zoë and May after a transition period.
For almost two weeks, the families visited each other every day, sometimes at Daphna and Alexander’s house and sometimes at Annie and her husband’s house.
Merging of two families
In January 2020, they agreed to a daytime visit for each child alone with her genetic parents, and on Jan. 16 of that year, had overnight for the first time.
Annie and her husband then indicated that the girls should stay where they were, and Daphna agreed, especially since the girls were already four months old.
On Feb. 11 of that year, the two families met each other at a courthouse, the first time they had seen each other since the switch.
They formalized their new parenting arrangement, signing papers that reclassified the carrying mothers as surrogates.
Daphna and Annie had agreed that no matter what, they would do whatever they could to help the older siblings cope.
In a text later on, Annie promised Daphna that she would give May all the love she could and that she had faith that Daphna would do the same for Zoë. They agreed that they could "definitely visit each [other] and check how our girls are doing."
Daphna said, “What if we don’t ‘let go’? What if we just have 2 babies? We share them. We have to find a way to have both babies. Spend a lot of time together. Raise these girls together.”
Annie responded, “Yes, let’s raise them together,” she wrote. “Let’s have two babies.”
The two families started meeting more frequently and in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic happened. They decided to form a pod in June during the lockdown.
Eventually, the minister who married Daphna and Alexander had the idea of merging the two families in a formal ceremony.
In September, around the time of the girls' first birthdays, the couples expressed their commitment and the minister said a blessing. Each family member picked a color of sand and poured it into two different molds decorated with the silhouette of a tree, representing their growing family.
Fast forward to this day, May and Zoë are now 5. They consider each other sisters, celebrating holidays and birthdays, playing, bathing, and eating together.
For the last two years, they went to the same preschool. This year, for the first time, May and Zoë will be going to different schools.
To ensure that they would all see one another at least once a week, Annie proposed that the girls sign up for ballet on Sundays.
As for Daphne and Alexander's lawsuit against the clinic, they ultimately decided to settle for fear of having to put Olivia on the stand. The details of the settlement haven't been made public, but a lawyer for the clinic said "the parties settled amicably."
