June 16, 2026
Couple Who Gave Birth To Wrong Embryo Keeps Parental Rights After Custody Agreement With Biological Parents
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RSS Feed A Florida couple has reached a custody agreement with the biological parents of the daughter Tiffany Score gave birth to last December. Score, along with her husband Steven Mills, believed little Shea Score Mills was their biological daughter after they had an Orlando fertility clinic implant one of three embryos they created. The couple, who is white, immediately knew there was a mixup at birth, when the baby was brown and looked nothing like either of them. After coming to an agreement with little Shea’s biological parents, they now will focus on a lawsuit against the fertility clinic, questioning how many other couples may have been impacted.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks. It is Tuesday, June sixteenth, and a very white couple gave birth to a very very brown baby. They have now sued the IVF clinic for the mix up, but that's not all. They've also made an agreement with the baby's biological parents and with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Ropes. What the hell is going on? A hell of a store?
00:00:30
Speaker 2: Yes, I think if anyone has clicked on a news website, you've probably seen the photo of the very white couple holding a very brown baby. And this was obviously a shocking result. After Tiffany Score gave birth Stephen Mills as her husband, to their daughter Shay on December eleventh of last year, they went through IVF. They thought they had one of the three embryos they created implanted in Tiffany, but when she gave birth, it was pretty obvious that there was a mix up at the fertility clinic. Man, can you imagine to be in that delivery room that moment?
00:01:10
Speaker 1: Ropes? To be in that delivery room, this is a moment from some rom com. This is unreal. The picture. You can't help but smile, You can't help but grand You can't help but go, what the actual hell, Robes. This is a very white, plain old American Midwest looking couple. Yes, Robes baby is browner than I am and jet black hair.
00:01:40
Speaker 2: Yes, obviously genetically is not related to any of them.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: Carried this kid.
00:01:45
Speaker 3: Yes, for nine months.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: I just can't imagine believing the entire time that this was their biological baby. So obviously they were shocked, I'm sure initially, but I am pretty this the outcome and what's happened now is also just as shocking to me because we just got word that this couple. Will get into the whole story, but the score Mills family just received and negotiated full physical custody of Shay score Mills and so yes, even though usually typically it's a little gray when it comes to what legal precedent uh this is or how judges or anyone decides who has the right to be the parental custodians of this child. Typically it would go to the biological parents, just naturally typically, but this is such an unusual circumstance, and we do not know the details of the agreement that was reached between the family who had this little girl implanted into Tiffany's score and the actual biological parents, who clearly created an embryo and had it stored potentially for their future use, how they actually came to an agreement where they're allowing this other couple to raise their biological daughter. That for me is kind of earth chattering.
00:03:19
Speaker 1: I don't get. I don't well than know. We have enough details ropes to understand if the biological parents will have some role in that child's life versus they just gave up their custodial rights and this other family is going to and that's it, Like that's you old's baby. Knock yourselves out. We weren't ready to have a baby right now, but still that's that part of it robes. This is your child. There's a man and a woman out there. This is the product.
00:03:44
Speaker 2: Of them, and they so badly wanted a child that obviously, for whatever reason, they weren't able to or needed to have help from the scientific community to actually create a child. They were obviously they You don't go to a fertility clinic, pay a lot of money and go through a lot of treatments when you're a woman to extract eggs, to fertilize an egg, to then store those eggs to then just say, ah, you know what, sure you keeper That makes zero sense.
00:04:14
Speaker 1: Who knows what was going on in their lives at the time. Maybe they did change their mind, maybe.
00:04:18
Speaker 3: They were maybe they got divorced, maybe they separated. A very good point where that happens all the time.
00:04:23
Speaker 2: People will come together, create embryos and then their relationship goes south and those eggs like, sorry, they're more than eggs.
00:04:31
Speaker 3: There are embryos.
00:04:32
Speaker 2: A lot of debate continues to rage on in this country as to what to do with some of those embryos that are no longer needed. So we don't know the situation of the biological parents, but that had to be a hell of a shock for them as well.
00:04:47
Speaker 1: And just now, just to know their child is walking around, it's going to be that's I can't imagine going down the road and them going through life and not have questions and not reach out. That is their child. They essentially had a surrogate carry the child for them, not voluntarily, but someone did the child they wanted at one point.
00:05:11
Speaker 3: Is here, yes, and so here is what we know.
00:05:15
Speaker 2: We know that there was a mutually devised custody agreement that was signed actually on Monday, so we're recording this on Tuesday, so one day ago, that mutually devised custody agreement was signed. It is in law, it is legally binding, and basically the biological parents' identities will remain confidential. They wanted that that was a big part of this, but we have basically the Tiffany and Stephen are going to retain their rights to continue as permanent custodial parents. Now this is where it gets a little interesting. So they basically have said that there are going to be or there is a relationship that is growing between the biological parents and now I guess you would call them the legal parents. I don't know how else to describe it, but I thought it was interesting. So we got a statement from Tiffany and Steve. They recognize the public interest in the details of their IVF experience, and they appreciate the role the news media has played in bringing them and Shade to the point where Shane's genetic parents were able to be identified and fears about Shaye's future have been settled. Tiffany and Steve are committed to respect the privacy concerns of Shae's genetic parents with whom they have begun and intend to continue to foster a relationship of friendship and trust. They also are committed to protecting Shae from harmful intrusion on her privacy. So that would suggests that they are going to have a relationship with the biological parents.
00:07:00
Speaker 1: She is in her own now what they have decided here and what's going to work for them, And it's a it's just a it's a it's a it's kind of a wonderful human drama and a human story. Now I'm very curious about him with these what they've all gone through, all four of them have gone through a lot. Now this kid's about to go through a lot.
00:07:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean right now. I believe she's what six months old?
00:07:19
Speaker 2: She was born in December, so I'm yeah, that shouldn't be tough math for me. She's six seven months old. She has no idea obviously what's going on. But I was actually trying to imagine what that would be like. Yes, you've got the miracle of a young baby. And look, it's interesting because from the moment Shay was born, her parents, who chose to have her implanted, not her biological ones, made it very clear from the beginning, because look, we've seen some of these rare cases play out, and a lot of times the biological parents want the child and the other parents, the woman who basically housed the child, grew this child in her womb, has to painstakingly hand the child over. So this is a very different scenario. But it's interesting from the get go. This couple made it very clear that they wanted this baby. They said, only one thing is an absolute certain as it was on the day our daughter was born. We will love and will be this child's parents forever. So they never made any bones about what they wanted out of this situation. So when we come back, we're going to tell you what is next now that this agreement has been finalized on Monday, because oh yeah, pretty sure, this is an obvious next step. This couple is totally suing that fertility agency. And were they the only couples who went through this sort of absolute travesty? And welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are talking about this insane IVF story. Tiffany Score and Stephen Mills give birth to a baby in December, and the baby looks nothing like them.
00:09:18
Speaker 3: That had to be shocking.
00:09:20
Speaker 2: Genetic testing confirmed it, and yes, they have now reached an agreement with the biological parents. They will continue to raise this young girl who looks nothing like them, but they're also going to foster a relationship with their biological parents.
00:09:36
Speaker 3: Babe, I'm curious. Could you ever imagine a scenario. I guess there is one.
00:09:41
Speaker 2: Where you would be okay with knowing and you wanted to create a child with your partner, and that that child was created and is now being raised by another couple who has nothing to do with your culture.
00:09:57
Speaker 1: No, that's just it's difficult. But like you said that I may have passed for that couple that could have been divorced a bitter divorce. Maybe they were even but you just don't know. But just as anybody if listening, they're talking to anybody right now that's listening. If you knew there was a child out there that is your as half your blood, is your son, is one hundred percent your daughter, that would be hard to know that child is just out there and you have no relationship with I think human nature. That would be very difficult.
00:10:28
Speaker 3: And you know what, think about this?
00:10:30
Speaker 2: Obviously this was well I say, obviously this was an obvious genetic This can't be our kid moment because they had an embryo implanted by someone who was of a completely different ethnicity. But this took place in Orlando, Florida. How the question now is were there other couples who had embryos switched or mixed up or mismatched? And what if you were just one white couple versus is another white couple? Would you ever know? Would you ever think to ask? Now that is a huge question. Can you imagine if you were one of another set of couples for over the years who went to this particular fertility center. And now you're thinking, oh no, yes.
00:11:19
Speaker 1: Every single person is going back and having their kid DNA tested, everything, and it should be paid for by the clinic. But you're gonna want to I guess some families might go, you know, it doesn't matter if this is my kid, I love them. I don't want to know. But that's awful there and again we hear, but this is like the worst case scenario. But I don't know how much we should trust the statistics robes that show that this is extremely rare.
00:11:43
Speaker 2: It was like point zero zero zero seven percent. But then they also said, we don't necessarily have worldwide statistics on IVF clinics. A lot of this is done through private centers, private companies. There's a lot of discretion that's involved with it, sarrogates, so there's probably no way to know just how common or uncommon this is. And that's just the truth. Now this is maybe I feel like this is a sweet twist to the story.
00:12:14
Speaker 3: There are court records that are showing that.
00:12:19
Speaker 2: This couple now has a new fertility provider and they are arranging another embryo transfer, so they're going to try to have now their own biological child. But they said this time, and I wonder why this isn't done every time they are going to insist that there is genetic testing of that embryo. Wellfore it's implanted. Why wouldn't that be the case.
00:12:43
Speaker 1: I don't know. It was a sticker on it that had their last name. That should be good enough. I don't know how it works, how this process works. It's just there are some things that some mistakes just you cannot make. This is one of them. This is a zero mistake game that they're playing, and I understand how difficul that is, but that's why you're in business. You just can't do this.
00:13:03
Speaker 2: Yes, and that I mean I think they're they're pointing to human error, and that I'm sure is likely the cause, where it was just literally mislabeled, put in the wrong place. But the damage that's done by that one quick, seemingly innocent, false, bad move whatever it was, however it happened, altered the lives of so many people. And the Fertility Center of Orlando, by the way, that's where this all took place, has since closed, not shocking, and there are multiple lawsuits against this fertility center, and part of this couple's lawsuit is to insist and to force this fertility center to provide the documents to prove that they can show that each each IVF transplant was actually the correct one. And so the Yeah, as you pointed out, they're saying, everyone who had a baby through this center needs to have genealogy testing done and it should all be paid for by the Fertility Center of Orlando.
00:14:04
Speaker 3: It's a no brainer.
00:14:05
Speaker 2: I mean, it's dozens and dozens, I don't have an exact number, but you know, this is obviously a major concern. I cannot imagine being somebody who you didn't even have an inkling that anything could be off or wrong or different, and suddenly now you're like, holy shit, I have to have my child genetically tested to make sure that it actually is my child. But that is what is going on in this case, and hopefully maybe it prevents other companies from falling prey to this and making sure like this obviously is something you can't make a mistake on. This has incredible repercussions. So anyway, we will continue to follow this developing story, but it is look, I think if Tiffany and Steven get to have their baby and the biological parents of their little girl, Shay are okay with there's a relationship among all of them, maybe this is the best outcome possible. And with that everyone, we appreciate you listening to us. As always, I'm Amy Roebuck alongside TJ.
00:15:10
Speaker 3: Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks. It is Tuesday, June sixteenth, and a very white couple gave birth to a very very brown baby. They have now sued the IVF clinic for the mix up, but that's not all. They've also made an agreement with the baby's biological parents and with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Ropes. What the hell is going on? A hell of a store?
00:00:30
Speaker 2: Yes, I think if anyone has clicked on a news website, you've probably seen the photo of the very white couple holding a very brown baby. And this was obviously a shocking result. After Tiffany Score gave birth Stephen Mills as her husband, to their daughter Shay on December eleventh of last year, they went through IVF. They thought they had one of the three embryos they created implanted in Tiffany, but when she gave birth, it was pretty obvious that there was a mix up at the fertility clinic. Man, can you imagine to be in that delivery room that moment?
00:01:10
Speaker 1: Ropes? To be in that delivery room, this is a moment from some rom com. This is unreal. The picture. You can't help but smile, You can't help but grand You can't help but go, what the actual hell, Robes. This is a very white, plain old American Midwest looking couple. Yes, Robes baby is browner than I am and jet black hair.
00:01:40
Speaker 2: Yes, obviously genetically is not related to any of them.
00:01:44
Speaker 1: Carried this kid.
00:01:45
Speaker 3: Yes, for nine months.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: I just can't imagine believing the entire time that this was their biological baby. So obviously they were shocked, I'm sure initially, but I am pretty this the outcome and what's happened now is also just as shocking to me because we just got word that this couple. Will get into the whole story, but the score Mills family just received and negotiated full physical custody of Shay score Mills and so yes, even though usually typically it's a little gray when it comes to what legal precedent uh this is or how judges or anyone decides who has the right to be the parental custodians of this child. Typically it would go to the biological parents, just naturally typically, but this is such an unusual circumstance, and we do not know the details of the agreement that was reached between the family who had this little girl implanted into Tiffany's score and the actual biological parents, who clearly created an embryo and had it stored potentially for their future use, how they actually came to an agreement where they're allowing this other couple to raise their biological daughter. That for me is kind of earth chattering.
00:03:19
Speaker 1: I don't get. I don't well than know. We have enough details ropes to understand if the biological parents will have some role in that child's life versus they just gave up their custodial rights and this other family is going to and that's it, Like that's you old's baby. Knock yourselves out. We weren't ready to have a baby right now, but still that's that part of it robes. This is your child. There's a man and a woman out there. This is the product.
00:03:44
Speaker 2: Of them, and they so badly wanted a child that obviously, for whatever reason, they weren't able to or needed to have help from the scientific community to actually create a child. They were obviously they You don't go to a fertility clinic, pay a lot of money and go through a lot of treatments when you're a woman to extract eggs, to fertilize an egg, to then store those eggs to then just say, ah, you know what, sure you keeper That makes zero sense.
00:04:14
Speaker 1: Who knows what was going on in their lives at the time. Maybe they did change their mind, maybe.
00:04:18
Speaker 3: They were maybe they got divorced, maybe they separated. A very good point where that happens all the time.
00:04:23
Speaker 2: People will come together, create embryos and then their relationship goes south and those eggs like, sorry, they're more than eggs.
00:04:31
Speaker 3: There are embryos.
00:04:32
Speaker 2: A lot of debate continues to rage on in this country as to what to do with some of those embryos that are no longer needed. So we don't know the situation of the biological parents, but that had to be a hell of a shock for them as well.
00:04:47
Speaker 1: And just now, just to know their child is walking around, it's going to be that's I can't imagine going down the road and them going through life and not have questions and not reach out. That is their child. They essentially had a surrogate carry the child for them, not voluntarily, but someone did the child they wanted at one point.
00:05:11
Speaker 3: Is here, yes, and so here is what we know.
00:05:15
Speaker 2: We know that there was a mutually devised custody agreement that was signed actually on Monday, so we're recording this on Tuesday, so one day ago, that mutually devised custody agreement was signed. It is in law, it is legally binding, and basically the biological parents' identities will remain confidential. They wanted that that was a big part of this, but we have basically the Tiffany and Stephen are going to retain their rights to continue as permanent custodial parents. Now this is where it gets a little interesting. So they basically have said that there are going to be or there is a relationship that is growing between the biological parents and now I guess you would call them the legal parents. I don't know how else to describe it, but I thought it was interesting. So we got a statement from Tiffany and Steve. They recognize the public interest in the details of their IVF experience, and they appreciate the role the news media has played in bringing them and Shade to the point where Shane's genetic parents were able to be identified and fears about Shaye's future have been settled. Tiffany and Steve are committed to respect the privacy concerns of Shae's genetic parents with whom they have begun and intend to continue to foster a relationship of friendship and trust. They also are committed to protecting Shae from harmful intrusion on her privacy. So that would suggests that they are going to have a relationship with the biological parents.
00:07:00
Speaker 1: She is in her own now what they have decided here and what's going to work for them, And it's a it's just a it's a it's a it's kind of a wonderful human drama and a human story. Now I'm very curious about him with these what they've all gone through, all four of them have gone through a lot. Now this kid's about to go through a lot.
00:07:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean right now. I believe she's what six months old?
00:07:19
Speaker 2: She was born in December, so I'm yeah, that shouldn't be tough math for me. She's six seven months old. She has no idea obviously what's going on. But I was actually trying to imagine what that would be like. Yes, you've got the miracle of a young baby. And look, it's interesting because from the moment Shay was born, her parents, who chose to have her implanted, not her biological ones, made it very clear from the beginning, because look, we've seen some of these rare cases play out, and a lot of times the biological parents want the child and the other parents, the woman who basically housed the child, grew this child in her womb, has to painstakingly hand the child over. So this is a very different scenario. But it's interesting from the get go. This couple made it very clear that they wanted this baby. They said, only one thing is an absolute certain as it was on the day our daughter was born. We will love and will be this child's parents forever. So they never made any bones about what they wanted out of this situation. So when we come back, we're going to tell you what is next now that this agreement has been finalized on Monday, because oh yeah, pretty sure, this is an obvious next step. This couple is totally suing that fertility agency. And were they the only couples who went through this sort of absolute travesty? And welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ. We are talking about this insane IVF story. Tiffany Score and Stephen Mills give birth to a baby in December, and the baby looks nothing like them.
00:09:18
Speaker 3: That had to be shocking.
00:09:20
Speaker 2: Genetic testing confirmed it, and yes, they have now reached an agreement with the biological parents. They will continue to raise this young girl who looks nothing like them, but they're also going to foster a relationship with their biological parents.
00:09:36
Speaker 3: Babe, I'm curious. Could you ever imagine a scenario. I guess there is one.
00:09:41
Speaker 2: Where you would be okay with knowing and you wanted to create a child with your partner, and that that child was created and is now being raised by another couple who has nothing to do with your culture.
00:09:57
Speaker 1: No, that's just it's difficult. But like you said that I may have passed for that couple that could have been divorced a bitter divorce. Maybe they were even but you just don't know. But just as anybody if listening, they're talking to anybody right now that's listening. If you knew there was a child out there that is your as half your blood, is your son, is one hundred percent your daughter, that would be hard to know that child is just out there and you have no relationship with I think human nature. That would be very difficult.
00:10:28
Speaker 3: And you know what, think about this?
00:10:30
Speaker 2: Obviously this was well I say, obviously this was an obvious genetic This can't be our kid moment because they had an embryo implanted by someone who was of a completely different ethnicity. But this took place in Orlando, Florida. How the question now is were there other couples who had embryos switched or mixed up or mismatched? And what if you were just one white couple versus is another white couple? Would you ever know? Would you ever think to ask? Now that is a huge question. Can you imagine if you were one of another set of couples for over the years who went to this particular fertility center. And now you're thinking, oh no, yes.
00:11:19
Speaker 1: Every single person is going back and having their kid DNA tested, everything, and it should be paid for by the clinic. But you're gonna want to I guess some families might go, you know, it doesn't matter if this is my kid, I love them. I don't want to know. But that's awful there and again we hear, but this is like the worst case scenario. But I don't know how much we should trust the statistics robes that show that this is extremely rare.
00:11:43
Speaker 2: It was like point zero zero zero seven percent. But then they also said, we don't necessarily have worldwide statistics on IVF clinics. A lot of this is done through private centers, private companies. There's a lot of discretion that's involved with it, sarrogates, so there's probably no way to know just how common or uncommon this is. And that's just the truth. Now this is maybe I feel like this is a sweet twist to the story.
00:12:14
Speaker 3: There are court records that are showing that.
00:12:19
Speaker 2: This couple now has a new fertility provider and they are arranging another embryo transfer, so they're going to try to have now their own biological child. But they said this time, and I wonder why this isn't done every time they are going to insist that there is genetic testing of that embryo. Wellfore it's implanted. Why wouldn't that be the case.
00:12:43
Speaker 1: I don't know. It was a sticker on it that had their last name. That should be good enough. I don't know how it works, how this process works. It's just there are some things that some mistakes just you cannot make. This is one of them. This is a zero mistake game that they're playing, and I understand how difficul that is, but that's why you're in business. You just can't do this.
00:13:03
Speaker 2: Yes, and that I mean I think they're they're pointing to human error, and that I'm sure is likely the cause, where it was just literally mislabeled, put in the wrong place. But the damage that's done by that one quick, seemingly innocent, false, bad move whatever it was, however it happened, altered the lives of so many people. And the Fertility Center of Orlando, by the way, that's where this all took place, has since closed, not shocking, and there are multiple lawsuits against this fertility center, and part of this couple's lawsuit is to insist and to force this fertility center to provide the documents to prove that they can show that each each IVF transplant was actually the correct one. And so the Yeah, as you pointed out, they're saying, everyone who had a baby through this center needs to have genealogy testing done and it should all be paid for by the Fertility Center of Orlando.
00:14:04
Speaker 3: It's a no brainer.
00:14:05
Speaker 2: I mean, it's dozens and dozens, I don't have an exact number, but you know, this is obviously a major concern. I cannot imagine being somebody who you didn't even have an inkling that anything could be off or wrong or different, and suddenly now you're like, holy shit, I have to have my child genetically tested to make sure that it actually is my child. But that is what is going on in this case, and hopefully maybe it prevents other companies from falling prey to this and making sure like this obviously is something you can't make a mistake on. This has incredible repercussions. So anyway, we will continue to follow this developing story, but it is look, I think if Tiffany and Steven get to have their baby and the biological parents of their little girl, Shay are okay with there's a relationship among all of them, maybe this is the best outcome possible. And with that everyone, we appreciate you listening to us. As always, I'm Amy Roebuck alongside TJ.
00:15:10
Speaker 3: Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.