Baby Mix Up

Rabies

a white couple that were trying unsuccessfuly to have a child decided to have IVF treatment.
but the result was not what they expected. the wife gave birth to black twins :eek:
the hospital has stated that either the wrong sperm was used to fertilise the egg or the wrong egg was used.

the couples names have not been released but you can beat you life that every tabloid reporter is running around the UK now looking in every pram trying to find these kids with odd parents.

the first taught that entered my head when i read this article was that the wife must have had an affair with a coloured man and is having his childeren.
could the hospital have made such a major error, i dont know it is definitly possible and they seem to be admitting it was their fault.

what i'm asking is, should it make a difference that these kids are black and their 'Parents' are white. there are many mixed race families out there. they seem to cope pretty well. will it be tough on these kids growing up if/when they discover that they were a mistake, some other white kids should have been born instead.

any taughts or views

bombidol

just to clarify a few things, during this IVF Treatment is it the wifes eggs and the husbands sperm that is used? or a combo of someone elses and theirs.
If it was the husbands and wifes "Goods" that were suposed to be used then its a bad thing because they are effectivly having someone elses baby when they wanted their own.
If it was a combo job then, on the face of it and in a good world, it wouldnt make a difference and to to parents it wouldnt matter to to the world in general the kids are going to be looked upon as freaks, and no matter how much we say "It shouldnt be like that" its still going to happen.

Rabies

just to clarify a few things, during this IVF Treatment is it the wifes eggs and the husbands sperm that is used? or a combo of someone elses and theirs.

i think it can be either

• Wife's egg, husband's sperm
• Wife's egg, donar sperm
• Donar egg, husband sperm

but i dont know what option the couple had. either way, the kids are not biologicaly linked to the father.

sceptre

The worst thing is that there's no real guarantee that it hasn't heappened before. When a white couple have a black baby after IVF they notice. If there have been mixups where a white couple has had a white baby with the wrong sperm or egg being used, they might not even notice.

bugler

I think that could actually be considered a good thing

What you don't know and all that. This of course was bound to happen. I thought it was really funny at first, and tbh, it is really. Think of when they actually popped out. Hahaha! My cackling subsided when I realised that while they may not be the husbands kin they certainly are the woman's. I was thinking "oh just swop them" before this dawned on me. I hope the poor bloke doesn't end up like Jim Carey in "Me, Myself and Irene".

Edit: You can't spell snígger because of what the word is without the "s". Madness!

Clintons Cat

i find it a sad indictment of society that the miricle of birth could be considered a "tragedy" or outrage simply because of the colour of a babies skin.I mean its not as if the kid had been born with three heads or gills for fu(ks sake.

sceptre

Originally posted by Clintons Cat
i find it a sad indictment of society that the miricle of birth could be considered a "tragedy" or outrage simply because of the colour of a babies skin.I mean its not as if the kid had been born with three heads or gills for fu(ks sake.

Fair point. I'd hope what's worrying the parents is the fact that the husband's sperm wasn't used when it should have been rather than having a baby of mixed race.

More news on this (it's from one of those annoying tabloids, but I can't be arsed looking for a better source)

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/news4.html
25 more IVF couples in wrong-baby probe
THE FERTILITY clinic responsible for giving white parents black twins is probing up to TWENTY-FIVE more possible mix-ups.

And as anxious fertility-treatment parents across the country call their clinics to check if they gave birth to the right babies, NHS investigators are urgently checking how far the bungle extends.

Several NHS trusts nationwide are already understood to be in secret talks with parents who fear the worst.

The News of the World has learned that the wide-ranging probe is being carried out under the guidance of the powerful Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

A source revealed: "When the story broke about the white couple and the black twins, it was if the floodgates opened. Despite the checks that are made at every stage, there is still a huge margin for error.

Doubt

"And now people with real doubts are coming forward, wanting to know once and for all if their babies really are their own flesh and blood. Fertility problems are traumatic enough but imagine a niggling doubt that not all went to plan in the test tube. It's a horrendous situation."

It emerged last week that the white couple mistakenly given black twins went to the fertility clinic for IVF treatment after trying unsuccessfully for years to have a child.

IVF involves mixing sperm from the man and eggs from the woman in the laboratory, before they are placed in the woman. When the babies were born, the couple could not fail to notice that they were clearly dark-skinned and knew immediately that something was wrong.

Experts believe that either a fertilised egg from a black couple also undergoing treatment was wrongly implanted in the white woman—or the black man's sperm was wrongly used to fertilise the white woman's egg.

The white couple have now fled abroad with the twins because they cannot cope with the pressure of deciding what to do with their young family. It is understood they want to keep the children but may face a legal challenge from the black couple.

Duty

Parents rely on a clinic's employees to correctly label their precious eggs, sperm and embryos so they end up with a baby conceived from only the correct material.

As part of the initial consultation, each set of prospective parents is blood tested. This happens whether they donate eggs or sperm.

At each painstaking stage, embryologists are duty bound to label every sample with the patient's name, date of birth and an index number exclusive to that couple. In some labs, two embryologists have to be on hand at the same time to double-check each other's work. Unless colour-coding, date of birth, and name checks tally up on patient and embryo, the treatment is not supposed to proceed.

Clearly the system is not foolproof.

bugler

I don't think anyone is referring to the birth as a tragedy because of the colour of the babies skin, but rather because two couples have had extra-marital children thrust unto them. It's not like the couple concerned are both the parents, and the kids just look different than normal.