IVF Bungle! Would You Keep A Child You Birthed With The Wrong DNA?

After hearing a story of an IVF mix up where two couples were accidentally given this other's treatment.. Hayley & Max debate whether they would keep the child they carried in the womb, or swap for the child that has their own DNA.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What a song Adelaide, Happy Friday, mixed one on two
point three, you got Haley Max in the morning, twenty
degrees at the moment, nice sunny one today twenty nine.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Crazy story out of Brisbane this morning. You may have
read this. There is a woman who has unwittingly given
birth to a stranger's baby because there was a mix
up with the monash IVF, so she was implanted with
another couple's embryo, gave birth, Oh my god, had it
for a few months. And then as they were you know,

(00:29):
moving some stuff around, they were like, hang on a second,
you guys are missing an embryo. You guys are missing
what you should have here. And they've gone back and
cross referenced and the wrong person has had the wrong.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Enmerrd, How does this happen?

Speaker 4 (00:43):
This makes you think what would you do if you're
in this situation? Right, So you've just went gone through
a whole pregnancy, especially the stress of going through IVF
on top of a normal pregnancy. Right, so you've had that,
you're pregnant, you've given birth, you've fallen in love with
your child who and you've got this beautiful bond who's
not actually hasn't got your DNA. It's actually not your embryo.

(01:06):
But you have carried that child through nine months of pregnancy.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
And then you've had it for a little bit because
it's believed the baby was born last year in Brisbane,
so at least at least four and a half months
worth of you having an alive child.

Speaker 4 (01:18):
And that is where you're breastfeeding and your bonding and
you're falling in love with this child, which makes me go,
I feel like that's my child.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
I really, I don't care.

Speaker 4 (01:30):
Like obviously, if you had a choice, you wouldn't have
gone through this situation anyway, but.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
I feel like I would. I wouldn't want to give
that baby up.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
That's who I carried for nine months, who I was
talking to the whole time.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
I know this isn't how it works, but if the
other couple who had the correct embryo just happened to
have the baby at the exact same time in an
ideal world, would you, like, would you just consider doing
a trade for the baby that has your DNA.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
Okay, so this is where it gets tricky, because I
would go, I'm falling in love with this child. It's
so tricky, but what about if you go health complications,
so you look at your DNA and your DNA and
your genetics and things like that. So what if your
child that you've given birth to has all these problems.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
I'm doing this trade and a heartbeat, you're trading back,
and I know that you connected to it, and the
mother's always more connected. I want the child that has
my DNA and my wife's DNA. I want it to
be my child. I'm doing that trade even though your dad.
Because here's the other thing, right, what about it? What
about in thirty years time when someone has kidney issues

(02:35):
and the best people can match it with your family members.
There's another fact.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
But as a mom like you, do you have this
real connection with a baby. You've just birthed it and
then you have to give it away.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
But do you not want the baby to be but
it's from you?

Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:51):
But you think about people who grow up with in
adopted families, and they look at their adopted parents as
their parents, as opposed to people who biologically are their
parents because they were loved by those people.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Of course, the baby will look at you that way,
but there will always be a bit of you. Surely
for me, there would always be a bit of me
that goes, ah, this is not exactly my child.

Speaker 3 (03:10):
Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
I just feel so sad for these people. There's big
lawsuits about to happen as well. I don't know what
I would do. I feel like I would just keep
that baby. You keep it, but if you're going to
swap it, you'd swap it now. But you've already fallen
in love with it. It's just the worst thing in
the world. And they're saying this is actually the first
time it's happened, which I don't believe. I reckon this
would have happened and more than we think conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
No, it's believed to be the first time in Australia
that this has happened.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
I don't know. I feel like it's something that is
easily mixed up.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
I actually think almost the craziest bit of it is
they would have gone through their whole lives not knowing
this if it wasn't for the company, the IVF company.
They had to change a few frozen embryos over to
a different provider and they're like, you're missing one, and
then they went back and trace where it had gone,
and it's like you're in the wrong world.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
You don't look anything like me or your father.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
What's the other thing if you had what if you'd
had a child that was a different race to you?

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, you go off s tan skin? Do you know
what I mean? Like you'd go like where where did
that come from? That's such a weird thing to think.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Odd all right?

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Anyway, I just hope this has never happened.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Before, and I hope that your two kids are yours.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
I think they are. They look exactly like me.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
All right.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
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