[imagesource: Daphna and Alexander Cardinale]

Daphna Cardinale gave birth to her second child two years ago, but her daughter did not look anything like her, or her husband Alexander.

The couple, seen above, had conceived the baby via in vitro fertilisation (IVF) at a fertilisation clinic in California.

Daphna carried the baby for nine months, she cuddled and breastfed her for two, and their five-year-old daughter started bonding with her newborn sister.

But all along there was a feeling of confusion and unease as the child looked nothing like the family, a difference “so jarring” that Alexander “actually took several steps away from the birthing table, backing up against the wall”.

Finally, after a home DNA test, the truth was uncovered: the baby was not genetically related to them at all.

Per The Daily Beast, the Cardinales are the latest alleged victims of an unfortunate IVF mistake – “an increasingly common and distinctly 21st-century problem in which the embryos of two IVF patients are swapped, resulting in one or both couples giving birth to a stranger’s baby.”

(IVF allows a woman’s eggs to be artificially fertilised by a man’s sperm in a laboratory before the embryos are implanted into a woman’s uterus.)

As it stands, the couple is suing the Los Angeles-based fertility centre, the California Center for Reproductive Health (CCRH), as well as In VitroTech Labs, an embryology lab, reports the BBC:

The lawsuit is accusing the clinic of medical malpractice, negligence, as well as fraudulent concealment:

In an emotional news conference on Monday, Mrs Cardinale said her family’s “heartbreak and confusion can’t be understated”.

“Our memories of childbirth will always be tainted by the sick reality that our biological child was given to someone else, and the baby that I fought to bring into this world was not mine to keep.”

…”Instead of breastfeeding my own child, I breastfed and bonded with a child I was later forced to give away,” Mrs Cardinale said at the news conference.

IVF is not an easy process to go through, and the birth of their baby only added to the struggle, making the couple feel confused and in denial:

Alexander resorted to making jokes about how the baby might not be his, while Daphna attempted to convince herself that nothing was wrong.

Adding to the confusion was a bizarre call from Dr. Mor’s office several weeks after the birth, asking for photos of the child. “Alexander was so upset that he was staying up at night, staring at their newborn child, wondering if she was truly theirs,” the suit states.

After the DNA test, the couple hired a lawyer and made contact with the other couple who had birthed their baby. After a while, they decided to formally swap back.

While the Cardinales are “devastated” by the mix-up, and Daphna feels she was “robbed of the ability to carry [her] own child”, the worst part is how it has affected their first daughter:

At the press conference, Daphna teared up explaining how her daughter had grown more distant since the mix-up.

“Once this happened, because she’s so little, I don’t even know how to describe it, it’s like she lost trust in us,” she said.

“She lost that trust that she was gonna be taken care of. If we can mess up something so big like this, how could she possibly be safe?”

Image: The Daily Beast

The two couples have stayed in touch, with the second couple (who have preferred to remain anonymous) planning to also file a suit against the fertility centre later this week.

Meanwhile, Daphna and Alexander have been seeking mental-health treatment for “symptoms of anxiety, depression, and PTSD”, says the legal action.

As the lawsuit says, “The horror of this situation cannot be understated.”

[sources:bbc&dailybeast]