For decades, couples going through in vitro fertilization have had to spend tens of thousands of dollars on the procedures with no guarantee of success. It’s not only an emotionally draining process, but a financially exhausting one as well. San Francisco-based startup Future Family wants to help ease some of that burden for couples with […]
Krystena Murray's lawyers shared this photo of her with the baby boy she delivered in 2023.
Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise
A woman is suing a fertility clinic after doctors transferred another couple's embryo into her uterus.
A DNA test proved the baby belonged to another couple using the clinic's services.
The woman raised and bonded with the baby for months then lost custody.
Krystena Murray knew something was wrong the moment she first saw her baby.
Murray, 38,is a white woman who elected to have a white sperm donor for her IVF procedure. She gave birth to a baby boy in late December 2023. Her baby was Black.
After taking a DNA test and reaching out to her fertility clinic, she learned that another couple's embryo was transferred into her uterus.
While she fell in love with her newborn, and bonded with him, he wasn't genetically hers. Within five months, she lost full custody of the child to his legal parents — another couple at the clinic.
"I've never felt so violated," Murray, who is suing Coastal Fertility Specialists in Savannah, Georgia, said in a press conference with Peiffer Wolf, the firm representing her.
She said she felt "emotionally and physically broken" after having to give up a child who, until he was born, she believed was hers, and one she grew attached to ever since.
5 months of bonding
Murray had wanted a child for a long time. She'd found a sperm donor — a white man who, like her, had blue eyes and dirty blonde hair — to create embryos.
The moment she delivered the little boy, she felt conflicted. She'd carried him to term and delivered him. As she cuddled him and breast-fed him, she felt a deep sense of bonding.
"The birth of my child was supposed to be the happiest moment of my life, and honestly it was," she told reporters on Tuesday. "It was also the scariest moment of my life."
She had questions about their unexplained racial difference and didn't know what to do. Murray said she didn't post photos on social media or let her loved ones meet her child because she knew they'd have questions, too. Every time the doorbell rang, she worried it was someone coming to take her child away, she said.
A month after giving birth, she got the results of a DNA test she requested. It confirmed what she feared: she was not related to the baby.
The biological parents sued Murray for custody
By March 2024, the clinic realized the wrong embryo had been transferred. Coastal Fertility Specialists contacted the genetic parents of Murray's baby, who sued Murray for custody. Murray hired legal help in multiple states to fight the lawsuit.
Another DNA test confirmed that the couple was related to the baby. Murray's legal team advised her to give up custody, knowing she would lose the family-law case. She gave up the baby in May 2024 and hasn't seen him since.
Murray said the emotional aftermath has been difficult for her. "To carry a baby, fall in love with him, deliver him, and build the uniquely special bond between mother and baby, all to have him taken away," she said. "I'll never fully recover from this."
While the experience made her wary of undergoing IVF again, Murray is currently undergoing the process again at a different clinic.
"I'm hoping to continue my journey to be a mom in the next year or two," she said.
Business Insider has contacted Coastal Fertility Specialists for comment.
Fertility clinic mishaps
This isn't the first time a fertility clinic is at the center of a major lawsuit. In January, a couple sued a clinic after an error in the IVF process destroyed their embryos.
In a press conference, Wolf said he's represented clients of Coastal Fertility Specialists whose embryos were dropped on the ground or had embryos mixed with the wrong sperm or eggs.
This is the first time Wolf's firm has sued Coastal Fertility Specialists.
Margarita Komarova and Colin McDarmont are devastated by the loss of their six embryos and are suing a pharmaceutical company whose since-recalled solution was used in their IVF cycle.
Courtesy of Rita Komarova
Margarita Komarova and Colin McDarmont, were desperate to start a family and underwent IVF.
They were shocked after learning six embryos fertilized during their fourth cycle had to be discarded.
The couple claims it is the victim of gross negligence by a pharmaceutical giant.
Margarita Komarova and her husband, Colin McDarmont, were thrilled to learn their fourth round of IVF had produced six promising embryos.
Komarova, 37, who works in tech, told Business Insider that "everything was tracking positive" following the procedure in November 2023.
But seven days after the fertilization, their doctor called to say none of the embryos had gone on to develop and were suitable for transfer.
"We were devastated," Komarova said, noting that they were discarded almost immediately. "We thought we'd done everything right before the retrieval."
The couple had eaten healthily and reduced stress by doing acupuncture and yoga as part of the process. The period in which she'd had to inject herself with fertility medication had been particularly taxing, Komarova added.
"You find yourself searching for answers," she said of their despair. "We started to blame ourselves — and each other —because we didn't know what had gone wrong."
The pair received an email from their fertility clinic three weeks later. It alerted them to an issue concerning the IVF "culture media," the liquid used in the technique to grow embryos. It said the outcome of their particular cycle "may have negatively impacted."
"It was confusing," Darmont said. "We had a lot of questions."
In January 2024, they learned of a recall notice issued to IVF clinics across the US by CooperSurgical, the giant pharmaceutical company that manufactured the solution used in their procedure. It was later established that three lots of the liquid had been missing the important ingredient of magnesium. The essential nutrient is key to the development of embryos in the lab, typically in a petrie dish.
Komarova and McDarmont have filed a $15 million lawsuit
A year on, Komarova and McDarmont are suing Cooper for $15 million, claiming they may have lost their chance of having children. The suit said the firm failed to implement proper testing and quality control during manufacture.
"We're hoping this will force them to provide actual information and details in terms of how this happened, and more importantly, the safeguards to prevent it from ever happening again," McDarmont, a 52-year-old product manager, told BI.
The lawsuit said that Cooper's "reckless disregard" had severely impacted the couple's ability to have a biological baby, leaving them "distraught they may never be able to start the family they imagined."
It said Komarova had suffered depression and McDarmont "continues to experience severe emotional distress as a result of the incident."
The would-be mom said her body had taken nearly a year to recover
According to the filing, Cooper "failed to adequately monitor their manufacturing system" when "it knew, or should have known, the inclusion of magnesium in the culture media is critical to embryo development."
Business Insider has contacted CooperSurgical, which has not immediately responded.
Komarova, an only child who'd always wanted a big family, told BI that she and her husband had spent tens of thousands of dollars trying to get pregnant since they got married in 2020.
She said that every month that passed without them conceiving felt like a lost opportunity, made more pertinent because of their age.
It had taken almost a year for her body to recover from the ordeal of the impacted procedure before she underwent IVF for the "fifth and final time" last October.
"It was hard to rebound from the failed cycle and prepare for the next," Komarova said. "It's not something where you can just jump in and do another one."
The lawsuit said she had struggled with abdominal pain for weeks, weight gain from the hormonal injections, and fluctuating moods after the attempt.
It said she had undergone "significant physical strain due to the original wasted cycle, as well as the new cycle necessitated" made by Cooper's "faulty product."
Meanwhile, it said the couple continued to experience "deep sadness, guilt, hopelessness, shame, disappointment and anger."
McDarmont said the recall notice read as if it was a product recall of cereal boxes
Komarova described how she and McDarmont — who'd previously spent tens of thousands of dollars on three attempts at IVF — had meticulously prepared for the 2023 retrieval.
"You do everything you're supposed to do, like eat organic food and reduce the amount of stress you're under," she told BI. "Then you do the procedure, the results come in, and it's a punch to the gut."
McDarmont said he was infuriated by the outcome, which, he said, could have been avoided if Cooper had followed the correct protocol. "The despair, disappointment, and anger haven't gone away."
He said the recall notice was cold and perfunctory. "It sounded like it was a recall of something like cereal boxes or furniture items," he told BI.
The couple filed the lawsuit in Bridgeport, Connecticut — the city where CooperSurgical is headquartered — and asked for a jury trial. They are seeking at least $ 15 million in damages.
Meanwhile, Komarova and McDarmont were relieved to discover that their fifth cycle of IVF has been successful — at least so far. It resulted in a number of embryos that remain frozen.
Still, Komarova told BI she found the thought of the "next chapter" — which will involve the transfer of an embryo into her body — "scary."
Spain has some of the oldest moms, with 11% of women having kids post-40, compared to 4% in the US.
Financial insecurity and settling down later in life play a notable role.
But Spain's accessible fertility treatments and excellent public healthcare are also factors.
Monica Cruz-Lemini, a 46-year-old obstetrician living in Spain, had her first child at 44.
While pregnancies after 35 are considered "advanced maternal age," Cruz-Lemini's experience is far from unusual in Spain, where more than 10% of all births involve mothers 40 or older.
"I think there's a growing pool of women in recent years — and I've seen it both professionally and personally — who are a bit like me," Cruz-Lemini told Business Insider.
Spanish moms are among the oldest
According to Eurostat's latest data, Spain had the second-highest average age of women at childbirth in Europe in 2022, at 32.6 years, as well as the second-oldest average age for first-time mothers, at 31.6 years.
Spain also ranked second for the share of births to women aged 40 or older; 11% of live births in the country were to mothers in their fifth decade or beyond.
In comparison, only about 4% of live births in the US were to women over 40, according to data from the US National Center for Health Statistics, compiled by nonprofit group March of Dimes.
(Comprehensive global data isn't readily available, but Ireland came top in the most recent European stats.)
Financial insecurity
Delaying motherhood is a growing trend across Europe and beyond, not just in Spain.
However, Juan García-Velasco, chief scientific officer for IVIRMA Global, which operates a network of fertility clinics, highlights "a combination of factors" that help explain Spain's particularly high ranking.
Sarah Richards, a Barcelona-born mother of two who had her second child at 40, said that people want to be financially secure and own their own house before starting a family, "so that's going to happen a lot later here than it would in the UK, where salaries certainly are higher."
Property prices in cities and coastal areas also make it harder for many to afford a home, with Spain having one of the highest average ages in Europe for young people leaving the family home — at just over 30.
"You can't buy there, and the rents are just out of control," Richards said. "You either have a very good job, or you have a rich family that can help you and help with childcare."
Fertility treatments
Waiting longer often leads to a growing reliance on treatments like IVF, and Spain is a leader in Europe in IVF success rates, according to the global fertility agency International Fertility Group.
While a like-for-like comparison between Spain and the US isn't available — as different countries and clinics measure success rates differently — Spain remains a popular destination for Americans exploring international fertility treatment options.
García-Velasco said this may be why it may feel less risky for some women in Spain to leave trying for kids until later in life. "As the outcome is good, this reduces the pressure and the fears," he said
IVF is also widely accessible in Spain and is free for women 40 and under, including those who are single or in same-sex relationships.
"The more facilities that are offered to become a mother later in life, the easier it's going to be," saidPauline Bronkurst, who had her second child this year at the age of 43.
"In our case," Bronkurst added, "both of our babies were conceived through IVF, so that definitely played a role."
But Bronkhurst emphasized the importance of Spain's public healthcare system, which was particularly beneficial after her second child was born with a genetic condition.
While getting pregnant at an older age can increase the likelihood of complications, Bronkhurst said that in countries with universal healthcare and a high standard of medical care, the perceived risk of advanced-age pregnancy is significantly lower.
"I think that plays into the whole thing of waiting longer," she told BI.
Slow to settle down
Another major factor contributing to delayed motherhood in Spain is that people are simply settling down later in life.
The average age of first marriage among men in Spain is 36.8, the highest in Europe, while for women it's 34.7, also the highest, according to the latest Eurostat data.
Stephanie Galavodas, who had her son three years ago aged 41, told BI she waited until her 40s to have a child because she was "saying yes to things in life when I didn't have the partner to build a family."
After years of pursuing degrees, traveling, and establishing her career, she eventually met her partner, with whom she had her child.
"I always knew that I would have kids someday," she said, "and so it felt fine to me to kind of go out in the world and experience things instead of rushing to have a child first."
García-Velasco said the fastest-growing group seeking fertility treatment at his clinics in Spain are single mothers who have decided to raise a child on their own.
This trend is not unique to Spain. A 2020 study published in Fertility and Sterility found a significant rise in the number of single women undergoing IVF in the US over the preceding 12 years.
In Spain, García-Velasco said that many single mothers pursuing fertility treatment cite a "lack of adequate partner" as their primary motivation for going solo.
For Cruz-Lemini, the doctor who had her child at 44, this was the reality. "I'm a single mom by choice," she told BI.
Cruz-Lemini was occupied with studies, training, and then work as a doctor, but, she said, "You get to be around 40 years old and then suddenly you realize that it might be your last chance or chances to have a child."
She found a sperm donor and pursued IVF. A little over two years ago, she gave birth to her daughter.
Sometimes, she said, "you have to do it by yourself because you don't have time to get into a relationship."
Tracey Kahn with her daughters, Eloise, (left) and Scarlett.
Courtesy of Tracey Kahn
Tracey Kahn, a single mother by choice, gave birth at 49 and 51.
The younger girl is a tween, and the older will turn 13 next spring.
Kahn, 61, has found parenting more challenging as her daughters have grown older.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Tracey Kahn, 61, a publicist and the owner of a fine jewelry company in New York City. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I'd always thought that being a mom was part of my life plan. But it wasn't until my mid-40s that I began to wonder whether parenting would pass me by.
My career had always come first. Although I'd had serious relationships, I'd never committed to marriage. But, in the late 2000s, I thought, "Oh my God, I don't have kids!"
I'm a hustler and have always gone after what I wanted. I had a full physical and was approved for IVF using donor eggs and sperm. It wasn't the easiest pregnancy, but my daughter, Scarlett, arrived three days after my 49th birthday, weighing a healthy eight pounds.
I was keen for her to have a sibling. As soon as I felt my body had recovered from the C-section, I did another round of IVF. Scarlett's sister, Eloise, was born in December 2014.
Motherhood was exhilarating. I couldn't believe how lucky I was to have my own family at last.
Still, there were challenges. The worst thing was going straight into menopause the moment I stopped breastfeeding Eloise when she was 6 months old.
Raising my girls is more difficult at the moment
Despite the hot flashes and mood swings, I managed to keep up with the girls. There were times when I was exhausted because I constantly needed to catch up on my sleep. But, looking back, parenting a baby and a toddler was a cakewalk compared to raising a tween and soon-to-be teen.
The tougher years are going on right now. It's a combination of the girls approaching adolescence and me being in my 60s.
Scarlett is in seventh grade, and Eloise is in fourth grade. She'll be in middle school next year — the stage when children want their own identity and freedom.
It's certainly been the case with Scarlett, who turns 13 in the spring. She used to play with Eloise a lot, but she's now very sensitive and wants her own space and privacy.
Kahn with Eloise, left, and Scarlett, on Scarlett's fifth birthday in 2017.
Courtesy of Tracey Kahn
I have to be thoughtful about how I speak to her because there's a lot going on emotionally. She's trying to find herself while dealing with school, friend groups, and boys.
When you're older, your short-term memory changes, but your long-term memory is very sharp. I remember sixth grade like it was yesterday. "It was the same when I was at school," I'll tell Scarlett when she talks about cliques. There's always going to be the geeks and the more popular kids.
But she doesn't like to listen to her mother, just like me at her age. She'll get mad and say that I'm too old to understand. We argue, and she calls me out on everything. I'm learning to back off and let her figure things out for herself.
I'm very aware of my advancing age
Meanwhile, managing the kids' activities is a full time job. Scarlett goes horseback riding and swims. Eloise plays lacrosse and volleyball. They love the arts. I'll take them to classes after school. They have sleepovers with friends.
It's non-stop. I constantly ask myself whether I can make it to another school function. I still want to enjoy things with my girls, but I'm slower than I used to be. I feel like I can't get out of bed sometimes because my joints hurt. I recently went to a field hockey game and met another woman my age watching her granddaughter play.
Late motherhood has made me hyper-aware of getting older. Scarlett has promised to visit my grave every day after I die. My sister said, "How can you talk about death like that?" But I find it endearing. It's better that the kids are realistic about the future.
People think it's morbid, but I have to think ahead. I'm a big planner and want everything set up for the girls in advance. I'll be in my 70s when they graduate from college. I don't know whether I'll be around to see them married. Then again, I could live to 95.
I cherish every moment
Eloise is such a sweet child, she gives me back massages at night. They're amazing. But I don't want her and Scarlett to feel I will use them as caretakers. I'll employ somebody to help me when the time comes so my daughters can travel and lead great lives.
In the meantime, I'm soaking up the joy of being with them. Every morning, I watch them go out the door to conquer the day. I'm excited to see them again at night. I want to know which poem Scarlett wrote and how Eloise did in her dance class.
You need perseverance to raise tweens and teens in your sixties. But the rewards are incredible.
Do you have a powerful story to share with Business Insider about parenting? Please send details to this reporter at [email protected].
Amy Speace became a mom for the first time one month shy of her 50th birthday.
The musician underwent IVF and used donor eggs.
She does yoga and meditates daily as part of her regime to be a patient, hands-on mom.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Amy Speace, 56, a singer-songwriter from Nashville. It has been edited for length and clarity.
When I was younger, I never wanted to have children. My career as a singer-songwriter meant everything to me. At 30, I got signed to a record label and became ambitious, touring all over the country.
Then, as I got older, my attitude to motherhood changed. "I'm so busy doing this and that," I thought. "What if I forget to have kids?" Then, at 46, I met my second husband, Jamey, now 50.
We tried for a baby the minute we were together. But we didn't conceive. We looked into adoption, but the cost was prohibitive. Also, it might have taken years.
Luckily, Jamey's company health insurance covered about 85% of fertility treatments. So we decided to try IVF. The doctors said my eggs were too old to be viable at 49, and we should choose a donor.
First, I had a full exam to check whether my body could carry a baby. I had surgery to remove some polyps from my uterus. Then, we picked a donor who had a similar profile to mine.
Her eggs were fertilized by Jamey's sperm, and I was placed on the hormones to get ready for the transfer. It took two attempts, but we were lucky enough to get pregnant in July 2017.
I took a year off touring after my son was born
The pregnancy was super easy. I did yoga throughout. We hoped for a natural birth, and my doctor said that would be fine. She said that I was healthier than many 20-year-olds.
However, the baby had other ideas. I was induced due to back labor but was told it could take 36 hours for me to be dilated enough to deliver. We opted for a C-section because I didn't want to go through all that and end up needing an emergency one.
Our son, Huck, was born healthy. I fell in love with him the moment he was placed in my arms.
We went through the usual thing of sleepless nights for four months when you can't see straight. But things got better. I played a festival when I brought him along with support from my mother-in-law. It was hard because I was nursing and pumping. I realized I would just be home with him and took a year off touring.
Speace, 56, with her son, Huck, 6.
Courtesy of Jamey Wood
I was tired, but I don't think I got more tired than younger moms did. I remained active and meditated daily. My spirituality has made me more patient and calm. It's helped me deal with the reality that I'll be almost 70 when Huck graduates high school. I'll never see him when he reaches my age.
I also practice gratitude. I was not ready to have a baby until I was 49. Then, a miracle happened. It was the way my life was supposed to be.
Jamey and I went through a hard time during the pandemic, and we separated and divorced. We shielded Huck and our relationship is very amicable as we co-parent him.
I laugh about bringing up a 6-year-old during menopause
It took a while for me to find my group of similar-minded moms. I'd go to the playground, and it would be full of 20-somethings watching their kids. But I made a good friend through Huck after he started playing with her 5-year-old. I've also established a network of older moms who read my blog.
We often discuss the funny side, such as raising a little kid during menopause. Huck, now 6, has his own room, but he sometimes brings his blankie and crawls into bed with me.
I have unbelievable night sweats. Sometimes I have to change three times a night. I'll put my son back in his bed and he'll say, "Mommy, you're all wet."
Laughter is part of being in the moment. Whatever the future brings, we'll live our lives that way.
Do you have an interesting story to share with Business Insider about being a new parent in later life? Please send details to [email protected]
Bill Nighy as Patrick Steptoe, Thomasin McKenzie as Jean Purdy, and James Norton as Robert Edwards in Netflix's "Joy."
Kerry Brown/Netflix
"Joy" is about the British doctors who helped conceive the first IVF baby.
The Netflix movie stars Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie, and James Norton.
Here's where Louise Brown, the first IVF baby, is now.
"Joy" is about the British doctors who helped conceive the first baby using IVF treatment in the late 1970s.
The Netflix movie stars Bill Nighy as Patrick Steptoe, the director of the Centre for Human Reproduction, Thomasin McKenzie as Jean Purdy, an embryologist, and James Norton as Robert Edwards, a physiologist.
The trio started working on IVF in the late 1960s when Steptoe started collecting egg cells from women and using sperm to fertilize them artificially at the Centre for Human Reproduction in Oldham, near Manchester in northwest England. He worked with Purdy and Edwards for almost a decade to try to help women get pregnant using the technique.
The New York Times reported that the team made 100 unsuccessful attempts to implant embryos using volunteers before they were finally successful.
In 1977, Bristol couple Lesley and John Brown came to the clinic after trying for nine years to have a baby.
After implanting Brown with a fertilized embryo, Purdy was the first person to see the embryo's cell division, which later became the Browns' first child.
Louise Brown was born in 1978
Louise Brown at the Science Museum in London.
Leon Neal/Getty Images
Louise Joy Brown was born on July 25, 1978, with her middle name giving the Netflix movie its title. She's often called the world's first "test-tube baby," although she was actually conceived in a petri dish.
Brown is an ambassador for IVF, and is "passionate about breaking the silence on all things fertility and ending the taboo about getting help for fertility issues or being born through scientific means," according to her website.
She lives in Bristol and has two sons who were conceived naturally.
In an interview at Bristol's Old Vic Theatre this year to coincide with the play "A Child of Science," Brown said: "Steptoe and Edwards were like grandfathers to me growing up. Patrick died when I was quite young; I last saw him when we did the Wogan show together, and he held my hand alongside other babies that he and Bob had brought into the world at Bourn Hall Clinic in Cambridgeshire, which they opened after my birth."
She added, "Bob Edwards I was able to get to know as an adult. He came to my wedding and was the first person I rang when I got pregnant after my parents. I knew him and his family as friends. Unfortunately, Jean Purdy died at the age of 39 and I did not know her."
