• 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.

The pair, from Los Angeles, hired attorneys from the Clarkson Law Firm — which represents a number of the hundreds of IVF patients believed to have been impacted — and filed a complaint of gross negligence.

"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."

• As an interior decorator, I avoid design choices that make bathrooms feel sterile or cheap.
• I think matching towel sets and themed bathroom art lack personality and feel dated.
• Matte paint and unprotected wallpaper can easily succumb to water damage.

As an interior decorator, I love creating tranquil, well-coordinated rooms inside the home. However, there are a few design elements I wouldn't put in my bathroom.

Here are 1o things I would never have in my bathroom.

• I spent nine months traveling the world, and although I had a great time, I wouldn't do it again.
• Because I was on a tight budget, I often found myself turning down cool experiences to save money.
• I also struggled to make genuine friendships and missed having a space to call my own.

When I was working remotely in 2021, my boyfriend and I packed up and traveled to 22 countries across Europe and Latin America.

Although these were some of the best days of my life, I quickly learned that a lot of the videos I saw on social media that glorified full-time travel didn't always showcase the downfalls of the lifestyle.

More and more people are becoming digital nomads — countries like Italy have even implemented specific visas for remote workers. However, during my nine months abroad, I learned that the lifestyle isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Here's why I wouldn't travel full time again.

I kept looking for places and experiences that felt like home

While traveling full time, I found myself constantly looking for places and experiences that felt like home.

In some ways, it was cool to feel like a local in a new city. However, when I returned home and took shorter vacations, I started to value the places I was visiting for their differences rather than trying to find some semblance of home.

Nowadays, I like having a home base. Shorter trips help me to break up the monotony of life without sacrificing the comfort of home.

It felt like I was constantly thinking about money

When I was traveling full-time, I was on a strict budget. I either drained my wallet or ate cheap food to maintain some sort of financial security while on the road.

I talked myself out of going to every museum I wanted to and purchased cheap meals for dinner instead of indulging in local cuisine that might have been out of my budget.

The moments I would slip up on my spending were when I forgot this wasn't a never-ending vacation, but rather, my new everyday life.

During the first two weeks of our trip, I wanted to go to all of the must-try restaurants in Paris. However, I soon realized that came at the cost of establishing a strict daily budget for the remainder of our three weeks there.

Of course, it was worth it in the end to save money so I could travel for nine months. However, now that I take a few shorter trips a year, I have more flexibility to make them everything I want them to be.

My friendships at home changed, and the new ones I made were fleeting

I think what travelers yearn for the most is community. When I was traveling, it was really hard to find the same quality of friends I have at home.

When I did meet friends abroad, it was often short-lived. I found that many people traveling full time were only in a city for a few days. Even when I did find someone I connected with, it was hard to maintain a long-distance friendship.

Traveling full time also took a lot out of my friendships at home, as it seemed like they learned to live without me.

When I returned home, it felt like we didn't have as much in common as we used to. It took me months to get my friendships back to where they were before I left.

I missed having a space to call my own

While traveling, I stayed in 25 different places across nine months. Although seeing so many new places was cool, I missed having a space to call my own.

After spending so many nights in beds that weren't my own, it was an indescribable feeling to come back home. In fact, when I got back, I was able to create a space that took inspiration from the places I'd been.

I think traveling is something everyone should prioritize, but there are ways to see the world that don't involve doing it full time.

Nowadays, I plan to take at least four international trips a year, ranging from one to two weeks. This allows me to live a travel-filled life without giving up the comforts of home, career, and relationships.

This story was originally published on April 26, 2024, and most recently updated on January 9, 2025.

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• Two Sigma's billionaire cofounders, John Overdeck and David Siegel, are heading to arbitration.
• The pair stepped down from the $60 billion quant in August.
• Despite the cofounder drama, the firm's flagship returned 10.9% in 2024.

Two Sigma's billionaire founders are not done fighting, but luckily for investors, they're no longer at risk of being collateral damage.

The cofounders, John Overdeck and David Siegel, are heading to arbitration over their long-standing feud about how to manage the $60 billion asset manager that they started in 2001.

According to a Bloomberg report, the firm disclosed the arbitration in a letter to investors on Wednesday and said that it isn't party to the dispute. The firm did not respond to a request for comment.

Many hedge funds stumble when it comes to succession planning. For example, Bridgewater Associates went through several top executives over a decade before Ray Dalio finally let go of the reins. Investors in managers with aging founders push their funds to come up with succession plans, with varying degrees of success.

In the case of Two Sigma, the LPs are likely breathing a sigh of relief that the dispute between the two billionaires didn't complicate succession plans or stop the firm from humming along.

Two Sigma's investors enjoyed solid returns through 2024, as its flagship Spectrum fund gained 10.9%. The manager also made 14.3% in its Absolute Return Enhanced strategy, a person close to the New York-based quant giant told Business Insider.

The firm announced in August that Overdeck and Siegel would step down from their roles atop the firm to become the manager's co-chairmen. Carter Lyons, formerly the firm's chief business officer, and Scott Hoffman, former Lazard general counsel, took over as co-CEOs in September.

Siegel's and Overdeck's visions for Two Sigma decoupled in recent years to the point that the firm had to make a disclosure in a filing saying that its management committee "has been unable to reach agreement on a number of topics" — including succession.

While a leadership change affects every fund, quant platforms have proven themselves to be more capable of adapting. D.E. Shaw and Renaissance Technologies, two of Two Sigma's biggest competitors, have turned over their C-suite and continued to produce strong results.

The cofounders' decision to leave their day-to-day at the firm left LPs feeling optimistic.

"It's what we wanted to see," one Two Sigma investor told BI in August.

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