A major IVF clinic knowingly implanted dead embryos into expectant mothers in an attempt to cover up their fatal mistakes, a lawsuit alleges.
Nine California couples claim that clumsy workers at Ovation Fertility’s laboratory destroyed embryos with harmful cleaning chemicals during storage.
The suit says the embryos allegedly died “instantly” when stored, and that workers then knowingly implanted “these dead embryos into the expectant mothers.”
The clinic did so, according to the lawsuit, despite the risks of complications such as ectopic pregnancy, where the embryo implants in a fallopian tube rather than the uterus.
A couple, Brooke Berger and Bennett Hardy, now 37 and 33, said they were left heartbroken after discovering Ovation Fertility could have destroyed their last two embryos, which were their last hope of starting a family .
Brooke and Bennett trusted Ovation Fertility with their final two embryos during their fifth IVF cycle
The couple met almost 12 years ago while at school and have been married for four years.
“I still have nerve pain from these injections, which takes months to go away. My husband was rearranging his work to be able to administer these medications to me,” Ms. Berger said.
“When we found out there was no way this was going to end in a successful pregnancy, we were so disappointed and heartbroken,” Ms Berger said.
“It was physically and emotionally devastating to learn that after enduring all the injections, medications and painful and invasive procedures, it was ultimately for nothing,” she added.
“It’s just very disrespectful. Not recognizing their guilt, trying to silence us.
“It’s so disrespectful to not be treated as a priority for this, to not make them understand the damage they’ve caused – us and many other people.” I’m just shocked that they treat us so badly. Ms. Berger.
“To see (my wife) go through all this physically and mentally, and then for this to happen, it’s really frustrating,” Mr Hardy said.
Ovation Fertility is a national storage and IVF laboratory located in Newport Beach that bills itself as one of the leading fertility laboratories in the United States.
The company offers IVF, where an egg is fertilized by sperm in a test tube, then the resulting embryo is inserted into a woman.
Ovation also offers “safe and secure short- and long-term storage of frozen eggs, sperm and embryos,” the website states.
A single IVF cycle – including genetic testing – is estimated to cost $25,000.
But the new lawsuit alleges that Ovation “hired inexperienced, cheap, unskilled and untrained employees to save money and maximize profits – at the expense of the health and safety of its patients and their embryos.”
The filing claims that a laboratory embryologist improperly used hydrogen peroxide or a similar cleaning agent instead of a sterile solution like distilled water in the incubator that stored the frozen embryos.
The nine couples claim Ovation used high-quality embryos that should have had a 75% or greater chance of success between January 18 and 30.
But the chances were zero percent because the clinic knowingly used nonviable embryos, according to the complaint, and none of the women became pregnant.
Ms. Berger and Mr. Hardy moved to Orange County, Calif., in July last year and shipped their two remaining frozen embryos to their new doctor, who used Ovation Laboratories. This would be their fifth IVF cycle.
Ms. Berger had already undergone months of hormone injections, as well as invasive and risky medical procedures to retrieve eggs and prepare for implantation.
“I still have nerve pain from these injections, which takes months to go away. My husband was rearranging his work to be able to administer these medications to me,” she said.
Ovation Fertility is a national IVF and storage processing laboratory located in Newport Beach, offering “safe and secure short- and long-term storage of frozen eggs, sperm and embryos.”
“When we found out there was no way this would end in a successful pregnancy, we were so disappointed and heartbroken,” Ms Berger said.
“And then all the while, we’re just trying to maintain hope that whatever you’re doing is worth it, that you’ll get something out of it in the end.”
The implantation procedure at Ovation was “uncomfortable,” Ms. Berger said.
“They insert a catheter into your uterus, which is a very uncomfortable procedure, and then you’re supposed to wait for them to check that the embryos are viable.”
“There was a delay of several minutes standing there in this uncomfortable position, trying to breathe through this pain – you’re not given any pain management for that.
“Then they transfer it very quickly, you can see where (the embryos) go in the uterus on an ultrasound.”
“The doctor said everything went great, they were in a good place and he thought we had a good chance.”
“They did not know that their embryos had already died because of Ovation’s wrongdoing,” the lawsuit states.
The couple then had an agonizing 12-day wait, hoping for a positive pregnancy test at the end that would never arrive.
“This week is actually really, really tough,” Ms. Berger said. “You still take the medications, you still follow everything.
“Every twinge you feel in your body, you wonder: Is this a sign that things are okay, if anything? Because it’s in your own body, there’s no escaping it. You think about it all the time.
“It was physically and emotionally devastating to learn that after enduring all the injections, medications and painful and invasive procedures, it was ultimately for nothing,” Ms. Berger said.
The filing claims that a laboratory embryologist improperly used hydrogen peroxide or a similar cleaning agent instead of a sterile solution like distilled water in the incubator that stored the frozen embryos (image from archives).
“When you finally get a negative pregnancy test, it’s very difficult to deal with.”
Some of the other couples involved in the dispute even endured risky and painful medical procedures, such as hysteroscopies and biopsies, to determine if something was wrong on their end.
A hysteroscopy involves a surgeon examining the inside of your uterus via a camera attached to a tube to diagnose and treat abnormalities, while a biopsy involves testing a sample of tissue from the lining of the uterus.
The couples only began to discover that something questionable had happened after several of the couples’ fertility doctors wondered why there was a 100 percent failure rate for embryos thawed during this period. two weeks, when the success rate was normally above 75 percent. .
Another married couple, named only as TS and KS in the complaint, began their IVF journey in 2023.
Only two of the 12 eggs retrieved were successfully fertilized and deemed implantable.
“We had hope, a lot of hope, because we had a very high quality, very high grade female embryo, plus a low quality, low quality male embryo.” We did our best and transferred our daughter – named Kalani Noelle – on January 29, 2024. She was meant to complete our family,” the couple said.
But unfortunately, they never got pregnant. “Our hearts are broken and we will forever mourn the loss of our daughter’s embryo,” they said.
Now, Ovation is bombarding Ms. Berger with phone calls in an attempt to “sweep the matter under the rug, attempting to get patients to sign waivers of their claims and non-disparagement agreements,” the lawsuit says .
“This whole process with them trying to contact us…it’s so transactional. There’s been no apology, no clear answer.
“We shouldn’t have to file this lawsuit to find out what happened to our embryos. It’s just not right,” Mr Hardy said.
Ms. Berger and Mr. Hardy are desperate to become parents and are considering trying another round of ovarian stimulation.
“If we want to move forward, we will have to go through a whole different cycle of stimulation, which involves even more medications, monitoring and procedures.” It’s much more intense, and without any guarantee that we will get more viable embryos through this process,” she said.
“I’m almost three years older than when we first collected these embryos, and the odds don’t improve with age.”
Ms Berger said: “We want to ensure Ovation is held accountable… and that this doesn’t happen again to other couples trying to expand their family.”
Mr Hardy said: “It’s heartbreaking and frustrating to think of all the effort we have put in and my wife sacrificing her body physically and mentally in this grueling process.”
Lawyer Robert Marcereau, of the Marcereau Law Group, declared: “Ovation Fertility betrayed the trust of these people at their most vulnerable moments.
Solicitor Michelle Hemesath, of Ikuta Hemesath LLP, said: “Ovation Fertility touted its supposed expertise to the general public while its operations were riddled with incompetence, the lawsuit alleges.
Ovation Fertility has been named in other lawsuits in the past.
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