2 Moms Are Suing Over An IVF Nightmare After Each One Gave Birth To A Stranger's Baby

Imagine finding out that your newborn baby — the one you carried for nine months and then named at birth — wasn't even yours? And that your kid was actually growing up with strangers?

Two California couples are feeling super mad and litigious about their shared IVF clinic, after discovering that each mom carried and gave birth to a complete stranger's baby due to a medical mixup.

The two families know each other now and have since swapped children, but that hasn't cooled their anger. They're now suing the IVF clinic behind the mixup, alleging fraud, malpractice and breach of contract for the epic embryo fail.

The disastrous mistake goes back to 2019, when the clinic created girl embryos for two separate couples. The embryos must've been switched at some point because each woman got the wrong one, although it would take them a whole year to learn the truth, according to one couple's lawsuit.

"I was robbed of the ability to carry my own child," one of the moms, Daphna Cardinale, said at a news conference announcing one of the lawsuits. "I never had the opportunity to grow and bond with her during pregnancy, to feel her kick."

Daphna and her husband, Alexander, say they were immediately suspicious when they saw "their" newborn. The girl's complexion was darker than either of theirs, but they tried to press on as though things were OK.

"The Cardinales, including their young daughter, fell in love with this child, and were terrified she would be taken away from them," their complaint filed in court says.

"All the while, Alexander and Daphna did not know the whereabouts of their own embryo, and thus were terrified that another woman had been pregnant with their child — and their child was out in the world somewhere without them."

That's exactly what happened, because another couple gave birth to the Cardinales' girl around the same time in September 2019.

Both couples eventually confirmed the mixup through DNA testing, but by that point they'd already spent three months raising each others' kid.

They swapped babies in January of 2020 and are now trying to hold the clinic accountable with twin lawsuits. They're also trying to adjust to the idea that they fell in love with someone else's kid for the first three months of their own child's life.

"The long-term consequences of this baby swap continue to haunt their entire family," the Cardinales' lawsuit says.

The second couple is remaining anonymous, but all four parents are being represented by the same lawyer.

The Cardinales say they're working hard to stay in touch with the other couple, and that they're trying to forge a larger family together.

"They were just as much in love with our biological daughter as we were with theirs," Alex Cardinale said.

Daphna added that the hardest part of it all was telling her older daughter, 7, that they were going to trade her sister for another.

The clinic and its top doctor have not commented on the lawsuit to date.