Couple Sues Fertility Clinic, Alleging Last Embryos Lost Or Mishandled
MISSION VIEJO (CBSLA) — An Orange County couple says their dreams of becoming parents were crushed when a fertility clinic lost or mishandled their frozen embryos.
Natalia Bergman says when she asked her doctor at Coastal Fertility what happened to her embryos she got no help and no compassion.
Instead, she says, she only got word from the doctor that whatever was frozen was delivered to the lab. Yet, Bergman says it's been two years and she is still seeking the truth.
"I was in shock," she said. "I literally fell to the ground. and I couldn't believe it."
Natalia and her husband, Randall Bergman, are demanding answers from the medical director of Coastal Fertility Medical Center in Irvine.
They say two of their frozen embryos were moved from Coastal to another fertility clinic; yet when the time came to transfer them, in the hopes of having a baby, the Bergmans were told there was nothing there.
"We don't know if somebody — another person that was at this facility — is literally, has had our baby. We don't know. We just don't know. We don't have an answer. But we have a lot of questions," Randall Bergman said.
The Bergmans and their lawyer, Adam Wolf, will go to court Friday. It's a move to try and get a judge to compel Coastal Fertility to hand over documents related to former clients who may have similar stories. The couple wants to know if others are missing their embryos in order to try and solve the mystery of what happened.
"We're left with nothing. Those were our final embryos. Financially, we can't move forward with anything else," Natalia said.
"And we literally put everything into this. Everything. Our savings," Randall added. "We borrowed. I mean, it's almost a case of beg, borrow and steal to try to make this work."
The Bergmans say they have spent $30,000-$50,000 on fertility treatments.
Coastal Fertility provided the following statement to CBS2/KCAL9: "With respect to this couple, we froze two embryos which were subsequently transferred to another laboratory of the couple's choosing. That laboratory was then responsible for the storing and thawing of those embryos. We have no control over those embryos once they leave our laboratory."
