A Memphis couple is preparing to take legal action after a fertility clinic in St. Louis lost their embryo.
In an interview with NBC affiliate KSDK that aired Thursday, Aug. 22, Mary and Jimmy Gorman said they had been trying to have a child for years — and decided to travel from Memphis, Tennessee, to Missouri to work with renowned Dr. Sherman Silber at the Infertility Center in St. Louis on IVF.
“I will do whatever it takes to have a family,” Mary told the paper, adding: “I’ve heard very good things about this doctor.”
According to the Mayo Clinic, during IVF — or in vitro fertilization — doctors collect eggs from a person’s ovaries and fertilize them with sperm in the lab to create an embryo, which is then placed in the person’s uterus. The full cycle of IVF lasts about two to three weeks, according to the clinic.
The Gormans told KSDK they shelled out more than $70,000 and spent nine months undergoing hormone injections to produce two viable embryos.
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Mary told the outlet that her two embryos were retrieved on September 19, 2023. The first was transferred on February 7 of this year, but was unsuccessful. Months later, on May 14, she arrived at the Infertility Center in St. Louis for her second transplant attempt and even went so far as to put on a hospital gown when the doctor told her the unimaginable news – she wouldn’t be able to undergo the procedure.
“Because they lost it. They don’t know where it was,” Mary told KSDK, telling the outlet that the clinic had no idea where her embryo was.
“I don’t understand why this would happen or why it happened. They can’t answer me. They won’t give me an answer,” added Mary.
Josh Tolin, a Missouri-based medical malpractice attorney who KSDK reported is representing the couple, said that while he plans to file lawsuits against the center as well as St. Luke – where the center stores the embryos – fears the Gormans are unlikely to find out what happened to their lost embryo.
“It’s a finger-pointing process,” Tolin told KSDK. “I don’t know if we’ll ever know the truth.”
“They made a mistake. They screwed up,” said Tolin.
The Gormans told KSDK that they fear that their missing embryo has something to do with the announcement of St. Luke announced in July that it will no longer offer fertility storage services. According to the output, as well as according to St. Louis Post-Dispatchthe hospital began moving some of its warehouses to ReproTech, a facility in Garland, Texas. Mary told KSDK that she did not receive any warning.
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In a statement given to KSDK, St. Luke’s wrote that “Dr. Silber has notified his patients of this transition through multiple communications beginning in the fall of 2023.”
“Patients are informed that, upon request, their samples are available for transfer to another fertility clinic or storage service if they so desire,” the statement continued in part. “Nothing has changed for our patients except where their samples are stored.”
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“St. Luke’s commitment to providing exceptional care to every patient, every time, is the foundation of everything we do. St. Luke’s has always, including during this transition, maintained strict rules and practices related to the collection, preservation and storage of reproductive specimens and embryos, and all claims to the contrary are unfounded,” the hospital’s statement added.
Neither Silber nor the Gormans’ attorney were immediately available for comment.
“That could have been my chance to have a baby,” Mary told KSDK about the incident.
“I don’t want this to ever happen to anyone again,” she added. “This is terrible.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education