A heartbroken couple says their hopes of starting a family has been crushed after a Southern California fertility clinic threw out their embryos.
A careless mistake may have forever cost Marissa Calhoun and Stephen Castaneda of the dream of having children together.
“Our embryos, the very ones that represented our dream of a family, had been thrown away,” Calhoun said.
Since 2021, Calhoun says she has endured three painful egg retrievals.
Last October, her eggs were fertilized and then placed into an incubator to grow into 16 viable embryos.
The couple entrusted the storage of their embryos to Reproductive Partners Medical Group, or RPMG.
“RPMG eventually admitted that an employee had not labeled the embryos before placing them in the incubator and later took the unlabeled embryos out of the incubator and just threw them away,” said attorney Adam Wolf, who is representing the couple.
The couple with Wolf is suing RPMG for reckless negligence, filing the lawsuit with Los Angeles County Superior Court.