Smash hit

Ms Buchweitz, brought up as a Roman Catholic, had been trying to have a baby since she was 42. She had tried to use her own eggs and the sperm of her long-term boyfriend, but the procedure failed and her relationship ended.

After years of counselling, she decided to go ahead with a donated egg and donated sperm. She finally underwent the procedure at the age of 47.

Dr Katz’s lawyer, Robert Slattery, said that his client realised the terrible consequences of his mistake as soon as it happened; in particular the likelihood that Ms Buchweitz would not get pregnant again and that the married couple would probably sue for custody of their child. “The dilemma he had was that if he told somebody, he had to tell everybody, and somebody would be harmed as a result of it,” Mr Slattery said.

Ms Buchweitz learnt about the switched embryos in December 2001 after the Medical Board of California, acting on the tip-off, contacted her. She called Dr Katz in a panic and he agreed to visit her at home five days after Christmas. He brought a gift of books for her young son.

“He just blurted out, ‘There’s been a terrible mix-up in the lab’,” said Ms Buchweitz. She said she remained calm, asking only: “Will somebody be taking my baby away?” The legal battle has forced her to mortgage her home in Campbell to pay her legal bills and give up her job.

At first Ms Buchweitz and Dr Katz thought that they could settle the matter out of court, with Ms Buchweitz even meeting the married couple at home. Two weeks later, she came home to find that a lawsuit had been filed against her. “It was just tossed on my doorstep, not even in an envelope. It was very upsetting,” she said.

The single mother decided to make her story public this week after receiving her $1 million settlement from Dr Katz’s insurance company.

The identity of her son is still protected.

IVF MIX-UPS

February 2001
Woman sues a fertility clinic after giving birth to triplets. The clinic implanted three embryos into her womb instead of two as requested

April 2002
Two women have wrong embryos put back into their wombs in IVF mix-up at St George’s Hospital, London. Both required medical procedures to prevent pregnancy July 2002 Mixed-race twins are born to a white couple after a black man’s sperm was mistakenly used to fertilise the eggs at Leeds General Infirmary

July 2002
Woman gives birth to twins — one black, and one white — in a New York IVF clinic. Apart from her own embryo, Donna Fasano had mistakenly received another stored by a different couple

August 2003
DNA tests confirm that teenager has different biological father due to a mix-up at IVF clinic in Wellington Hospital in North London

October 2003
Liverpool Women’s Hospital admits a group of embryos have been exposed to sperm from other men

QUEST FOR BABY

• British doctors Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards first developed IVF technique. “In vitro” means “in glass”, hence “test tube baby”
• Louise Brown was the first IVF baby, born on July 25, 1978
• About 8,000 IVF babies are born each year in the UK
  
  Main IVF procedures
  
• Woman takes fertility drugs to produce more eggs
• Eggs are “retrieved” and placed in a dish, mixed with sperm and left to fertilise
• Woman is given hormone drugs to prepare womb to receive fertilised eggs
• Fertilised eggs are injected into the womb and if they implant, normal pregnancy follows
  
  Possible drug side-effects
  
• Hot flushes, irritability, headaches and restlessness
  
  Source: Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority

  
  

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