A New York couple is suing Illume Fertility, which operates five fertility clinics in Connecticut and New York, and says the company discarded their embryos after confusing them with another patient’s and did not tell them for years.
A New York couple is suing a Connecticut-based fertility clinic, claiming it destroyed their embryos by mistake and did not notify them until realizing it years later.
Nicole Couture-Gallagher and her husband, Dan Gallagher, shared their story during a virtual news conference and said Illume Fertility confused Nicole with another patient who wanted their embryos destroyed, but they destroyed the Gallaghers’ instead.
The lawsuit says the clinic did not realize until around five years later and the couple had been paying to store the embryos during that time. Then, the couple continued to receive bills for embryo storage for several months after they were notified that they had been destroyed.
“We placed our trust in Illume Fertility to care for our future family, and that trust was betrayed,” Couture-Gallagher said.
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“Thinking of the life and joy that was destroyed has caused us great mental and physical distress that we're still processing today,” Gallagher added.
The lawsuit says the couple has four children, hoped to have more and the embryos that were destroyed were “Nicole and Daniel’s last, and only, hope to have the family for which they planned, dreamed and paid (the founder and medical director of the clinic) for all these years.”
NBC Connecticut reached out to Illume Fertility for comment and the company has not responded.
