I know I am late commenting on this story but yesterday I spent the day with my 14 year old son who had to have a colonoscopy and endoscopy. Fortunately for him, the results were negative. For Carolyn Savage, however, the news was much more grim:

A Sylvania Township couple received a double whammy of astonishing news this year from their fertility doctor, news that landed them on national television Monday. The first part they anticipated: Carolyn Savage was pregnant. But the follow-up that came later carried a horrifying jolt: It’s not their baby.

Carolyn and Sean Savage shared with the Today Show audience the extraordinary story of how a fertility clinic accidently implanted the wrong embryo into Mrs. Savage. “We had been delivered the worst news of our life,” Mr. Savage told host Meredith Vieira during the live television interview from their living room.

The Savages, already parents to three biological children despite years of reproductive difficulties and miscarriages, explained how, because of their religious beliefs, they never considered aborting the fetus. Not wanting to destroy their remaining frozen embryos after the successful in vitro fertilization and delivery last year of their youngest child, they returned to their fertility clinic in February to try for one more.

Mrs. Savage, 40, is due to give birth in two weeks via cesarean section, and said she and her husband are prepared to give the boy to his biological parents, whom they have met. During the meeting, the biological mother seemed “so grateful for what we had done.” “We’re trying to look at it as a gift for another family that eight months ago we didn’t know,” she said. Mrs. Savage said the mother agreed to let her have a moment with the baby “to say hello and good-bye” before handing him over.

This is not the first time an IVF facility has mistakenly transferred the wrong embryos into a patient. Just last week this Blog reported on four such incidents from Laurel Fertility Clinic, all within the last four years. No word yet on which fertility clinic was involved in this botched transfer.