Clinic inferred that white couple’s Asian baby was result of affair – INSIDER
- White parents who are suing the New Jersey fertility clinic that helped them get pregnant with a daughter who turned out to be Asian spoke with news outlets this week.
- Drew Wasilewski and Kristina Koedderich said they sought out the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science in 2012 to help them get pregnant.
- They said they noticed their daughter developing Asian features when she was 2 years old. After a DNA test, they learned that Wasilewski was not her biological father.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
White parents who are suing their fertility clinic after they gave birth to an Asian baby say hospital officials suggested that their daughter was the result of an extramarital affair, ABC News reported on Wednesday, citing court documents.
Drew Wasilewski and Kristina Koedderich of New Jersey said in an interview that aired Thursday on “Good Morning America” that they went to the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science in Livingston in 2012 when they were struggling to get pregnant with a second child.
They underwent in vitro fertilization and were under the impression that the baby was created using an egg from Koedderich and sperm from Wasilewski.
—Good Morning America (@GMA)
But they said that when their daughter was about 2 years old, she started developing Asian features. They said they would frequently get comments from strangers about her different appearance from them and their son.
“Everywhere we would go, even strangers would say: ‘Where did you adopt her?’ They just blatantly asked, even in shopping malls and places like that,” Koedderich told the New York Post on Wednesday.
It was around then that the couple decided to undergo DNA testing.
“I just did the test and went through the motions, thinking that everything was going to be fine. And then when the results came, I was in disbelief,” Wasilewski told “Good Morning America.”
They said the DNA test showed that their daughter, now 7, was related only to Koedderich and had inherited a rare blood disorder.
“The hospital said this couldn’t possibly happen and there was no fault on their part,” Wasilewski told the Post. “I started wondering, ‘Has my wife been cheating on me?’ What on earth is going on here?'”
The shocking revelation led to a breakdown in the couple’s relationship, and they divorced in 2017.
They filed a lawsuit against the clinic, seeking damages and demanding a list of its sperm donors so that they might find out who their daughter’s biological father is.
Read more: A white couple is suing their fertility clinic after giving birth to an Asian daughter
The clinic initially denied their request on the basis of patient-privacy laws, but an Essex County judge recently ordered it to turn over the list, saying the names of the donors and their addresses could be redacted — but if the girl’s biological father is identified, his information would need to be made available to the couple.
When reached for comment on Wednesday, the clinic issued the following statement:
“We are an organization comprised of passionate, dedicated medical professionals whose singular mission is to help our patients build their families. The integrity of our treatment processes are paramount and we are taking this matter very seriously. As such, we are thoroughly examining the alleged incident, which is said to have occurred in 2012. As patient privacy is core to what we do, we do not comment specifically on individual patient matters.”