Florida fertility mix-up leads to shared custody for white couple and the baby they were not expecting

Tiffany Scurses and Steven Mills, a white couple from Florida, have been awarded shared custody of a baby girl born to them in April 2025 after a fertility clinic mix-up left them with a child who was not biologically theirs. The baby, Shay, has darker skin, which alerted the couple to the error soon after birth.

The couple sued the Florida fertility clinic and also worked to identify the child’s biological parents, which they described as a moral duty. In April, they announced that the biological parents had been found through genetic testing. They said then that the discovery closed one painful chapter but opened new questions, and stressed: “There is only one thing that was certain on the day our daughter was born and remains certain today, we will love this child and always be her parents.”

Scurses and Mills said they developed a deep emotional bond with Shay, adding, “We love our baby more than words can describe.” Their lawyer, Jack Scarola, said their main fear was that the biological parents would appear and demand the child back, explaining, “They fell in love with this child. They would have been happy to raise her, but this is someone else’s child, and someone can come at any moment and ask to take her.”

The couple also sought to determine whether their own embryos had been mistakenly transferred to another couple in a similar error. In April, the clinic announced it was shutting down and that another clinic would open in the same location.