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What If Your Embryo Loss Could Have Been Prevented?

Maybe It’s Not Just Bad Luck.

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Embryo Loss Lawsuit

If you lost an embryo in an IVF facility and are looking for clarity, accountability, and real help, you’re not the only one – far from it. You could contact us for immediate help from a real person.

What Is Embryo Loss in IVF?

IVF error isn’t “just bad luck” – it’s preventable harm. Or it should be, except the industry isn’t regulated. Unlike hospitals, IVF clinics are not legally bound to adhere to failsafe protocols. Neither are they required to report even cataclysmic mishaps involving avoidable embryo loss.1 Families deserve the truth and a way forward. We stand with them to demand better standards and regulatory enforcement of real accountability.

If your embryo was lost in an IVF facility for preventable reasons (not from natural pregnancy or because the IVF procedure didn’t “take”) you aren’t alone + we can help.

These errors happen because US government oversight is nil. Clinics consistently report success rates to the CDC, but reporting adverse events is not mandatory. Embryology labs drift in a regulatory gray area. Ethical guidance says clinics should disclose errors, but they don’t have to.2

“’Maybe if enough of us speak out, there will be more regulation, there will be more protocol put into place,’ said Marissa Calhoun, 36, who sued her Los Angeles fertility clinic in the fall [of 2025], alleging that the embryos she and her partner intended to use to start a family had been discarded by mistake. ‘That’s my only hope.’”3

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Wait – What Do You Mean the IVF Industry Isn’t Regulated?

“Inside the opaque world of IVF,” the Washington Post reported in 2024, “errors are rarely made public.”4

IVF facilities are governed by respective state licenses that vary, with professional associations overseeing facilitators. The inspection and accreditation of labs, however, are handled mainly by private, volunteer groups that deem adverse incidents are clinic property.5

“Many inspectors are the directors of labs themselves, a fraternity of scientists who review one another’s work, looking for systemic problems, not lost reproductive material,” according to the College of American Pathologists.”6

How Can an IVF Clinic Lose an Embryo?

Lots of ways. For starters, the IVF industry – officially referred to as ART/ assisted reproductive technology –quadrupled between 1966-2022 with six times as many methods becoming available, increasing the odds of adverse incidents + making enforced regulations more critical.7

A pivotal international analysis of people affected by adverse IVF incidents was conducted in 2024 by NAPGO (the North American Proceedings in Gynecology and Obstetrics): of 205 participants, 205 IVF incidents were identified involving human error affecting 307 people + resulting in 76 lawsuits worldwide. Embryo swapping topped the list, followed by discarded embryos.8

 “IVF clinics face numerous operational and legal challenges, which come at great emotional, reputational, and financial costs to patients and providers,” the study concluded.9 

Remember, the industry is not regulated + reporting mishaps isn’t enforced. Besides transferring the wrong embryo or discarding healthy embryos without a parent’s consent, there are storage failures (without a backup generator), mislabeled living specimens, faulty genetic testing that can lead to wrongful embryo discarding.

But Isn’t Embryo Loss from Negligence Rare?

Not as rare as you may think. Many women think this would never happen to them – until it does:

Krystena Murray, a Caucasian woman who gave birth to a dark-skinned newborn (the sperm donor was Caucasian with blond hair and blue eyes). After five months of loving the boy as her own, she had to give him back to his biological parents. She sued the Georgia fertility clinic in February 2025 for the mistake.10

A Los Angeles fertility clinic in 2023 forgot to label an entire batch of 16 fertilized eggs belonging to Marissa Calhoun, whose struggle to collect eggs had been long and grueling with one failed IVF attempt: all 16 healthy embryos were recklessly discarded.11

In 2018, the same year as the San Francisco fiasco, a freezer malfunctioned at an Ohio clinic:

“One Saturday night, when the clinic wasn’t staffed, temperatures started to rise in the liquid nitrogen storage tank where more than 4,000 eggs and embryos were stored.”12

How Do I Know if I Lost My Embryos Because of Negligence?

It’s possible you might not know why you lost your embryo(s) or if the loss was preventable. Not every bad outcome, however, is a result of negligence. If a clinic has failed basic safeguards, as noted earlier, negligence is likely.

The NIH proposes that resolutions going forward should include strict implementation and compliance with safety protocols, sufficient staffing and training, and untried/ novel methods of specimen labeling and tracking. But most important is knowing the errors exist to determine their cause + avoid future errors.13  Without regulation, it’s hit-and-miss.

Can I File An Embryo Loss Lawsuit?

Yes, yes, and yes. IVF isn’t guaranteed to produce the desired results (babies), but it’s still a laborious, emotional, and costly process. You should be able to trust professionals with your irreplaceable eggs, sperm, and embryos.

A surge of new embryo loss lawsuits, resulting from clinic negligence + mix-ups, began in 2019-2020. The lawsuits aren’t slowing down.14

In March 2025, NBC News reported that 300 lost embryo lawsuits were brought between 2019-2024 as a result of IVF clinic error – yet there’s still no national database or regulatory system demanding episodes like this be reported, so the true numbers are unclear.15

While you may not know the details of how your embryos were lost, if something seems fishy, please consider contacting us about taking legal action.

You’re Not Alone.
How Can A Case for Women Help You?

Here’s how. First, we aim to alert as many women as possible to the potential risks involved with IVF clinic errors. Though accidents don’t happen every day, the industry is so big now that even a small percentage means loads of crushed dreams.

The industry isn’t regulated for safety protocols or reporting problems.

It’s wrong for neglect to come between you and your IVF dreams after you’ve devoted time, money, and emotion to starting a family. Contact us, because you may be able to take legal action and we want to help you. The IVF embryo loss lawsuit wants to raise awareness + an appropriate level of alarm, plus drive enforced regulatory improvements in the IVF industry, while seeking financial compensation to help you bear the loss on so many levels.

We’re here to help, 24/7/365, at no charge (ever). Some of us have been in your shoes + we know “devastating” doesn’t quite cover it.

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Sources

  1. Emi Nietfeld, “America’s IVF Failure,” The Atlantic, May 2, 2024.

  2. Lenny Bernstein and Yeganeh Torbati, “Inside the opaque world of IVF, where errors are rarely made public,” Washington Post, April 28, 2024.

  3. Leticia Juarez, “Couple files lawsuit accusing SoCal fertility clinic of throwing away their embryos,” ABC 7 Eyewitness News, September 17, 2024.

  4. Lenny Bernstein and Yegeneh Torbati, “Inside the opaque world of IVF, where errors are rarely made public,” Washington Post, April 28, 2024.

  5. Bernstein and Torbati, “Inside the opaque world.”

  6. Emma Waters, “Why the IVF Industry Must Be Regulated,” Heritage Foundation, March 19, 2024.

  7. Aria Bendix, Kenzi Abou-Sabe, Alexandria Chaidez, Priya Sridhar, and Ellison Barber, “After IVF nightmares, patients have few protections,”NBC News, March 19, 2025.

  8. Anar Murphy, PhD and Michael Collins, PhD, “Legal Case Study of Severe IVF Incidents Worldwide: Causes, Consequences, and High Emotional, Financial, and Reputational Costs to Patients and Providers,” NAPGO/ North American Proceedings in Gynecology and Obstetrics, June 20, 2024.

  9. Anar Murphy and Michael Collins, “Legal Case Study.”

  10. Priya Sridhar and Elizabeth Chuck, “Georgia woman sues fertility clinic for implanting wrong embryo after she birthed another couple’s baby,NBC News, February 18, 2025.

  11. Doc Louallen, Rachel Rosenbaum, Laura Coburn, and Zoe Chevalier, “Inside IVF mix-ups that left women carrying embryos that weren’t theirs,” ABC News, March 7, 2025.

  12. Laurel Wamsley, “Ohio Fertility Clinic Says 4,000 Eggs and Embryos Destroyed When Freezer Failed,” NPR, March 28, 2018.

  13. Staff, “NIH Implementation of Executive Order on Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research,” NIH/ National Institutes of Health, June 18, 2024.

  14. Aria Bendix, et al., “After IVF nightmares.”

  15. Aria Bendix, et al., “After IVF nightmares.”

WE WEAR THIS BADGE PROUDLY. Because, in a time when legal services are still dominated by men, only a Women Owned Business can bring the woman’s perspective to issues that disproportionately affect women.

We are the ones, far more than men, who are injured by sexual assault, financial scams, the gender pay gap, toxic chemicals, and the misguided practices of powerful pharmaceutical companies.