By Samantha Kubota -
TODAY Show
Alexander and Daphna Cardinale
were already the proud parents of a girl, but when the little girl asked for a brother they decided to resort to in vitro fertilization at a clinic recommended by a friend.
On her second attempt, Daphna Cardinale became pregnant and gave birth to a girl.
But when her father, Alexander Cardinale, saw the baby girl at birth in September 2019, with darker skin and dark hair, he
knew something had happened
.
"The room shrank, I felt dizzy ... and everything went cloudy," he said in a video released through his lawyer.
"I stayed in that place for a long time," he added.
For months she commented on the baby's appearance.
In an attempt to allay those fears, his wife commissioned a DNA test.
When they got the results, two months after the birth, they were shocked: none of them had a genetic relationship to the girl.
"The fertility clinic transferred an embryo to Daphna that belonged to ... strangers," said her attorney, Alex Wolf.
Daphna Cardinale "was, in other words,
a kind of involuntary and unconscious surrogate mother
of another couple's baby."
Immediately, the couple began to wonder what had happened to their embryo.
As it turned out, another couple had given birth to their biological child, Wolf said.
The other family sent the Cardinales a photo of the baby, with fair skin and blonde hair.
"I looked at her and was so aware that I didn't know her, didn't know her at all," Daphna Cardinale said through tears.
"I remember thinking, 'I don't know you,' which is heartbreaking about your own daughter," she added.
Alexander Cardinale carrying his biological daughter Courtesy of the Cardinale family
At first, Wolf noted, the Cardinales met with the other family almost every day, since they lived nearby.
However, in the end it was too difficult for everyone and they decided that the children should be with their biological parents.
She added that while it was exciting to finally bring her biological daughter home, she was equally devastated to lose the baby she had been raising since day one.
"I was losing a baby at the same time as I had another," she said.
“It's a really impossible nightmare,” he added, “there is pain and, at the same time, the heart begins to break for his family.
Because at the same time, everyone is gaining a child, but everyone is losing a child.
Perhaps the hardest thing for the Cardinales has been explaining the situation to their oldest daughter, Olivia, who was 5 years old when the babies were born.
Olivia had bonded with the Cardinale's non-biological daughter and was devastated by the exchange.
It is difficult to explain to a 5-year-old that the baby, that sister whom he joined and loves, is not his sister "
Alexander Cardinale
In the months since, the two families have had to work out "complicated family dynamics," Wolf said, and they typically see each other twice a month.
On Monday, the Cardinales filed a lawsuit against the clinic through which they had performed in vitro fertilization, the California Center for Reproductive Health, and the doctor they accused of being responsible, Eliran Mor.
Mor and the California Center for Reproductive Health did not respond to TODAY's request for comment.
Their attorney says they hope their lawsuit will hold both the clinic and Mor accountable and "shed light on this issue."
“For there to be public discussion and understanding of why these types of traumatic events happen,” he said, “we need an understanding that regulations are lacking to govern fertility clinics.
We want to make sure this doesn't happen again. "
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