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Savage choiceA family prepares to say hello — and goodbye — to a new son. By Kristen Rapin, Page A8

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COMMUNITYMayoral debate scheduled Oct. 14Independent mayoral candidate Mike Bell and Democrat Keith Wilkowski will appear at a one-hour televised live debate, Oct. 14, to take place at a location to be announced. Th e debate is sponsored by Toledo Free Press, FOX Toledo and Glass City Jungle, and will be televised on FOX. Time and ticket details for the free event will be announced soon.

A8

By Kristen RapinTOLEDO FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

news@toledofreepress.com

Every morning, when Carolyn Savage wakes up to greet the day, the reality washes over her again.

“I kind of come to a conscious-ness ‘I’m awake, it’s a new day,’ and I go to get out of bed and I can’t move,” she said. “I think, ‘What’s wrong? Oh, right, I’m pregnant, only I’m pregnant with someone else’s baby.’ It smacks me in the head all over again.”

Th e joy of pregnancy turned into a heartbreaking scenario for Sean and Carolyn Savage aft er a fer-tility clinic implanted Carolyn with another family’s embryo.

State of shockTh e Savages, of Sylvania Town-

ship, parents to two teenage boys and an 18-month girl, had prior problems with pregnancies when they turned to in-vitro fertilization for their fourth child.

In early February, the Savages were waiting to hear back from the fertility clinic about that morning’s pregnancy test when Sean received some shocking news at work.

Th eir doctor called to tell him they were pregnant, but with someone else’s embryo.

Driving home, Sean said he was in a state of shock.

“I knew I was going to be deliv-ering really bad news and I wanted to get there as quickly as possible,” he said. “I just knew I had to do it, but it was never something I wanted to do.”

Carolyn, who was surprised her husband was home, didn’t be-lieve the news: “I thought he was joking, even though there was nothing about his demeanor that

would suggest that. I didn’t think it was possible, this couldn’t happen. I quickly moved from a state of shock to tears. I couldn’t think clearly at all.”

The Savages, who say they are both religious and active members of St. Joseph’s church in Sylvania, said terminating the pregnancy was never an option.

“We didn’t have to discuss it. We came to an instantaneous conclu-

sion; this was the path that we had to go down,” Sean said.

Th e MorellsSeventy miles north in Troy,

Mich., Shannon (whose maiden name is Savage, but is not related to the Savages) and Paul Morell have twin daughters conceived by in-vitro fertilization.

Just as the couple was preparing to revisit their frozen embryos, they

received news from their doctor that their embryos had been im-planted into another woman and she was pregnant.

Th e two families began talking to each other through attorneys and then met at the end of Caro-lyn’s fi rst trimester.

“Th at was the longest 14 weeks probably of my entire life,” Shannon said on the Sept. 21 ‘Today Show.’ “We didn’t know who they were.

Were they good people? It’s the oddest feeling to have somebody else carrying your child because, as a parent, you want to do everything possible to protect your child. Even though we were grateful, it was just a terrible feeling.”

Th e Savages said they wanted to meet the Morell family before sharing the situation with their family and friends.

PEOPLE

■ SEAN AND CAROLYN SAVAGE, PHOTOGRAPHED SEPT. 24 IN MAUMEE. CAROLYN IS APPROACHING 36 WEEKS PREGNANT WITH ANOTHER COUPLE’S MISTAKENLY IMPLANTED EMBRYO.

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■ SAVAGES CONTINUES ON A9

Couple prepares for baby from ‘mistaken’ embryo

St. Anne St. Charles St. Vincent Children’s Defiance Tiffin Willard mercyweb.org

ONE STANDARD.

ONE SPIRIT.

ONE NAME.

©2009 Mercy

Following that meeting, the Sav-ages sat down with their sons to ex-plain the situation.

“Telling the kids was hard; we were graced by the fact that they were 14 and 12 at the time and un-derstood the biology behind what had happened, so they understood why the baby inside of me was not ours,” Carolyn said. “Th ey wanted to know why wouldn’t he or she want to stay with us; we have it pretty good. We explained that this baby was wanted and loved by his parents and that we would be returning him upon delivery and that was the right thing to do. And they got it.”

‘Th ird wheel’As the pregnancy progresses,

the Savages have kept in constant contact with the Morells. Shannon has even accompanied the couple to an ultrasound.

“We thought that it was an impor-tant thing to do for them; they have been cheated out of experiencing their own pregnancy with their son. She hadn’t had a chance to see a live ultrasound and those are kind of special when you’re pregnant,” Carolyn said. “We wanted to make sure we gave them that opportunity no matter how diffi cult it was for us. And it was diffi cult. It’s diffi cult to lay on an ultrasound table and have the technician be talking to someone else. Pointing out things about their baby. I think that was one of the more surreal moments that we’ve had.”

Shannon has said she felt a bit surreal herself. She told the Associ-ated Press, “I felt like a third wheel. Although I knew that the child inside her was mine, it wasn’t the same feeling I had with our twins.”

Diffi cult momentsTh e Savages say there have been

many diffi cult moments in the

pregnancy. Sean said pregnancies are long and hard regardless, but this one has been particular gru-eling for their family.

“I can’t believe this has happened to our lives; this is unreal. I think there was a lot of anger early on. I think, ‘Why did the person or per-sons responsible for this situation not aff ord our family the same level of care that they had given every other family that had been in their care?’ Th ere’s still anger about that. I take that personally.”

Carolyn, approaching 36 weeks, says despite the unusual circum-stances, the focus is on the baby. She is due Oct. 25.

Th e Savages, who have had two premature births, their daughter at 32 weeks and a son at 30, want to give the baby as much time as they can.

“We’re hoping to get this baby further along, so when the Morells come to the hospital, they don’t have to spend any time in the intensive care unit. We want to spare the baby the invasive procedures that are per-

formed there,” Carolyn said.As the delivery approaches, Sean

said, “We’re trying to frame the de-livery not as a loss, but as a gift to an-other family. We’re trying to remain focused on that part, not what our loss is. We’re in uncharted territory. We just don’t know ... aft er the de-livery, we don’t know what it’s going to be like. We’ll just have to navigate it like we have been.”

Th e Morells will be in the de-livery room to see the birth of their son, and have stated that the Savages can have any contact they want.

“How do you thank somebody for what they’ve done? I could say thank you a million diff erent ways,” Shannon told Th e Associated Press.

Going publicTh e Savages say they retained

a public relations agency and went public with their story because, “We concluded that at some point the information was going to come out, and if it was, we wanted to be the ones to share the information. We didn’t want it to come out where we couldn’t share the correct in-formation,” Sean said. “Aft er going through this, we realized that we don’t want anyone else to experience this. We believe the result of the at-tention given to this will cause the medical community to take a step back and do everything according to protective protocol because we’re living examples of what can happen if steps are skipped.”

Always wantedAft er the mix-up, the families

terminated contact with the clinic, located outside Ohio, and have yet to be off ered any explanation as to why the mix-up occurred.

Th e Savages have since trans-ferred their remaining embryos to another clinic in Atlanta. Due to health reasons, this baby will be Car-olyn’s last pregnancy. Th e Savages have been working with family law-yers and will have their remaining eggs implanted into a surrogate.

Th e Savages said they want the unborn baby to know, “At no time was he not wanted; we’ve always wanted him. I think too many people wanted. He’s the luckiest baby in the world; he’s coming in loved by more people than most babies. We knew that he belonged with his mom and his dad, and we love him,” Carolyn said.

“We will always think of him, and always pray for him, and al-ways wonder how he is,” Sean said. “Th is is just the right thing to do, and we want to be able to look back 30 years from now knowing we did the right thing.”

Th e Savages said they have hired an attorney to make sure the fertility clinic accepts “full responsibility for the consequences of their misconduct.”

COMMUNITYSEPTEMBER 27, 2009 Visit www.toledofreepress.com ■ A9

■ SAVAGES CONTINUED FROM A8In-vitro explained

In-vitro fertilization is a six-week-long process. Th e fi rst four weeks, the woman takes ovary-sup-pressing medication, such as birth control. Th e following two weeks, a woman must take daily gonado-tropins to stimulate the growth of multiple eggs upon the ovary.

Th e woman must then un-dergo a surgical procedure to re-move the eggs. Th e eggs are taken and fertilized. If there are any viable eggs left aft er the process, they are then frozen and stored for later use by that couple.

Dr. John Murphy, a reproduc-tive endocrinologist and infertility specialist for ProMedica, said, “Th e Savage’s case is extremely rare. Th ere are redundancies built into the system that are meant to safeguard these mistakes.”

Th ere is no set protocol for a clinic, but generally they follow similar procedures, Murphy said. At every step of the process the embryos are labeled and coded in a variety of ways. Th e embryos are segregated from each other so there can be no mix-up that way. If there is any human interaction, there is double or triple checking of action by fellow technicians. Th e fi nal precaution they have in place is “the stop,” where doctors and technician take a step back and identify what they are doing and the name of the patient.

— Kristen Rapin

Rare casesTh e American Society for Re-

productive Medicine doesn’t track how many women have been given the wrong embryos, said Eleanor Nicoll, a spokeswoman. Only a few cases have popped up the past decade or so.

A California woman was given $1 million in 2004 to settle a suit against a fertility specialist who accidentally gave her the wrong embryos and hid the mistake until her baby was 10 months old.

A white New York woman gave birth to a black couple’s baby in 1998 aft er an embryo mix-up that set off a two-year court fi ght between the couples over visitation rights. Just this year, a Japanese woman aborted her pregnancy aft er she was told there had been a mistake at a government-run hospital.

Each fertility clinic has its own system for identifying and tracking embryos. Most patients get an identifi cation number that also is kept with the embryos while they are stored. Names are double-checked. So are the numbers.

— Associated Press

“We don’t want anyone else to experi-ence this. We believe the result of the at-

tention given to this will cause the medical community to take a

step back and do everything according

to protective protocol.”— Sean Savage

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