A Florida couple who spent six months raising a baby girl after a huge IVF mix-up have reached an agreement with the child’s biological parents, bringing a remarkable custody dispute to an end.

Tiffany Score and Steven Mills became parents to baby Shea after an embryo was implanted during IVF treatment in 2025.

It wasn’t until after Shea was born that they realised something had gone quite badly wrong.

The couple are white and had – understandably – expected a child who was biologically theirs.

When Shea arrived in December 2025, they immediately realised something wasn’t right.

Further testing confirmed that Shea was not biologically related to either parent.

DNA results later showed that Shea’s genetic parents were a South Asian couple whose embryo had been mistakenly implanted during IVF treatment.

What followed was an agonising situation for both families.

Last week, the two families reached a custody agreement that will see Score and Mills remain Shea’s long-term parents. The outcome may strike some readers as surprising. Shea is genetically related to one couple but has spent her short life so far with another.

That question sat at the heart of the case. Should custody be decided by biology alone, or by the bond formed between a child and the parents who have cared for them since birth?

Ultimately, Shea’s biological parents chose not to pursue a custody fight, saying they didn’t believe it would be in the child’s best interests.

Their lawyer, Rob Marcereau, told NBC News that his clients were ‘heartbroken’ by what had happened. He said they would have preferred to keep Shea but believed a custody battle would have been an uphill legal fight and unfair on Shea.