Jeanine Harvey, Jessica Harvey Galloway, Mike Harvey.Photo: Courtesy the Harvey Family
About 30 years after first visiting a fertility doctor, a simple Christmas gift changed everything for one family.
Jeanine and John “Mike” Harvey allege that amixup during an intrauterine insemination procedureresulted in the couple welcoming a child who is not biologically related to her father, according to alawsuitfiled on Wednesday.
In 1991, Jeanine and Mike became fertility patients of Dr. Nicholas J. Spirtos, who was then working as the chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility and In Vitro Fertilization/Embryo Transfer at Summa Akron City Hospital (now Summa Health System), according to the complaint.
“Our goal couldn’t have been clearer,” Jeanine said during apress conferenceheld on Wednesday. “We wanted a child who is genetically related to both of us.”
However, she claims that without their knowledge, Spirtos “used a stranger’s sperm instead of my husband’s.”
The Harvey Family.Courtesy of The Harvey Family
The couple as well as their daughter, Jessica Harvey Galloway, are suing Spirtos and Summa Health System, accusing them of malpractice, negligence and fraud, among other things.
“At this point, we have not met with the family or conducted testing of our own. Given the very limited information that we have and the amount of time that has passed, it remains our hope that the attorneys representing the family will work with us to make that next step a priority,” Bernstein added.
Spirtos, which currently operates an independent fertility center in Ohio, did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
After the IUI procedure — which is less expensive than IVF and involves sperm being placed directly in a patient’s uterus, perHopkins Medicine— the couple became pregnant, welcoming daughter Jessica in 1992.
“Harvey girls were very rare in the family, so we were so excited,” Jeanine said at the press conference. “I screamed and scared the doctors half to death when she was born.”
Jessica Harvey Galloway.Courtesy of The Harvey Family
For almost 30 years the family “had no reason to think that Jessica was not ours,” Jeanine said.
But their “world upside down” after Jessica’s parents purchased DNA tests for Jessica and her husband for Christmas in 2020.
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As Jessica and her husband prepared for a trip to Europe, they wanted to use the tests to first learn more about their extended family’s origins.
“How cool, we thought, it would be to connect with distant relatives in the countries that we might be visiting,” Jessica said during the press conference.
The test revealed that Jessica “has no genetic relation” to her father, according to the complaint.
“Subsequent investigation revealed that her biological father is a man who, along with his wife, was undergoing fertility treatments with Dr. Spritos at Summa Akron City Hospital at the same time as the Harveys,” per the complaint.
The discovery was difficult for the entire Harvey family to process, and brought up a number of additional questions — including what happened to Mike’s sperm.
“No one should have to experience what we’ve been through,” Jessica said during the press conference.
The Harvey family.Courtesy of The Harvey Family
Although so much has changed for the family, there’s one thing that never will: their love for one another.
source: people.com
