Couple Sajid and Abida Mahmood are suing the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Center for Human Reproduction, claiming the hospital thawed and destroyed Abida's embryos after the couple decided to change physicians. The couple began an in-vitro program last year, but decided to try a new doctor after two failed implants. Abida told the Post, "I feel like they killed my babies. I've been crying for months."
The Mahmoods went to the hospital last year after they had trouble conceiving, and Dr. Matthew Cohen extracted 18 eggs from Abida last November. He successfully fertilized 16 of them, two of which were implanted last December. When the implant failed to result in a pregnancy, two more were implanted in February. That implant failed as well, and in May they asked Cohen's office to return their embryos. When they came to pick them up, they were told that they had been thawed and destroyed. North Shore University Hospital spokesman Brian Mulligan said there was "was some kind of misunderstanding."
North Shore's website says, "The Center For Human Reproduction's New York IVF Center's success rates significantly exceed the national averages," but that women over 35 (like Abida) tend to have lower success rates.
