Nine more couples have filed lawsuits against a Newport Beach fertility clinic, alleging their embryos were destroyed when an employee used hydrogen peroxide in an incubator instead of a sterile solution.

The couples join two others who filed lawsuits against Ovation Fertility last week, with one couple claiming they lost two embryos due to the company’s negligence, while the second lost one, according to the lawsuits.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court on behalf of the nine couples, alleges that Oviation Fertility was negligent, medical battery, concealment, intentional misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, negligent hiring, retention and supervision, and loss of consortium. He seeks unspecified damages.

The lawsuit claims that a clinic employee destroyed the embryos by using hydrogen peroxide instead of distilled water in an incubator during the thawing process. The embryos were then implanted in an unspecified number of patients between January 18 and 30, and none of them managed to become pregnant.

“As a result, in the days and weeks after learning of their failed pregnancies, couples blamed themselves and their bodies, and some even endured risky and painful medical procedures, such as hysteroscopies and biopsies, to determine what went wrong. . ”the complaint says. “It wasn’t until late February and early March that Ovation Fertility began disclosing to patients’ fertility doctors that something had gone wrong at the Newport lab.”

Ovation Fertility operates 14 locations in 10 states. The Newport Beach laboratory is the only one in California operated by Ovation Fertility.

While eight of the couples were not named or identified by their initials, Brooke Berger and Bennett Hardy of Fullerton spoke out against the company, alleging that Ovation Fertility destroyed their last two embryos.

“It was physically and emotionally devastating to know that after enduring all the painful and invasive injections, medications and procedures, it was all for nothing in the end,” Berger said Tuesday during a news conference announcing the lawsuit. “We want to make sure that Ovation is held accountable for these completely avoidable mistakes and that this doesn’t happen again to other couples who are trying to grow their families.”

Hardy and Berger do not have children due to fertility issues and had two viable embryos under Ovation’s care, which were implanted on Jan. 25 after being destroyed in the lab, the lawsuit says. They have no embryos left at the clinic and are weighing their options if they try to try the process again at a different clinic.

Berger said she and Hardy began their IVF journey in 2022 and the former ended in an ectopic pregnancy and the loss of a fallopian tube.

“The chances of success don’t improve with age,” said Berger, 37. “We really don’t know, this could have been our last chance to have children.”

The IVF process takes months to reach the point of implantation, she said.

The procedure has more than a 75% chance of success, according to the lawsuit.

Benjamin Ikuta, another lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said it is believed more than 80 couples could have been affected.

The company only revealed the mishap after “several of the couples’ fertility doctors questioned why there was a 100% failure rate for embryos that had been thawed during that two-week period,” the lawsuit says.

Hardy and Berger said their primary care doctor heard numerous stories about Ovation, including temperature, pH and other problems.

“We still don’t know exactly what happened to our embryos,” Berger said, adding that the couple mainly wants answers. “We shouldn’t have to hire lawyers to find out what happened to them.”