Name: Woman discovers 30-year-old IVF mix-up through online ancestry testing | 7.30
Uploaded: 2026-03-18T23:03:55.000Z
Duration: 8 min 37 s
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Adverbs of degree

It's always been Mum, my sister and I, just the three of us.

Participle clauses

Growing up in Coffs Harbour, Sasha Safranski never really felt like she belonged.

I sat down with Mum and my sister and I looked at them and I said, I know I'm adopted, Just tell me.

And I think they spent about 45 minutes convincing me that I. I was not adopted.

And I just remember thinking, fine, fine, okay, I'm not adopted.

Years later, as Sasha approached 30, she wanted to find out more about her father's Polish heritage.

She sent her DNA away to a genealogy tracing website.

I just thought, now they got the wrong spit.

According to the site, she had relatives she'd never known about.

I've clicked the matches and then first thing, boom, full sibling, full sister.

It wasn't just the sister, there was someone else that came up under that.

The new aunt also lived in Coffs Harbour, which was a bit like, oh, ok, weird.

I think the penny dropped and I was just like, oh.

And then it all started to kind of sit with me for a minute.

Sasha and her twin sister were born in 1995 via IVF.

Her parents struggled to conceive and went through multiple rounds.

And if it doesn't, then I think we're done.

On that final attempt, Sasha's mum, Penny, fell pregnant with twins.

All of a sudden you've got these, these little babies.

Not just one, but I've got two, you know, gorgeous girls.

But the DNA website connected Sasha to a different family.

Sasha's newfound maternal aunt had further questions.

She asked, did you match with this person who was on the paternal side as well?

Further DNA tests confirm Sasha's new family tree.

Another couple, also from Coffs Harbour, were the biological parents of Sasha and her twin sister.

They had another daughter years later who showed up as Sasha's full sibling.

They just sort of said there was a mix up.

So then they tried to explain they'd known for a while and they tried to hoping against hope that what they'd found out wasn't right.

So they'd had all the tests and they'd had DNA and they said they're sorry, but

Both couples had IVF through the same hospital, Royal North Shore, in Sydney, in 1995.

Only Penny's transfer was successful, which resulted in the twins.

I didn't think about any checking things and worrying about it.

And I don't know why you'd think otherwise now, maybe, but back then, why would you think otherwise?

Both families have hired lawyers to investigate what went wrong and who was responsible.

If you have the ability to create life, you should have the ability to.

In the early 90s, the IVF clinic at Royal North Shore was public, run by the state government.

But the local health district told 7:30 that in August 1994, a company called North Shore Art took over the hospital's fertility clinic.

That's nearly a year before Penny's transfer took place.

North Shore Art was later acquired by a company that eventually became part of Virtus Health, one of the country's largest IVF providers.

In a statement, Virtus Health also denied responsibility.

No, because no one's owning up, no one's accepting responsibility for it, so no one's said anything to us.

The idea that this is being buck passed between a state government department and a private provider while these families frankly languish without answers and without any support or counselling.

Support is completely unacceptable and it's got to change quickly.

The New South Wales Health Minister, Ryan park, declined to comment with a spokesperson saying it would be inappropriate while inquiries continued.

The Safranskis case is now the second known embryo mix up where a child was born to a separate family.

Admitted a child had been born to a family they were not related to after an embryo mix up in Brisbane.

When approached by 7:30, federal Health Minister Mark Butler said it was the first he'd heard of Sasha's discovery.

One of the real concerns that we've identified in the sector Today, let alone the sector 30 years ago, is a lack of transparency around the mistakes that are made.

The fact is, serious mistakes are not reported transparently, not even to me as Australia's health minister.

For decades, two families lived side by side in Coffs Harbour, unaware of the connection between them.

Right over there is where the biological family are.

So we were 15 minutes separated for something like 24 years.

Last year, Sasha took the short drive across town to meet her biological parents for the first time.

It's like walking into a house you've never been in, but knowing where the light switches are.

Like, I know how to talk to these people.

For now, we're just still getting to know each other.

It's kind of like a really awkward first date.