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Assistant Dean for New Student Transitions at CUNY Geneseo Heather Wilhelm-Routenberg, who was a victim of sexual assault and is married to another woman, is suing a New York IVF clinic after mistakenly receiving a male embryo that was implanted in her, comparing it to rape.
Wilhelm-Routenberg and her wife Robbie, who works at the university as a chief diversity officer, are suing CNY Fertility Albany in Latham on 11 separate counts. Those charges include battery, medical malpractice, and breach of contract. The damages being sought are unspecified.
In a lengthy interview with the New York Post, the couple recalled how they decided that Heather would carry their child through the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process because Robbie had suffered a miscarriage during a previous pregnancy. Wilhelm-Routenberg received one of Robbie’s embryos and the clinic allegedly assured them that all embryos implanted would be female. That turned out not to be the case.
The couple was married in 2012. At 35, both were told they were fairly long in the tooth to go through with IVF. When the couple learned of the pregnancy, they were excited. That changed when the 15-week benchmark of the fertilization process arrived and the OB-GYN conducted a QNatal test.
The unnamed doctor asked the couple, “Wait, do you know the sex of the baby?”
“We’re having a girl,” Wilhelm-Routenberg happily responded. “It’s very important to me to have a girl.”
They were devastated when the doctor informed them that they were actually having a boy.
Wilhelm-Routenberg claimed that having a boy inside of her was “just like rape” after finding out the sex of the baby.
“Our jaws dropped to the floor. I was convinced it had to be someone else’s result. I looked at Robbie and said, ‘What’s if it’s not yours — who is in my body?!’ That’s when I flipped out, that’s when I felt my body was taken hostage. I assumed it was someone else’s embryo, not the wrong embryo of ours. It scared the s**t out of me. I don’t know how to explain this — it felt like there was an alien living inside of me,” she declared.
“I said to Robbie, ‘If this is someone else’s kid, we will have to give it back.’ Our OB offered us the option to abort. I respect others’ decisions, but that was never a choice I could make in these circumstances. I was hoping beyond hope someone would have our baby and we would switch after birth and it would be this happy story,” the expectant mother delusionally told the New York Post.
This is one of the sickest most vile things I’ve ever read. These women are deeply disturbed and my heart breaks for this poor little boy who will grow up the vicim of their neuroses.
— the Bleak House (@artsygirl20) March 27, 2022
Wilhelm-Routenberg was raped after she left college by two different men on two separate occasions. She told the New York Post that after the sexual assaults she had decided to never have a baby.
“This can’t be happening! Not only was the baby in my body not ours, but the baby in my body was male and he was put there against my will, just like rape,” she thought the night before her ultrasound.
Her mental health further deteriorated after she found out the baby was a boy. She began having dark thoughts, the same kind she had after she was raped.
“We wanted to minimize the risk of anything going wrong, so the clinic recommended genetic testing of the embryos,” Wilhelm-Routenberg recalled. “We selected CNY because they agreed we would be able to select female embryos. We never intended to use the males.”
Wow pic.twitter.com/mJs0252XUw
— David Carter (@MrDavidCarter) March 27, 2022
The pregnancy went to term, however, at 27 weeks she had a placental abruption which Wilhelm-Routenberg attributed to stress over the situation.
“I was put on modified bed rest. I just wanted the baby out of me. That sounds horrible but it’s true. We were so worried about me going off the deep end, we didn’t talk about the baby unless we had to,” she stated.
Their son was born in December 2020 according to the New York Post. They have still not named him but are raising the child.
“I had wanted skin-to-skin connection but I ended up wearing things so he wouldn’t touch my chest. When he did, it sent electric shockwaves through me. I started experiencing extreme anxiety. I would look at the baby and it would contort into the faces of all these grown men that I know. It was so creepy. Whenever that happened, I had to give the baby to Robbie,” the new mother said.
Leftists make the most loving parents.
— Victor Nikki (@Vics_Specter) March 27, 2022
She went through postpartum depression and had suicidal thoughts after the delivery as well.
“I never want to come off ungrateful. If I was, he wouldn’t be here. The baby is a year and a half now, and I think about the mistake all the time. He’s a lovely kid. He smiles just like Robbie, he has Robbie’s dimples, and that makes it easier. Our son is made of magic. He does things to be funny — he’ll use certain tones of voice and laughs to make us crack up. He’s hilarious, and he’s been an easy baby,” Wilhelm-Routenberg noted.
“I feel immense guilt and shame because I wasn’t able to be emotionally present for him. I don’t want to play the victim,” she claimed. “He’s an innocent being, he didn’t deserve any of this. The clinic messed with something so integral: our baby’s first formative years. That’s the reason I am doing this — because I love my kid so much. We think our son deserved that bond from the start.”
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