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1 x 90 for Channel 4
Originally broadcast
21 March 2005, Channel 4

Story Development
Kate Barker

Line Producer
Yvonne Bainton

Written By
Zinnie Harris

Produced/Directed By
Ian Duncan
Oliver Morse

Cast
Sophie Okonedo
Lesley Sharp
Lennie James
Adam Kotz

Born with Two Mothers

What would happen if a mother using IVF was given the wrong baby? This innovative docu-drama uses professional doctors and lawyers alongside actors to imagine what might happen if the embryos at an IVF clinic were muddled.

Two couples go for fertility treatment to a British IVF clinic on the same day. One couple is black, the other white. The white woman is mistakenly given one embryo from the black couple, and two of her own. She becomes pregnant - but the clinic do not know whose embryo is growing inside her. The black couple do not achieve a pregnancy. The medical team have to decide whether and what to tell each couple.  
Nine months later, the white woman gives birth to a black baby boy, Joe. Both couples involved want to claim the baby as their own.  The case is taken to court. A Judge has to decide which of the four adults is his legal mother and which his father, and where Joe should live.
The outcome of the story is determined not by a scriptwriter but by real professionals who make decisions in the drama exactly as they would in real life, without any advance warning of the dilemma about to hit them.  

 
“This is gripping, sometimes harrowing stuff.”

Observer

“This was television drama at its best, because it treated the viewer as an intelligent and thoughtful, resisted the cheap shot, and offered no fake solutions”

British Medical Journal



“The viewer was never allowed to feel that the decision was inevitable, or even necessarily right.  Born with Two Mothers was rich in thought and feeling, but it never allowed itself the luxury of certainty.”


 The Independent


“It was hard to tell where the script ended and improvisation began, and it didn’t really matter one way or the other. It all melded together seamlessly, the actors continued to convince and the tension was sustained until the very end."

 Daily Mail

"This improvised drama examining the legal and ethical issues surrounding a disastrous IVF mix-up is excellent.  As a drama it's effective,with a provocative storyline and a marvellous cast who'll wring your heart out in some of the more traumatic scenes.  It's also thought-provoking,while the real-life professionals portraying themselves and genuinely responding to what is an appalling dilemma, give it an air of realism."



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