LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A Las Vegas couple's dream of having a biological child through surrogacy has turned into a legal and emotional nightmare.
It's a story that Miracle Surrogacy has been trying to silence.
They've sued the couple for defamation and threatened to sue us if we tell the story — even though it's already been shared across multiple social media platforms.
The couple has maintained that they will not be silenced. Here's the story Miracle Surrogacy doesn't want you to see.
Watch part one of Darcy Spears' investigation:
Aymeric and Naiah Monello-Fuentes spent just under $81,000 with Miracle Surrogacy, a Florida-based agency operating in Mexico, to have a child using Aymeric's sperm and a donor egg. But after baby Emma was born in January 2025, two separate DNA tests showed Aymeric is not the biological father, and one test suggests the surrogate may be Emma's biological mother.
The couple's surrogacy journey began in 2023 when they chose Miracle Surrogacy, which advertises itself as the "largest and longest established surrogacy agency in Mexico," where surrogacies cost about one-third of U.S. prices.
"I would say the U.S. is about 200 grand, just for the contract itself," Aymeric said.
Naiah, who is transgender, cannot conceive naturally but wanted a biological child.
"I never wanted to adopt. Never," Naiah said.
The couple signed a contract to use Aymeric's sperm and one of Miracle's egg donors, which the company's website describes as stunning beauties who are well-educated and rigorously screened.
Gender discrepancy raised early red flags
In March 2024, Miracle emailed a clinic report showing laboratory fertilization resulted in two normal male embryos available for transfer. A subsequent clinic report shows those embryos were implanted on May 6, 2024.
"It was exciting! I was gonna get my son! The son that I always wanted," Naiah said.
Naiah chronicled their surrogacy journey on her Facebook, YouTube and TikTok channels, traveling back and forth to Cancun so they could be present for milestone moments, including gender confirmation at Miracle's contracted clinic.
But during a meal with the surrogate the day before that gender confirmation ultrasound, they received confusing news.
"She broke the news to us by telling me and confiding in me, oh yeah, my son always talks to her. And, I'm like, 'her?!' What do you mean 'her?'" Naiah said.
Aymeric, who doesn't speak Spanish, initially thought something was lost in translation.
"Scientifically, it's going to be difficult to have a girl when you have two male embryos. That's what I was thinking. There was no way," he said.
During the ultrasound, a technician confirmed the baby was female, leaving the couple crying and confused. When they reached out to Miracle for answers, they say the company brushed their concerns aside, "Like, congratulations! You have your miracle baby girl!" Naiah said, adding, "What we're living through right now is not a miracle."
Throughout the contract the couple signed, Miracle clearly states, "The agency is not responsible or liable for the medical services/medical outcomes...ever, under any circumstances."
Three months after Emma's birth, in a recorded Zoom call reviewed by 13 Investigates, the clinic that Miracle contracted with agreed that the gender difference should have been a red flag. But Aymeric says Miracle had an explanation when the couple questioned it during the pregnancy.
"They just said that there was a two percent chance that the PGT test was wrong," Aymeric said. The company's contract states that while PGT (preimplantation genetic testing) is very accurate, "it is not one hundred percent guaranteed and there is a small margin of error."
The couple says they felt they had no choice but to believe they were in that tiny percentage.
DNA test revelation
After Emma's birth on January 3, 2025, Naiah felt something was off and arranged for DNA testing at a Cancun hospital before returning to Las Vegas. Samples were taken from the surrogate, Emma and Aymeric, then sent to a Texas lab.
The results came a month later, excluding Aymeric as the biological father, saying "The probability of paternity is 0%." The testing also suggested the surrogate may be Emma's biological mother rather than the chosen egg donor. The test results did include a disclaimer, stating, “samples were not collected under a strict chain of custody,” and “patient names and sample origin cannot be verified.”
A second DNA test in March, which did not include the surrogate mother, confirmed Aymeric was not the father. Miracle questioned Aymeric's DNA results in court filings, saying they have not been independently verified.
But, in an October email, Miracle co-founder Brian Yaden Luna blamed the surrogate, writing: "I was not prepared to learn such a shocking truth, that one of our lovely and special surrogates did not follow our protocols about abstinence." He called the surrogate "careless" for creating "such a significant problem."
Expert analysis points to natural pregnancy
Dr. Brian Levine, a New York fertility doctor (CCRM Fertility) and CEO of NODAL, a surrogacy matching company, reviewed extensive documentation from the case, including emails where Miracle tells the Las Vegas couple it's "impossible" that the clinic they partner with in Cancun made a mistake with their genetic material.
"There's only one way that this happened," Levine said.
Watch part two of Darcy Spears' investigation:
He explained the surrogate would have had to have unprotected sex within five days of the embryo transfer window, resulting in a natural pregnancy for her and a failed embryo transfer for the intended parents.
"Unfortunately, these are people's lives we're dealing with here," Levine said. "This is a lose-lose for everyone."
In one of the emails Miracle sent the company that Levine reviewed, Yaden wrote:
"We cannot keep surrogates locked up in a cage around the time of the embryo transfer; all we can do is educate them and tell them what they should and should not do, which we did, as we always do, and so did the clinic."
When Naiah and Aymeric reached out to the surrogate to let her know, Naiah says, "She was completely shocked," but wanted them to keep the baby.
Company offers silence in exchange for new baby
When the couple contacted Miracle demanding a formal investigation, Yaden initially responded that the company would "need to conduct our own independent testing to verify if this is all true."
Later, Yaden made an unusual offer: Keep Emma and receive help with another surrogacy. He offered "one egg collection and a couple embryo transfers at no cost to you...if you do not disclose any of this to anyone."
"Keep this between us. Keep that child, and we'll make you another one. But, in exchange, you need to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement)," Naiah recounted.
In an email to the couple, Yaden urged them to stop researching and asked, "What real role do genetics play when it comes to love?" He also warned that publicity would damage Miracle's reputation, the clinic's, and the entire industry in Mexico, potentially costing his 51 staff members their jobs.
"We're not in the baby business. And that's what that email says to me. They're treating it like a transactional experience where there was an expectation mismatch. No!" Levine said. "I think that any comments about ignoring the genetics — ignoring the facts — is very worrisome to me."
Legal battles across borders
Reno-based surrogacy attorney Eric Stovall called this "a pretty tangled web, and it's very difficult to try to sort out all the pieces." Stovall, who is past president of the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Technology, says it's imperative that intended parents know things like this can happen.
"This is part of their informed consent. They need to know it to know what the risks are," Stovall said.
The couple refused to stay silent, sharing their story on social media to warn other families. This led to Miracle filing a federal defamation lawsuit accusing them of a "calculated and malicious online smear campaign...designed to destroy Miracle's reputation and business goodwill."
"I don't villainize them. I don't hate them. I just wanted them to do the right thing," Naiah said.
Legal experts say Miracle's contract will likely protect them from liability, and pursuing recourse against the clinic or surrogate in Mexico will be nearly impossible since U.S. courts lack jurisdiction there.
"In Mexico, you always have that concern of whether or not there is something else going on behind the scenes," said Katherine Provost, a Las Vegas surrogacy lawyer with the Naimi Mullins Law Group. She cautions that surrogacy in Mexico is mostly unregulated.
"When you think about pursuing surrogacy in Mexico, the concern that you have is whether or not you're actually being told the truth about the process that you're going to enter into," Provost said.
Policy changes and ongoing uncertainty
Following Emma's case, Miracle changed its policy to include free prenatal DNA testing for every pregnancy. In his October email, Yaden wrote:
"In the interest of corporate responsibility, we now do free (Non-Invasive Prenatal — or NIP — testing) for every pregnancy. So, this will never happen again. We didn't do it before because this never happened to us before."
The company's website now advertises the free NIP test "to offer peace of mind about the genetics of your baby."
Meanwhile, the couple continues fighting on multiple fronts while caring for Emma.
"Emotionally, it's been a huge toll. Financially, it's crushing us," Aymeric said.
Despite the uncertainty about Emma's future and their ongoing legal battles, the couple remains committed to the child they've come to love.
"She's the innocent one. So, the one thing is that we're just going to continue to fight for as long as we can...because of love," Naiah said.
The court recently ruled that the defamation case can proceed, but threw out some portions. The court denied Miracle's request to force the couple to remove their social media posts and said Miracle will not be entitled to punitive damages. The couple is working on a counterclaim to recover their money from Miracle to help pay for legal costs and Emma's future care.
Miracle Surrogacy declined our initial interview request, citing legal advice, but provided a statement saying:
"Miracle Surrogacy and its affiliates deny any wrongdoing related to the Monellos and has absolutely no culpability in the outcome of their matter."
When we reached out again to offer a final interview opportunity, Miracle tried to kill the story by threatening to sue us, writing in an email:
"The information that you’ve gathered so far presents only one (very incomplete) side of the case and frankly doesn’t involve all the important aspects that are not able to be shared."