By Marisa Kendall, From The Recorder

SAN FRANCISCO — A Bay Area woman fighting to save her frozen embryos testified Thursday that she didn’t carefully review a consent form that provided for the embryos to be destroyed in the event she and her husband divorced.

Dr. Mimi Lee, a breast cancer survivor and former anesthesiologist, acknowledged that she and then-husband Stephen Findley checked a box authorizing the UC-San Francisco fertility center to “thaw and discard” the embryos but said she believed her decision could be changed.

Lee, whose cancer treatment likely left her infertile, says the five cryogenically frozen embryos are her last chance to have children. Findley wants the embryos destroyed, arguing he shouldn’t be forced to parent a child with Lee against his will. The trial, which opened Monday in San Francisco Superior Court, will resolve the last outstanding issue in the couple’s divorce.

The dispute echoes a legal battle between actress Sofia Vergara and her ex-fiance, Nick Loeb, over the fate of frozen embryos they created while dating. Loeb sued Vergara in 2014 to prevent their destruction but the case has not yet gone to trial.

Though not an isolated case, embryonic custody disputes are still a novel issue for courts. Lee’s attorneys at Boies, Schiller & Flexner have said there are “no California published opinions regarding the contested disposition of embryos in divorce proceedings,” and the case could help shape the law.

Lee faced a two-pronged attack Thursday, fielding questions from Findley’s lawyer as well as counsel representing the Regents of the University of California.

Under questioning by UC Regents lawyer Dean Masserman of Vorzimer Masserman, Lee told the court she sometimes signs documents without reading them all the way through. For example, she said she never reads the contracts that come with her iPhone updates.

“Well, it’s not an iPhone contract, OK?” Masserman snapped, prompting one of several objections by Lee’s lawyers to his “argumentative” questioning.

Lee testified that during her work as an anesthesiologist she often saw medical consent forms changed or adjusted. Furthermore, in the form she signed, there was language suggesting the form could be amended.

“You read it closely enough to get that part out of it,” Masserman said.

Lee responded she understood there were situations in which “we could change our minds.”

Masserman clapped his hands. “You just said we,” he shot back.

Masserman and Findley’s attorney, Joseph Crawford of Hanson Crawford Crum Family Law Group, have argued that both parties would need to consent to any changes in the directives on the form. Asked why she hadn’t frozen her eggs, Lee responded that her doctor had advised that freezing embryos would lead to a greater chance of a successful birth.

Lee also refused to concede that she had been the one to check the “thaw and discard” box, as Findley had testified earlier this week. Findley’s lawyers have latched on to that assertion as proof that Lee intended to choose the option.

“I don’t recall,” Lee answered when asked who made the check mark. “It could be mine. It could be Steve’s.”

Lee did acknowledge that she never told Findley that she wanted to freeze their embryos to preserve her fertility alone.

“We were married at the time,” she testified, smiling, “so it was our fertility.”

For more on this story go to: http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202732385459/In-Fight-Over-Embryos-Wife-Says-She-Thought-She-Could-Change-Her-Mind#ixzz3gCD7GeIa