The Current - Grieving couple were sent stillborn baby’s autopsy in error

Episode Date: May 29, 2025

The first time Laura Bordignon held her daughter Makayla Poppy was also the last. A month after Makayla Poppy was delivered stillborn, Laura and her husband Nick received an invoice for her autopsy. The bill included an itemized list of procedures, but also revealed their daughter’s remains were still in the morgue — weeks after they should have been released. Laura and Nick share their story in Jodie Martinson’s documentary Seven Months with Makayla, in the hopes of highlighting the errors that compound grief for the thousands of Canadian families who experience stillbirth every year.

We're all looking for great places to visit in Canada. One of my favorites is the Stratford Festival. The theatre is truly of the highest caliber and there's so much selection. They have 11 large-scale shows on stage and trust me, whatever is on manure there will be exceptional. People always think Shakespeare when they think of Stratford, but it's so much more. Broadway musicals, family shows, classic comedy and drama. Whether it's Robert LaPage's Macbeth or Donna Fior's Annie, you will be blown away.

It's the perfect Canadian getaway. To quote William Shatner, who got his start in Stratford, every Canadian should make the pilgrimage to Stratford. Start your next adventure at StratfordFestival.ca. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the Current Podcast. Micaela Poppy Bourdignon never walked with her parents to the places they imagined they'd bring her. She never read the books they'd placed on the shelves in her room. She never even took her first breath. But to her mother and father, this child of theirs has had a profound effect on their lives. Micaela is one of about 3,000 stillborn babies delivered each year in

Canada and despite the devastation that comes with that experience, stillbirth is seldom talked about. For many, it's still taboo. The CBC's Jodie Martenson spoke with one family about their experience and why they believe institutions need to change. This is seven months with Michaela. We just have always envisioned us with a baby and it's always been part of our life plan and something we've both wanted. Laura Bourdignon is a 34-year-old elementary school teacher in Maple Ridge, BC. She and her husband Nick struggled to get pregnant, so they turned to IVF. So I remember the first implantation was very joyous. Like we took photos and it was a very kind of like just we're riding the wave of emotions.

They told family and friends, but that pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at 11 weeks. The couple tried again. For the second pregnancy, they were slower to share the news. We were very guarded through the first trimester and and you know, every time there was a slight little cramp or every time there was a little bit of spotting, you know, we kind of doomspire pretty quickly, like, oh, this is it, like, it's not going to work, it's not happening. And then as we move through the second trimester, everything was where it was supposed to be. She was growing healthy, Laura was doing great. Everything was where it was supposed to be. She was growing healthy.

Laura was doing great. We would go for ultrasounds and there she was. And she was a very, very cute, tiny little bean. We kind of took a breath and we're like, oh, we've made it through the woods. I thought we were out of the woods. So we were able to breathe a bit. And letting myself and Nick see like, oh, this is going to happen this time.

We're going to have our baby girl. We move from the excitement of pregnancy to the, okay, let's, you know, let's set up the nursery. That's beautiful. Thank you. The room has rainbows and cloud wallpaper, a small bookshelf already filled. Beside the diaper change table, they placed the book, Guess How Much I Love You, next to a teddy bear.

We were actually putting the crib together when we actually said along Michaela's name. Her name would be Michaela Poppy. We started reading to her every night. Laura would kind of put my hand on her belly, feel the kicks and stuff. So it was very real. It was starting to feel very sure.

Spring turned to summer turned to September. It was a busy day at school. And then I realized on my way home where she would usually kick, I was like, I don't think I've felt her kick on the way home. Laura was 33 weeks pregnant. I remember Laura sitting on the couch, and she seemed very concerned.

And she's like, I haven't felt her move in a bit. And he was like, let's just go to the hospital, and we'll call the midwives on the way there. Nick worried it might be an emergency C-section or something like that. He's a police officer and used to dealing with crises. So at first I was like, oh no, we don't have the car seat already.

My mind kind of went to there. They got to the maternity ward and staff started listening for a heartbeat. I'm probably overreacting and we're gonna go home and everything's gonna be fine. They start bringing in other people and you can kind of see the tempo of their work picking up. I was just thinking it was maybe something like she was being stubborn and we couldn't find a heartbeat because she was in a funny position or something and then the fourth nurse still couldn't. And then when the midwife came in and kind of told Laura, hey, I just want to brace you.

I just started feeling my heart sinking at that point. And then the doctor came in and he said, there is no heartbeat. I'm so sorry, but you know, this is not a viable pregnancy. There is no heartbeat. We are so sorry. I remember, I don't know why, I remember looking at the wall. Sometimes if I'm having a nightmare, I can kind of like rationalize my way out of the little nightmare and then I'll wake up. And I remember I tried doing that and then it kind of said in that, no, this, this isn't

a nightmare. So they said to go home, try and sleep, which didn't happen, but try and then come back in the morning to be induced. They went home, they cried on the couch. Like just wondering, well, how big is she going to be? Did she suffer? Why did this happen? Was it like I did? That was the biggest one. What did I do wrong? Morning arrived. The nurses set Laura and Nick up in a room a bit away from the other

delivery rooms. They put a purple butterfly on the door to alert other staff that a stillbirth was underway. They induced Laura and waited all day and into the night for labor to ramp up. It was the longest night, I think. I wanted her to sleep, so I stayed awake just monitoring her. Twenty-four hours of labor. The big thing for her was just she was so focused on, you know, we're still going to see our daughter. I think my brain didn't let me think she was going to be stillborn. I think my brain still had some hope that people were very wrong

and that she would be breathing and laughing and crying. Finally, one big push for the baby and she was out. All four pounds. You know, her skin was a little red. Obviously, no oxygen. So the skin colour you expect is a little different. So that was a little jarring at first. I didn't unswallow her just because I was worried that it would somehow hurt her.

I wanted her to feel more protected. At first I didn't want to hold her. I felt like it would be just it would feel wrong or that it would be I don't know insult to injury or something. It was a little hard at first, but then within the first few moments, it just, that, you look past it. And you know, you saw just a little one that's been kicking and bumping around in there for the last seven months. He wanted to see her hair, so he took off her cap to just peek and she had some kind of brunette hair. She had a super cute nose.

Aw, so cute. She had massive feet. They were huge for her age. We knew she was going to be our Makila Poppy. It was a very painfully beautiful moment. It was very hard, obviously, because the first time you hold your daughter is the last time. And I think it meant a lot to Laura, too. A family who had also gone through a stillbirth had donated a cooling cot so Nick and Laura

could keep Michaela's body with them for longer. And they tried to take in what they called a deluge of information about next steps, like signing a stillbirth certificate and picking a funeral home. We knew that we wanted her to have an autopsy because we want answers. And we kind of looked at it as she will be protecting her future siblings with this knowledge. A couple of hours went by. So I was like, we'll have to go. And the thing that Laura and I had a hard time on was, well, how do we leave? So what we settled on was we would leave at the same time. So it'd be Laura in her wheelchair, Michaela would get taken into the infirmary, the place with the babies, don't know what it's called, but she would get taken into there in preparation to get sent off to Children's Hospital

for the autopsy. And then we would leave. So we're not abandoning her. Michaela is going to go off to the next leg of the journey, so to speak. And we had this hope that if we can have kids again, then as the big sister, try to clear the way. I know we were obviously very nervous to leave her so we were just reassured by hospital staff that she would be looked after on her next journey to BC Children's for her autopsy and on her way back to the funeral home. Their understanding was the autopsy would happen as quickly as it could. Then Michaela's body would be moved from the morgue

at the children's hospital to their local funeral home. So they left and the grief set in. Walking out of the hospital after a birth without a child is soul crushing. It felt like everybody's a little bit on eggshells around us because they're afraid of saying the wrong thing and making us more upset. A lot of the initial responses were, oh that must be so hard for your wife.

Oh, this is something Laura's going through, but not something you're going through. You know, I've had a lot of good people where they're like, oh yeah, anytime you want to talk, like we'll go grab a drink, we'll go for dinner or something. And I also know I'm like, if I start crying, like, you're going to be super awkward. Like you're not going to know how to handle that. It's one of those ones where it's a thank you, but we're never going to actually do that. Got a lot of cards from friends, family and coworkers.

And there's one card and just what she wrote was beautiful. I actually have it in the box over there. I can grab it. She said, Laura, grief never ends, but it changes. It's a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith. It is a price of love.

nor lack of faith. It is a price of love. Laura and Nick are one family of about 3,000 who goes through a stillbirth each year in Canada. That's defined as a pregnancy loss after 20 weeks. According to Statistics Canada, Canada's stillbirth rate has been increasing over the past 35 years. But one expert I spoke with pointed out, it's difficult to parse those numbers because until now the definition of stillbirth wasn't always uniform across provinces. And these statistics capture pregnancy terminations, not just stillbirths. We're all looking for great places to visit in Canada. One of my favorites is the Stratford Festival. The theatre is truly of the highest caliber and there's so much selection.

They have 11 large-scale shows on stage and trust me, whatever is on when you're there will be exceptional. People always think Shakespeare when they think of Stratford, but it's so much more. Broadway musicals, family shows, classic comedy and drama. Whether it's Robert LaPage's Macbeth or Donna Fior's Annie, you will be blown away. It's the perfect Canadian getaway. To quote William Shatner, who got his start in Stratford,

every Canadian should make the pilgrimage to Stratford. Start your next adventure at StratfordFestival.ca. At Desjardins Insurance, we know that when you own a cleaning company, things need to be tidy and organized at every step. That's why our agents go the extra mile to understand your business and provide tailored solutions for all its unique needs. You put your heart into your company, so we put our heart into making sure it's protected.

Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Desjardins.com slash business coverage. As the days passed, Nick and Laura say their grief was compounded by a couple of painful interactions with the hospital. To them and to experts, those interactions are symptoms of a bigger problem. A system that doesn't do enough to care for families after stillbirth. One of the big things that we wanted was, well, we want her to be back. Yes, we know she's not coming home the way that we want her to come home, obviously,

but it was this notion that when she'd be home, she'd be safe. She'd be with her parents. So in terms of being able to start even conceptualizing like where do we go from here? It was very hard to do that until we had her back. Three weeks went by. They were warned the autopsy could take some time, but Nick was feeling antsy. October 21st I go to check the mail and I see a letter from BC Provincial Health and it's addressed not to me or Laura but it's addressed to Michaela. So it says her full name Michaela Poppe-Boardignon and I noticed that there's two letters in front of Michaela's name and it's SB.

SB, an abbreviation they would learn for stillbirth. And I opened it up on the spot, and it was an invoice for the autopsy addressed to our deceased daughter. And not only was it an invoice, it was an itemized invoice where it listed every procedure that they had done to her with a cost amount. And I remember in my mind, I'm like, is this how it works? Like, is this normal? And I can't just stood there and the initial confusion very quickly turned to rage.

We had to go on weeks without hearing anything. And now I'm looking at a piece of paper that's addressed to my daughter and says everything they did to her, which once again, I'm no fool, I've seen autopsies performed, they are not pretty, but at the same time to then give an atomized breakdown, it's just wrong. And one of the worst parts was I didn't know how to tell I was going to come home and show that to Laura So walk me through what so this was the first part I saw where it's Nick shows me the invoice but encourages Laura to go to the other room So she doesn't have to look at it again and on it is a description of every single

culture or… Nick started to build a timeline. It had now been a month since the birth. The autopsy had been completed on October 7th, two weeks earlier. Which then led me to believe it's just like, okay, so if this is a legitimized list, this means the autopsy has been done. Where is she? They learned Michaela's body was still in the morgue. There is no reason why she was there that long.

And to be honest, it took a while for me to process that she was alone, unnecessarily in the hospital. And that made me feel horrible, like I should have done something about that. I should have known. We put trust on our faith in the system and we respect you know professionals and when they tell us hey this is the process and this is how it should go you know we believe them. And then I was just angry that this time had been kind of taken from us. It just really set us back and made us kind of distrust parts of the health care system. Laura and Nick launched a complaint about both the invoice and the delay in getting Michaela's body released

with British Columbia's Patient Care Quality Review Board. It's now investigating. Administrators at BC Children's Hospital have agreed to sit down with the couple face-to-face in June. In a response to CBC, the Health Authority says the invoice for the autopsy was issued in error. It offers sincere apologies for additional stress and says, quote, we take these matters incredibly seriously. We have an obligation to learn from families and do our best to improve. Just hearing that story just it's not it's not something I want to hear. To Dr. Lynne Murphy-Callback, this story fits

into a bigger issue. She's the president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada. She's worked for two decades to try to improve the care families receive after a stillbirth, including setting up protocols for handling the bodies. One story like that is one too many. It just speaks to a larger issue of not acknowledging the gravity of what's occurred and not having systems in place so that no parent will ever go through that. So I looked around a little bit. So this is from 2022.

Two years earlier, before what happened to Nick and Laura at the same hospital, BC Children's in Vancouver, another baby's body was left in the morgue for eight weeks. The health authority sent that mother a letter after she complained, promising to standardize the process for returning a baby's remains to their parents. That's pretty much the same as ours. Yeah. The letter looks similar to you? The beginning of the letter looks very similar.

Standardizing this process going forward will be key to reducing the risk of this occurring again. This was 2022, right? Two years later. And in 2021, a hospital in Etobicoke, Ontario lost the body of a stillborn baby. The mother spoke to City News. I haven't been able to say goodbye to her properly, so it's this lingering thing that just weighs on my chest. Like I'm anxious all the time.

Almost two years later, the hospital said they found the body again. The mother asked for a DNA test to confirm it was hers. The Ontario office of the chief coroner investigated and confirmed the ID. Addressing something such as stillbirth, you need a national plan. Dr. Murphy-Kolbeck wants a national action plan on stillbirth, similar to what countries like England and Australia have done. If you have everything in place and it's dealt with every time the same way with the same respect and the same process, you won't hear stories like that.

The World Health Organization says about 40% of stillbirths globally could be prevented through better maternal care and care during labor and delivery. The WHO says stillbirth is still a taboo subject worldwide and that even in developed countries, many families receive inadequate care after losing a baby. When Dr. Murphy-Kolbeck trains other health professionals, she emphasizes care shouldn't stop in the delivery room. The family needs to be followed, and there should always be respectful care of the remains. I think people need to be loud and to talk about this.

I think they also need to pressure their governments, whether that's provincial or federally, that this is important. So parents themselves, they need to be advocates as well, because sometimes it's that human story that that people will listen to. Our big thing was that desire to help the next person. And I think back to when we were in the hospital and when we were holding Michaela and we had the next person. And I think back to when we were in the hospital and when we were holding Michaela and we had the cooling cup and knowing that that gift was from another family who had experienced something similar.

And we said, okay, well, we'll just, we'll start small. We'll make a complaint and we're not looking for blood. We don't want someone fired or reprimanded for this. That's not our end goal. Our end goal is how did this happen? How do we prevent it from happening again? That's it. Because this, everyone that we've talked to says, yeah, that shouldn't have, but it did. For Nick and Laura, the advocacy felt like an act of love for Michaela. I think it's important for other people to see that you're not alone. When we start telling the story to people, it's incredible how many people have come out to share their stories.

And people that I've known for years and people I've known my whole life, and I'm like, I had no idea. I had absolutely no idea. And I think the stigma is getting better and is getting less about pregnancy loss and infertility as a whole. But I still think there's quite a bit more to go. After they complained, things moved quickly. Michaela's body was transported to the funeral home and Nick and Laura got the call to pick

up her ashes. Oh, and this is her. Oh yeah, that's her. And we picked out a very nice little heart-shaped urn for her. I remember it was raining that day, so I had her under my jacket. Nick and I just kind of held the box and had a good cry. And yeah, we have her on the mantle now, And I think the big thing was just, it was safe. It was this notion that, okay, she's back home. There's been a few times where we've had doubt

about if we have done enough to fight for her, or be good parents. And literally when Nick and I were having that conversation, a huge rainbow appeared. And I was like, okay. We see her in the sky. We see her. There's rainbows and stuff. That's when we say it. She's peak note. They hung up Michaela's footprints on the wall. They put a box with her hospital bracelet, cards, and anything that made them think of her in the family room. And at Christmas, they got a surprise. We actually found out we're pregnant and that was actually a miracle baby because they're not an IVF baby. So I feel that's another way

Makayla has sent down her brother. Yeah, our little Christmas miracle. It's been a weird combination of very excited, but even more trepidation, I would say. And it's going to be a long few months. Luckily, I have a group of other women who've gone through it too, so try and support each other. I'm very thankful that, you know, we went through our pregnancy with her, where we, you know, we read to her, we appreciated every little kick, every little uncomforting somersault she'd do in Laura. We appreciated those moments. We took, you where we imagined where we'd bring her.

And I'm very thankful for that because despite the loss, we had seven very beautiful months. I wish it was more, but we still had that. The documentary is produced by the CBC's Jodie Martenson with help from the Audio Documentary Unit. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.