A B.C. couple waited weeks to get their stillborn daughter's remains. Then, they were invoiced for her autopsy

Nick Bordignon was still deep in grief over the death of his infant daughter last October when an envelope from the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) turned up in his mailbox.

It was addressed to the infant he and his wife had named Makayla Poppy when she was delivered at B.C. Children's Hospital four weeks earlier following an ultrasound that showed the child was dead.

Inside was an invoice for the cost of an autopsy and an itemized list of tests conducted by a coroner — a bill the PHSA has since admitted the Bordignons were never supposed to see.

And to make matters worse, the letter seemed to indicate Makayla's body was still in the morgue — two weeks after the autopsy was performed and nearly a month after she was stillborn.

"I remember just standing there in disbelief … and the initial confusion very quickly turned to rage," said Bordignon, who works as a police officer. 

"I'm no fool, I've seen autopsies performed, they are not pretty … it was soul-crushing and just wrong.... It's just like, okay, so if this is an itemized list, this means the autopsy has been done. Where is she?"

CBC News has learned that the Bordignons' concerns about both the invoice and the delay in releasing Makayla's body are now under investigation by B.C.'s Patient Care Quality Review Board — the body tasked with reviewing complaints about health authority policies and procedure.

The story highlights what experts say is a lack of standardized care when it comes to stillbirths, which can result in errors that traumatize already grieving families.

The Bordignons' are not the first B.C. family to experience delays receiving their baby's body after a birth or stillbirth — a situation apparently compounded by disagreements over who ultimately bears responsibility for delivering the child to the family. 

Dr. Lynn Murphy-Kaulbeck, president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, says the Bordignons' experience is indicative of wider problems in the system. 

"That horrible story just speaks to a larger issue of not having things in place," she told CBC.

"The system not acknowledging the gravity of what's occurred and not having systems in place so that no parent will ever go through that."

Bordignon says losing Makayla already felt "insurmountable." 

"To have these other things added to it, the invoice, delay of having her return to us, it's things that harm an already terrible experience," said Bordignon.