Sask. woman still without answers a decade after pregnancy loss at hospital

It’s been more than 10 years but Dani Thompson from Paddockwood, Sask. still has unanswered questions about what happened to the fetus after she suffered a miscarriage in 2009.

Thompson was 20 years old and around six months pregnant when she went to Victoria Hospital in Prince Albert after experiencing back pain.

“I remember the pain being so bad. I kept buzzing and a nurse would come in and she'd be like, ‘no, no just have some rest until the doctor gets here’ and I said I really can’t rest, I think that I’m in labour,” Thompson told CTV News.

Thompson recalls a nurse questioning which arm was hurting and being “blown away” because she believed she was in labour and wasn’t experiencing pain in that area.

After waiting, Thompson eventually had an ultrasound and was able to see her son in utero.

“It was the best moment of my life, he was even giving the thumbs up and we were so excited about that and I just remember thinking everything was going to be okay,” she said.

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Afterwards, Thompson was checked by a nurse while in the bed, who she recalls being “very, very cranky.” She says she heard a pop as her water had broken.

“She (the nurse) actually accused me of wetting the bed and she was mad at me saying ‘why would you do this and not ask us to take you to the washroom?’”

Shortly after that, Thompson recalls blood being on the floor and passing in and out of consciousness while the doctor read the results of the ultrasound to her.

“I looked at the bottom of the bed and there was the nurse holding my son and he wasn’t alive.”

Thompson was rushed into surgery. When she woke up she says a doctor wrote her a prescription for birth control, to get some rest and she could leave by 4 p.m.

“The worst part is I kept crying and asking the nurses, where’s my baby? Like, what happened? Do I get to bury him? What is happening?” she said.

Thompson’s questions have never been answered. She says she reached out to the hospital for her medical records but didn’t make an official complaint, saying it’s like “ripping off a bandaid every time.”

Since her experience at the hospital, she says she’s been unable to have children and has been grieving ever since. While Thompson now has a stepson, she’s sad she cannot give her boyfriend a child of their own.

Thompson says she even has flashbacks of that day of the nurse holding her son and having a look on her face like “she didn’t know, what do I do?”

Ashley Waddington is the medical director of the early pregnancy loss clinic in Kingston, Ont. and says having closure is important for families to move forward.

“They should at least be offered resources of supports to help them grieve in the way that’s going to be the most healthy and productive for them,” Waddington told CTV News.

She also says a pregnancy loss will “almost always” impact a person’s future reproductive goals and whether they’d even consider going through another pregnancy.

“That can be a very difficult decision and then any future pregnancy is always going to be marked by anxiety and stress, you know, worried about what the outcome of that pregnancy will be,” she said.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority says it doesn’t know what procedures or policies were in place for the former Prince Albert Parkland Health Region and is unable to respond due to the timeframe.