Dusting off an old hat

Today, my dear Anya, you would be 12 years old. This is the eleventh time I sit down on the morning of December 19th, under the gloomy grey skies and quiet beauty of a new winter arriving, and that I make the time to write to you, to think of you, and to put on this hat that I've rarely been able to wear over the years: Being your dad.

The year 2025 was a very special one for our family. We took months off of work, in part to go adventure together as a family and to see the beauty of everything that's out there in the world. But one of the other important things I wanted to use this time for was to fulfill a dream I've had for years. The dream of putting on that hat to properly document this journey we've been on together within a book, in order to make our story more accessible and maybe offer a bit of hope for those who are at the start of their own journeys. 

I set out to write this book in three distinct parts aiming to answer the following questions:

1. Who was I before you were born, and in the lead up to your birth? 
2. How did I and your mom navigate the immediate aftermath of losing you?
3. What were the lasting legacies of your existence?

 Here is the structure of what those reflections yielded:

I was grateful to be able to rely on more than 12 years of reflections in this blog to help me speak to the evolution of my grief. But there was one post in particular that made me realize the extent to which I still didn't get answers to all of my questions: The Coroner's Report, posted on November 14, 2015. I ended that post by saying "The ball's in my court". In truth, that was always somewhat in the back of my mind as something to revisit - but with an 8 month-old William to raise, it didn't feel like a priority at the time, and it was easy to kick down the road after that.

The hardest chapter to write, by far, was Loose ends, where I finally circled back to the Coroner's report.  In re-reading the report, I realized that there were a few things I probably should have focused more on than my initial questions:

• The realization that I never actually received Anya's autopsy. In fact, this was annexed to the coroner's report which only summarized it. 
• What it meant for the death to be ruled accidental. That conclusion suggested that a better medical intervention could have led to a different outcome.
• The extent to which the intubation had failed. There were three documented intubations: An initial one failed, another came loose during transport, and a third when Anya arrived at the hospital. Most importantly, I didn't seek to find out whether the Maison de naissance actually did change anything in response to Anya's death to ensure better intubation training. 

So I set out to get answers, both from the Bureau du coroner, and the Maison de naissance. I was very grateful for how receptive they were to answering my questions after all of these years. I was able to speak to the coroner that led the investigation, as well as the head midwife in charge of the Maison de naissance. 

The good is that I emerged from those conversations with a better understanding of the nuances. There is no world where Anya would have been completely fine, even in a hospital. A lot of damage had already occurred in the days prior to her birth, and she would in all likelihood have faced lifelong health consequences. But she could have lived with a better intubation, hence the recommendation. The head midwife did confirm with me that following Anya's death, training frequency did increase, however she did not recall another time where an intubation had been needed since.

The conversation with the coroner also led me to understand how difficult it would be for me to ever get the autopsy, due to how the applicable law is written and how it restricts the sharing of annexes to Coroner's reports. Long story short, after formally requesting it anyway and being denied, I did what anyone else would do in the circumstances: I wrote to the Chief Coroner and the responsible Minister, pleading with them to inject a bit more humanity when it came to interpreting the law, in circumstances where parents want information about their deceased children. To my great surprise, a few weeks after my request, I was invited to meet with the Chief Coroner who told me that they were touched by my request, and that they would not only give me the information I was looking for, but would institute new procedures for helping parents in similar circumstances going forward.

So this year, Anya, your existence had an impact. I think you will next year too. First when I publish this memoir which is currently being edited (I am hopeful to publish it by spring of 2026), and second as I advocate for higher frequency of resuscitation training, to make sure the lessons learned from one Maison de naissance are actually applied beyond just those walls. I look forward to telling you all about it.

 Je t'aime.

-Papa