A life gone before it has begun is a sorrow that never leaves a mother. Natalie Paul knows that pain.
She fell to her knees in a hospital chapel when she knew her son Kaiden had hours to live. He was ten weeks old.
From her anguish has grown a legacy. As Natalie says: “He could not come into my life and not have a purpose.”
Hundreds of families have found solace, strength, love and hope from a charity based in the centre of Ashton-under-Lyne, which she set up after her loss.
Thirteen years after he died she recalls clearly, the brief tender moments she had with her son and when she knew she had to let him go. Kaiden was not the first child she had lost.
She had two early pregnancy losses at eight weeks and 20 weeks before having her children, Jade, 26, and Kyle, 23. She lost two other children before she had her third child, Oliver, five.
Kaiden was 26 weeks premature and weighed 1lb two and a half ounces when he was born on March 7th 2012. “It was all down to my blood pressure that was not controlled correctly which affected the placenta. My care was taken over by St Mary’s in Manchester who were fantastic and did scans every week. They told us at 20 weeks he would be growth restricted and it would be a difficult road.
“The journey of the pregnancy was unreal. I don’t know how I got through it. Emotionally it was so hard. He was a very active baby, he would spin round in my tummy. But the blood flow to his major organs started to reduce. I had to take steroids for his lungs to prepare for bringing the birth forward before I had a Caesarean section at 26 weeks.
“I did not get a chance to kiss him on the head when he arrived like every mother wants to – that skin to skin. I was not able to do that. They had to ventilate him straight away. He was sent to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and it was the hardest thing to not be able to touch him.
“The next day I went up to the NICU in a wheelchair and I put my hand in the incubator and I could touch his tiny hand. He would wrap his fingers around my little finger. That will be forever a memory that we had. I stayed next to him for two and a half months – the nurses would be saying at 3am in the morning you need to get some sleep. It is terrifying, you think if you walk out of the room something will happen.
“You learn fast as a mum or a dad on NICU because you have to know what is happening to your child. Kaiden ended up with lots of problems including sepsis. He passed away on May 15th 2012.
“When I was on the ward I met other people who were unbelievably supportive and we became like a family – they had babies in the NICU as well. The staff were amazing and they all fought for him. I remember walking into the room one day and one of the doctor’s was saying “come on Kaiden” as he was taking some breaths, but he did not know I was there. It was just a feeling I had that they really were rooting for him, which meant so much.”
“Babies on NICU, the first week they usually do pretty well but then it can become a rollercoaster ride. Kaiden had to have operations. He only ever took one millimetre of milk in a feed.
“I had lost other children, but Kaiden was the only one I ever met. Kaiden ended up having to be rushed to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool because he had fluid around his heart. We were following the ambulance as I was not allowed in the back of it. I didn’t know then, but a lady was with me called Catherine, I didn’t know she was a bereavement midwife. She was by my side and I now know he could have gone at any second.
“They did the operation but it was only a week later that the doctors were saying he was getting worse. He was not moving. They told us he was going into organ failure and took us into a room to think about letting him go.
“I did not want to believe that and I remember running around the hospital because I didn’t know what to do with myself. While I was doing that I ran into the chapel and I remember falling to my knees literally. I just needed something, someone to help me.
“I remember these big hands lifting me up, and sitting me on a pew. It must have been a priest. I was angry and I said ‘if there was a God why would he take my son’. He explained in a way that did help me. He told me to imagine a swan swimming in a lake and her cygnets behind her. He asked “what does she do when the cygnets get tired’. I thought why is he talking about swans, then he said ‘she opens her wings and lets them rest and that is what Jesus is doing for Kaiden’.”
“At that moment in time you do turn to spirituality. I did not go to church but I remember a chaplain saying the Lord’s Prayer next to Kaiden and he opened his eyes in the midst of that prayer being said. I am not here to talk about religion, it was just my way of coping.”
“When the day came and the family visited him I was in denial. I did not want to let him go, but there was a day when I was with him in the room and I was singing songs to him. His heart rate came down. I was singing Adele’s version of Make You Feel My Love and it was just as if we were saying goodbye and he was letting me know.
“He was tired, and that’s when I called the doctor and said I think it is time. The doctor removed the wires from the life support machine and he placed him in my arms. His dad had a cuddle, and then I was holding him and he took three little breaths and then I knew he had gone.”
Natalie, 44, added: “I thought I would scream, I thought I would break. But I felt this strange feeling – almost protective. I only got to hold him three times in the whole time he was with us. But I was being a mum, no wires, I could see his face with nothing attached, and it was a moment for us, even though it was a goodbye.”
For the following year she struggled. “Grief was so hard. Although you had your family around you and people supporting you, you just feel alone. It is like no one understands that feeling that is going on inside you. You notice people start getting on with their lives and you feel stuck. You can’t move on from this pain. Going through the stages of grief is not linear. Your emotions are all over the show.
“I used to do a lot of walking. I went in on myself. When I dropped off my other children at school me and my dog, Sam, would go for a walk. He meant the world to me. When I cried he would nuzzle me and put his paws around me. We would go on a walk and I would find a field and just look at the trees and the clouds. I remember seeing shapes that looked like and angel in the sky, a little robin, and thinking, it was a sign from him.
“The grief opened my heart to the world. I remember thinking I want to do something. I want to set up something so other people like me can talk.”
Her wish began as coffee mornings held at a community centre for a chat and a brew as a group. Then it developed into one to one support.
Eventually it became the registered charity, Finding Rainbows, currently based at Fletcher Street in Ashton town centre. It has qualified counsellors – including Natalie – and from 2018 to 2025 has had 836 referrals. But people they help receive support for as long as they need it.
Student counsellors from colleges throughout the region are given placements with the charity to gain valuable experience.
Natalie said: “We want to build women up again. We tell them they are not in a dark hole which they must stay in. They will find a way to cope – through support, counselling, and it also about that inner journey that you must do yourself. People can see us as long as they want – we don’t have a fixed number of sessions.”
Counselling and peer group support like bereavement groups are organised by the charity. Another group is for women who have suffered a loss and become pregnant again and need help facing their understandable fears.
“We don’t have an age limit either. If you lose a child in their 20s you can still have a place at Finding Rainbows. We don’t turn anybody away. Also we support partners not only women. We have a counsellor who can speak three different languages, and is proud to offer support to different ethnicities.”
The charity also organises days out and support for families who have a “rainbow baby” – a baby that is born after the parents have a pregnancy loss. The name draws on the symbol of the rainbow, representing beauty after a dark time. Nearly one in four pregnancies end in loss. That could be a miscarriage, stillbirth, or ectopic or molar pregnancy
Finding Rainbows is based in a row of shops and businesses close to the bus and Metrolink interchange. But it faces a crisis in the coming months. The property they use with its bright frontage including a picture of Kaiden, is to be auctioned on September 1st.
Natalie said: “We have been based here for three years. I understand the landlord needs to sell and have no hard feelings about that, they have treated us well while we have been here. But we have a crisis – we need to find somewhere.
“What we need at the moment is help with fundraising. A large part of money from say the Lottery, and grants, is ring-fenced and has to be spent on what it was specifically meant for.
“We need surplus money to cover the cost of rent and salaries. We are looking for another premises in the Tameside area. We have three floors where we are but we are actually outgrowing it. I would love to have different rooms for my counsellors., and rooms for groups.
“If the building is sold at auction and the new owner does not want us as a sitting tenant under our lease we have two months to get out.”
The charity has an annual budget of about £130,000 from which it has to find money for rent, five salaries, business rates, and tax. It is currently applying for money via NHS Commissioning.
While I was speaking to Natalie a father carrying his healthy baby daughter arrived outside the premises. He wanted to make a cash donation. A short time later his wife arrived and embraced Natalie.
The couple had been helped by the charity several years ago when they lost a child.
The just giving link for anyone wishing to make a donation to the charity is:
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