A mum who had a stillbirth and a miscarriage in the same year has been touched by the efforts her son is going to to raise money for a special cot that helps bereaved parents.
Natalie Rigby from Maghull has spoken about how she battled through the trauma of losing two sons in one year. The 40-year-old gave birth to her second son Jenson at the beginning of 2019 but he was sadly stillborn.
When Jenson was born, he was placed in a cold cot that allowed Natalie, along with her husband Andrew, 42, and son Oscar, 12, to spend time with him. Following the tragedy, Natalie again found herself pregnant later that year but was left hurting when she miscarried late into the pregnancy.
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Natalie told the ECHO : "We lost Jenson at the beginning of 2019 and at the end of 2019 we lost Theo. It's little things like you don't realise when you have a stillborn baby that there'd be an option of a cold cot. To be honest you don't know what to think or what to do.
"You're just completely heartbroken and numb so when I went into the hospital they got me a bereavement midwife. I was terrified because I didn't want Jenson just going straight off, I wanted to keep him with me, so she asked if I wanted to have a cold cot.
"It's all wooden, it's quite tall, there's a refrigerator underneath and then the top bit is stainless steel with a blanket in with the baby in a little crib in the cot to keep them nice and cold."
Natalie also opened up about how she felt following the stillbirth and how she didn't detach herself from her family. She said: "The thing with it is, it's not just me that's going through it. Although it's my body, my husband has lost his baby and Oscar has lost his brother.
"It's massive. It's such a taboo subject and I've lost friends because they didn't bother contacting me and blamed not knowing what to say. Just pick up the phone or come round and see me.
"It's such a taboo subject. Obviously, I want to raise money for the hospital to give back but it's also to raise awareness. It happens so often it's ridiculous. I'm on a group on Facebook full of people who have also lost babies.
"People say it's rare, it's not, it literally happens all the time. I'm still in touch with my bereavement midwife and it continues to happen to others. You've just got to stick together, even grandparents, aunties, uncles suffer."
Oscar is now preparing for a 10km run that is set to raise money for Ormskirk Hospital to go towards supplying more cold cots in the hospital. Natalie said: "He's doing a 10km run with his friend, Jimmy, from school. They've both decided that they want to raise money for Ormskirk Hospital to get a cold cot."
To read more about the GoFundMe or to donate, click here.
