Chasing Rainbows is a charity that aims to make people feel comfortable talking about pregnancy and baby loss. We've been a long time fan of them at OVUM and spoke to founder Sam Catanach, to find out more about her background and reason for launching the charity, and what resources are available today to help women who have lost a baby. So without further ado... 

We’d love to know more about Chasing Rainbows and how (and when) you came to found this organisation?

After my own lived experience and fertility journey in 2017/2018, in which I suffered 4 miscarriages I started to write a blog to document all that I was going through. I found this very cathartic but also felt very lonely and that I couldn't say out loud what I was thinking and it felt like a safe space to write it down. I had never intended to publish the blog, but in Baby Loss Awareness Week 2017 seeing the wave of light on social media inspired me just to hit publish and see what happened. Within 48 hours, I had thousands of readers all over the globe, and my inbox was full of women who wanted to tell me ‘They got it!’ they felt the same, and I began to connect with others going through recurrent loss.

In 2019, after having my first living child (Ted), I decided I wanted to do more to campaign for baby loss and to bring together women to provide peer support. Just as lockdown started in April 2020, Chasing Rainbows was added to the official U.K. charity register, and well, it has just grown into something I could never have foreseen when I was back in what I call the trenches of loss.

What support does Chasing Rainbows offer, and how do you fund it? 

Chasing Rainbows' aim is to make people feel comfortable talking about pregnancy loss by raising awareness of miscarriage, thus making women feel less isolated and alone. Chasing Rainbows provides a vital service to women going through recurrent miscarriage, all kinds of pregnancy loss and also infertility by offering access to peer support groups, information and our campaigns. The peer groups provide knowledge, experience and support to empower women to self-advocate whilst navigating their fertility journey. Chasing Rainbows supplies memory bracelets and pregnancy-after-loss medical note stickers to local hospitals for women who have suffered baby loss at any stage of pregnancy. The charity is fully self-funded through fundraising from our founder and the service users of the charity who want to be able to give something back. 

What are the top 3 things you wish those who have never experienced baby loss and recurrent miscarriage knew or could understand better?

1. Acknowledging and validating our loss is so important and often all that we want in terms of support is to know that our grief is validated. Someone who has lost a baby doesn't want unsolicited advice.
2. Language is crucial, and thinking before you speak; we don't want ‘bless yous’, and we most certainly don't want any sentence that starts with ‘at least…’ There is no silver lining to your baby dying.
3. If we distance ourselves or find it hard to celebrate loved ones' pregnancy/baby news, it's not that we aren't happy for you we are just so sad for ourselves, its not selfishness its grief, and we just need time and patience whilst we navigate our journey.

What are the challenges felt by the trying-to-conceive community today when they suffer from recurrent miscarriage - what’s the best way of managing this and ensuring you receive the level of care you need via the NHS?

Historically you have had to wait until you have gone through the trauma of miscarriage three times before being entitled to be referred for any help on the NHS, some integrated care boards (ICBs) see you after two losses if you are over 35. However, this should soon be history due to the recent pregnancy loss review passed in parliament that Tommys, Olivia Blake MP and Mylene Klass have been working on for years; the new recommendations that are hopefully going to be implemented everywhere will be that you are entitled to some form or referral and support after one loss. I believe the model is being trialled as a pilot in Birmingham first. The review will take a long time to be fully implemented due to over 70 recommendations but this will make a huge difference to the care available in both Gynae and Maternity services. My biggest piece of advice is that you MUST advocate for yourself because no one cares about your fertility journey as much as you do. Ask for more, ask the GP to run basic tests, and ask for a referral. There's lots of advice in my blog about different things you can ask for and directions to turn for help.

We’re hungry in the office (standard) and heard about the Rainbow Brunch you’re launching during BLAW last year. Tell us more.

Everyone loves an excuse to have brunch, don't they? So, I came up with the idea of people hosting their own Rainbow Brunches to raise funds for the charity. You ordered a fundraising pack on the website, and they were free of charge, they were super cute and packed with loads of ideas to bring your brunch to reality. It was a tool to open up conversations around pregnancy loss and infertility and raising awareness, so it wasn't all about raising a huge amount of money!

Together OVUM and Chasing Rainbows did something very special for BLAW 2023, and 20% of all profits from our Early Detection Pregnancy Tests were donated to the charity (we plan on doing it again this year). We know those who are ttc get through a significant amount of tests; what do you think makes our tests so popular amongst the ttc community?

So this is easy to answer; as a woman that has gone through struggling to conceive and recurrent loss, I can tell you that we do not just do one test. We do LOTS, often several times a day or during the night, and also in the toilet at work, sure you get the gist? We pee on a lot of sticks for reassurance, and it helps a lot of women with their anxiety.

Having 4 tests in the OVUM boxes is a dream; most tests only have two, and it's never enough; no one wants to be trawling the supermarkets at 10 pm for more tests! We need tests that are super sensitive so that we can find out we are pregnant as soon as possible, and OVUM delivers just that. Most of the women that I support need to know they are pregnant as soon as they can as they have a medication protocol that they need to start at the earliest stage they can to have a higher chance of the pregnancy surviving. The dreaded BFN is always painful, and I just loved the packaging and design behind OVUM. It is the first test to take the mental health of the woman peeing on it into consideration, the quote on the packet and the guided meditation is just perfect, and as a community of women, we really rate that.

What you have achieved to date in launching a charity is astounding and inspiring to us here at OVUM. What are the charity's future top priorities? Are there any significant fundraising goals? How can our readers support the charity?

The future top priorities of the charity are to strive for better compassionate care from health professionals in all care environments, for self-advocating in fertility to be normal and accepted so that women feel listened to on their journey and to continue to campaign for partners to be recognised and acknowledged in baby loss too. To be honest, there is so much I want to achieve it's impossible to write it all down; the charity would benefit from grants and ongoing support from bigger businesses, so we need to pursue this when we find time. Readers can support the charity by connecting with us on social media, interacting and sharing our posts and campaigns, which helps us to reach more women who are struggling. We do have a lovely little shop on our website, too, we have three lovely candles that are very popular, and purchasing one helps donate funds! [Edit: Team OVUM can vouch for this - we bought one, stunning candle!]

Anything else you’d like us to know, to discuss here?

Last year I landed a role in my local NHS trust as the first Maternity Bereavement Support Worker in our hospital. This means I will be able to contribute to bigger things in our local trust. Shortly after that, Chasing Rainbows ran our first-ever fertility wellbeing weekend as a pilot scheme, which we hope to roll out even bigger in the future, the next one is planned for 2025. The weekend was a safe environment for women that have suffered loss and infertility to come together and access a variety of workshops and experiences to help support their mental health and their journeys. This year we’re running our charity ball for BLAW which looks set to be a great event.

Fire Round Questions

Q.You’re also known as the ‘Crazy Fertility Queen’. Our founder has definitely been called ‘crazy’ at times too, but we’re intrigued…What’s the story behind it? A. Well, I certainly was crazy when I was in the trenches, and then my friends started to refer to me as the fertility queen… so that's where Crazy Fertility Queen came from; the funny part is that when I tried to register as a charity, I got a letter from the Charity Commission to say that as I wasn't the Queen and I couldn’t use her name.. Cue the embarrassment and the start of Chasing Rainbows!

Q. Our founder, Jenny, is a big fan of the outdoors and endurance sports. Let’s imagine she calls you up to take part in the Three Peaks Challenge in 24hrs, fundraising for Chasing Rainbows (of course). Are you in? [You might be held to this…!]  A. Oh my goodness, I am terrible at walking, never mind climbing mountains, I will think about it, if gin can be involved at the top of each peak?!

Q. IVF treatment: U.K or abroad? A. I would say abroad purely because my research has taught me that Europe is way ahead of us in terms of IVF and most things fertility, however, we do have some great clinics here in the UK, too.

Key Takeaways

Thanks so much, Sam for making a difference for so many women! You can check our Chasing Rainbows website here.