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My Plea:

One day, an old man was walking along a beach that was littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed ashore by the high tide. As he walked he came upon a young boy who was ea-gerly throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one.

Puzzled, the man looked at the boy and asked what he was doing. Without looking up from his task, the boy simply replied, “I’m saving these starfish, Sir”.

The old man chuckled aloud, “Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?”

The boy picked up a starfish, gently tossed it into the water and turning to the man, said, “I made a difference to that one!”

Nearly 30 years ago, when my first son was born preterm, I would sketch pictures of premature babies for other parents. Occasionally I would be asked to sketch a portrait of a baby’s face without NNICU equipment for a bereaved family.

My full-term daughter was born 20 years ago. She was symmetrically under the 0.4th centile. She was tiny, failed to grow and lost 40% of her teeny birth-weight. Put simply she was not expected to live. To this day I have no idea how or where she found the fight to come back from that edge against all medical expectations. If she had died all I would have had were a handful of poor photos of her. She was elfin, large eyed, tiny, skeletal and so bruised from having had so many tests. I wish I had taken photos of her then. I wish someone had even told me to take photos or taken them for me. I simply could not bring myself to do so at the time. Instead I kept her teeny clothes and her hospital tags.

Over time, in between Elly’s many hospital visits, I slowly returned to art. I began to create portraits for bereaved parents who knew of my work. Often such parents only had poor or very distressing photos of their baby they felt they could not share. Holly Blue Butterflies had danced in a stream of sunlight my garden on the day I had been given the news that Elly might live. I began to use the name ‘Little Blue Butterfly’ as for me they gave a glimpse of the possibility of the joy my daughters life gave me.

When Elly was 16 I was made aware that care for parents whose babies died before 24 weeks remained very patchy. I started to work with Little Baby & Co and designed wrap round clothes and teeny toys that could be used for babies over 16 weeks. Up until that point I had not appreciated the need families facing earlier baby-loss had to have a portrait of their baby they felt able to share with others. I offered a monthly gifted portrait via Little Baby & Co to the family who are most in need of my artistic help. When I can I offer an additional portrait gift to a family who have endured the additional heartbreak of their baby’s face being badly hurt before or during their delivery. This special gift is reserved for families when a UK baby-loss digital photography charity have been unable to help them to finally see their baby’s beautiful face.

Every single portrait I create really does take me between 20 to 40 hours to do. Where possible I will include a baby’s special keepsake to help a family tell their baby’s story to others. Each family may request one portrait of their beautiful angels at my special angel baby rate. This rate simply allows me to cover the cost of all the professional artist quality materials that I use when making every single much-loved baby’s portrait. It has been an honour and a privilege to be trusted to create every precious baby’s portraits for their parents to treasure forever.

” I am nominating Catherine, fondly known as Cait. I met Cait a few years ago in September 2015 when I started doing cartoon style baby sketches for bereaved parents via my charity Little Baby & Co. She saw that the parents were getting joy from the sketches I was drawing so offered her professional service as an artist. She pledged one fine art baby portrait for us per month, to be awarded to parents who had either no photos, poor quality photos or photos that showed hurts from their birth that they might find distressing. We were often inundated with parents who had genuine need. She has often created 2 or 3 portraits at cost to herself and refusing to take any kind of donation towards them.

As admin of the charity I got to see the process of these portraits, I have seen her bring comfort for those like myself who did not have photos by constructing a portrait from pictures of siblings as babies. I have also witnessed parents very upset with photos that show all their baby’s hurts being over joyed seeing how their baby would have looked.

A few years after she began Cait still quietly does this for us and many other organisations, and we are lucky enough to have her now as part of our core team. As for her artwork, it is truly beautiful, and I am lucky enough to have received such a special gift that I will treasure!
Michelle Channon. Founder ‘Little Baby & Co’.

What Other’s Have Said

“I met Cait a few years ago in September 2015 when I started doing cartoon style baby sketches for bereaved parents via my charity Little Baby & Co. She offered her professional service as an artist. She pledged one fine art baby portrait per month, to be awarded to parents who had either no photos, very poor quality photos or photos that showed any “hurts” from birth that they might find distressing. I have seen her bring about comfort for those like myself who did not have photos and construct a portrait from pictures of siblings as babies.”