probably a beautiful story

Amy Forrest bravely shares her story of encountering God’s strength in fear and trauma

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS CONTENT ABOUT PREGNANCY LOSS THAT SOME READERS MAY FIND DISTRESSING.

I wouldn’t have known her at all.
Her face had faded from my memory, submerged in a flood of details I will never forget. But she knew me. ‘It’s you!’ She sprang up from the birthing ball. ‘You delivered our son!’ I smiled. ‘I did?’

‘Yes! You were just back to work from having your baby. You came back from your break, and I was delivering so suddenly – and then
in the afternoon, you had to leave us early.’

She swam in front of me as my vision blurred.
I heard myself respond enthusiastically, left the room and gasped for air, fighting the urge to vomit. It was her.

Two years ago, on my second shift back from maternity leave, I had indeed delivered her son. What she didn’t know was that in that very same room, as her precious boy was born, I suffered a miscarriage. As her body delivered life, mine delivered death – and I had nowhere to go, no way to leave her, until her labour had ended. Fast forward two years, and another pregnancy, PTSD, postnatal depression, and hours of therapy later, and she was my assigned patient on my second shift back at work. I knew that this was no coincidence.

Unlike the last time I’d cared for her, this time I had a choice. But, with a Spirit-given courage that came from nowhere, I chose not to hand her to a colleague. Like Moses at the burning bush, I knew I was on holy ground. God was laying a task down for me that felt impossible. But I knew with absolute clarity that I had to do it, and that if he was asking it of me, he would make a way through.

For the next seven hours, I relived that awful day in every detail. I rode wave after wave of vivid, relentless flashbacks, my whole body fighting the urge to shut down. Lord, deliver me. Lord, bring something good from this awful, awful thing.

In trauma therapy, they told me to use a belief statement to anchor me in moments of fight or flight – an affirmation to keep me moving through a memory, rather than getting trapped in the fear of it. The one God gave
me in that season was from the song I sing
to my children as they sleep; ‘little ones to
him belong, they are weak but he is strong’ [1]
It became my mantra, whispered in the dark after nightmares, sobbed in the car after appointments, shouted triumphantly on discharge day.

I experienced its truth in every step of my trauma journey, and this day was no different. As the hours passed, I faced my fears, my grief, and my weakness from behind the shield of his strength. The sensations passed, and the memories stopped coming. By the end of the shift, she was just a woman having a baby,
and I was just her midwife.

Something sacred happened between me and God that day. His unmistakable power carried and protected me as I answered his call, and
I am no longer afraid of my grief. My fear of ever becoming re-imprisoned in the pain of those traumatic memories has been taken away. I am free.

In a tearful voice note to a friend that evening, I said this: ‘I mean, talk about God giving you
a task to do in an ordinary place, and then encountering his faithfulness and power, and equipping in extraordinary and impossible ways! This is probably a really beautiful story, even though it’s been a really horrible day!’

We are so thankful to Amy for sharing her experience with us so vulnerably. If you would like to speak to one of our CMF Wellbeing team, you can contact them through our website: cmf.li/cmf-pastoral

Amy Forrest is a midwife on a Midlands labour ward