In this heart-touching episode of "What's The Story," we sit down with Jan Burch, a midwife from Liverpool, to delve into her profound journey through the highs and lows of working in the NHS. Amidst the relentless pace and emotional demands of midwifery, Jan shares how she grappled with burnout, the silent struggle that many healthcare professionals face, and how her unwavering faith guided her through her darkest hours.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

Jan's Background and Career:

• How Jan began her career in the NHS and her passion for midwifery.
• The challenges and rewards of being a midwife in today's healthcare landscape.

The Reality of Burnout:

• Jan's personal battle with burnout, exacerbated by the pressures of understaffing and high demands in the NHS.
• The impact of burnout on mental health and well-being, particularly in high-stress jobs.

The Role of Faith in Overcoming Challenges:

• How Jan's faith provided solace and strength during her struggle with burnout.
• The importance of holding onto hope and faith, even when facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles.

Support and Recovery:

• Strategies and support systems that helped Jan navigate through burnout.
• The significance of asking for help and the role of counselling in her recovery process.

Connect with Jan Burch:

Jan's insights not only shed light on the often-overlooked issue of burnout among healthcare workers but also offer hope and guidance to those who might be experiencing similar challenges.

To connect with Jan or to learn more about her journey, visit :

Facebook

Instagram

Hey there, and welcome to What's the Story.

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And now, let's meet your host and our special guest for today.

Welcome to What's The Story with me, Matt Edmundson.

I am chatting today with the incredible Jan Birch.

We've been friends for a while, right?

Yeah.

We've been, we have been friends for a while.

In fact, you've been on Crowd now, you've hosted twice, so we thought it's probably

long enough, really, get you on the What's The Story Podcast, dig in a little bit.

So Jan, for those of you who don't know, Jan lives in Liverpool,

but you're not a Scouser?

Yeah, I am.

Are you?

Welsh Scouser.

I was born here.

Really?

Yeah.

I did not know that.

I thought you were born outside of Liverpool for some reason.

So have you got a proper Scouse passport?

Yeah, there's Liverpool on it.

Yeah.

Wow.

Okay.

There you go.

So Jan is actually from Liverpool.

You don't sound

Scouse though.

Family were Welsh, are Welsh.

So I grew up with that influence, I think, of my voice.

The Welsh

influence.

Yeah.

To be fair, none of your kids sound Scouse either.

They've grown up in Liverpool.

Cause maybe, I don't know.

Tim's from down South.

I don't know.

It's

posh, isn't it, Tim?

Yeah.

Yeah.

How did your parents feel about you marrying a

posh boy?

Yeah.

No, didn't give them any grief?

No.

Okay.

Maybe a little bit.

So, so yeah, so you're married to Tim, you've got three kids,

your kids are very similar ages to mine.

In fact, our kids went to the same school.

Yeah.

We've been going to the same church for a long time.

Yeah.

Yeah, we've got some crossover as we like to say, and let's dig into it, shall we?

So how did you?

How did you, how did your Christian journey start?

So were your parents Christians, or did you?

I wouldn't say they were, um, fully fledged.

They were believers.

Yeah.

They were churchgoers, so they grew up in North Wales.

Dad was from near Bangor, Mum from near Carnarvon.

So they've, had church twice on a Sunday, maybe more.

So when they moved to Liverpool my brother and I went to a Welsh church.

So I've got a sort of church background, I'd say from being born,

but it was later on that we would probably call ourselves Christians,

probably understood what it was about.

So you grew up in a Welsh church in Liverpool.

Yeah.

I don't, maybe there are, I don't know of many Welsh

churches in Liverpool.

There used to be about a good three or four.

There was Waterloo, Crosby there was Heathfield Road in Wavertree.

I went to Stanley Road in Bootle and I'm sure there was another one somewhere.

Those three were the main ones.

So when

you say a Welsh church, what does that mean?

Does that mean that they spoke in Welsh in the

service?

Yeah, the service was all in Welsh.

The hymns were all in Welsh.

Oh wow.

The preaching was all in Welsh.

So we used to, as children we used to have to learn a verse from the Bible.

And recite it every Sunday.

I grew up learning scripture in Welsh but didn't fully understand what it meant.

Yeah.

I'd ask the odd word and, but yeah, Welsh was my first language.

Wow.

So Until when?

Probably until I went to primary school.

Wow.

But my mum, to this day, still speaks to me in Welsh.

Yeah.

And do you speak back in Welsh?

I don't.

Have you lost the I, I understand everything she says to me.

Yeah.

But I think I was quite shy as a little girl,

I don't believe that for a minute, I was, she said

with a very stern face, any sort of, if she spoke Welsh or my dad,

when they were picking me up from school or, I'd go speak English, just cause it

drew attention, but all my friends loved it, now if I had my time again, I'd,

Yeah, I'd totally be fine with it, but as you grow up, I was a bit embarrassed.

Yeah.

My brother was a bit more bold than me, he was more confident.

Yeah.

So he would, when we went to grandparents, they would all speak

Welsh to us and my aunties and uncles.

Wow.

But I would You know, I'd say, some things in Welsh but not everything.

I was a bit embarrassed.

Yeah, which I regret, big regret.

, Matt Edmundson: did you, do you, did you speak Welsh with your kids?

Mean, my mum has taught them and I've, say they know the

odd words what things are, but they couldn't have a conversation in Welsh?

No.

But Cerys and Jamie, particularly.

Are really interested in the language and they've Jamie has on

Duolingo done some Welsh, so he's really proud of his Welsh heritage.

It's more it's more important to him, I would say, than, um, the other two.

That's really interesting.

Yeah.

Really interesting.

So you went to a Welsh speaking school church, in Liverpool,

and so what happened then?

You, how did you come to a place where you thought, yeah, this

is for me I need to make my, I need to stand on my own two feet.

That seems to be the common theme, doesn't it?

You get to an age, if you grow up in a Christian home.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Where you go, I've got to make this decision for myself.

Yeah, no, I didn't really come to that until I was 17.

Oh, wow.

We carried on going to the Welsh Church until I was probably about 16.

So my brother will have been in 16, 20.

Oh, wow.

He probably, he was at uni then and but we still had links, probably, I was

probably a bit older, 16, yeah, 17, and my brother was at university in Bangor,

North Wales, and in his second year, he took, towards the end of his second

year, he came home and said I've become a Christian, and we were like, what?

What do you mean?

So he, um, went on to explain that not only is Jesus real, still he's

alive today, but you can have a conversation with him, you can

have a relationship with him.

And that just blew my mind.

And although I wasn't, particularly looking for God,

I had, I thought I had a faith.

Yeah.

And I did believe in God.

And my parents did it wasn't personal, it was, I wouldn't be able to really, I

knew the Bible stories from when I was a child, and but I didn't know Jesus, and

my brother, radically changed his life so he came and said to me, I'm going to this

church in Magal on Sunday, do you want to come with me, and I was like, yeah, Okay.

Because I love my brother.

Yeah.

I trusted him and he was just so excited he was on fire.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the first Sunday I went with him, I was probably nearly 17.

And it was just, I'd never heard, Welsh Church, the singing's pretty good.

Yeah.

As you would imagine.

Yeah.

It was always really lovely.

But this was totally different and I understood what I was

singing, I understood all of it.

Yeah.

And it was just, in retrospect, it was the Holy Spirit really, just in the praise

and worship, and I just knew there and then it was, this was what I wanted.

It was, it just touched me quite deep.

Yeah.

Couldn't really say what, but it was the Holy Spirit.

That's really interesting.

I think this is It's a common story in a lot of ways in the sense that people

who would have professed to have been Christian in some respect, whether they

grew up going to church, certainly, if you're in your, maybe your fifties now,

your sixties, you maybe went to church a bit more than they do now, you had

assemblies at school and you went to Sunday school and all that sort of stuff.

So maybe they went to church and would have, would say in their

heads, Oh yes, I'm a Christian.

Yes, I believe in the existence of God.

Therefore I am a Christian.

But actually what you're talking about there, Jan, is

something different, isn't it?

It's, there's, you you've taken that and gone a step further, maybe not a

whole step further, maybe, like a whole block further, do you know what I mean,

more than a step in some respects.

So what do you, what happened to you to make you realise actually

there's more to it than this?

So what was it your brother was saying?

What was some of the things that you were going, that's not my

experience with Christianity so far?

His sort of prayer, he was, his testimony really is he met

a girl, he wasn't going out with her, but she was a friend who took him

along to different, when speakers came to the uni and different things.

And he just had really great conversations with her, but he was really happy, had a

girlfriend he'd been with for a few years.

He was really sporty.

He was in the football team, he.

He had a good university life and he, they would play all different Welsh

universities and different things.

And he said he remembers having had maybe several months of conversations

with this friend being on coming home from Cardiff or somewhere,

on a coach, drunk out of his head.

They'd all been drinking after the game.

Yeah.

And he said, I think he was in the aisle of the coach on the floor, and he just

remembers saying, God, if you're real, then you need to show me who you are.

And if you're real, I'll give you my life.

And to hear words like that from my brother was a real great guy,

before we, we were very close.

He was always someone I could talk to and I respected him.

He wasn't silly , he was a sensible sort of intelligent guy.

And when he told that, and he said, I, someone got me to my room.

I don't remember.

He said, but I just remember waking up the next day, expecting this horrendous

hangover, he said, and I remember looking in the mirror and I was just radiant.

Wow.

And he said, and then I remembered the prayer.

Yeah.

And he said, no, I knew God had answered my prayer.

I knew he was real.

I looked completely different.

. And some of a friend came to knock on his door and they were like, what?

What's happened to you?

And it from there, we just went on and.

So him telling me those things about God, knowing him, about being baptized,

the Holy Spirit, it was all new stuff.

I knew of it, but it hadn't impacted my life.

He'd read the stories, but it had not really.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's interesting, isn't it?

I think one of the things that we pray for our kids more than anything is that

they would not only have a head knowledge about God, but that they would actually

experience God for themselves, right?

And having that assurance that actually, it's not just this weird thing, but

actually I have experienced God.

I have known God and God has known me.

I think is one of those things, because I didn't grow up in a Christian family.

And so I've no idea what it's like for my kids who have, do you see what I mean?

I can't look at them and go when I was their age, I struggled with this

because my mum and dad were like this.

I had a very different upbringing.

And as they're growing up, I'm thinking, it's great for them

because it's safe, it's loving, it's kind, it's nurturing, it's all the

things that you would want it to be.

It's fun, there's obviously the strong element of faith undergirds what we

do as parents, but, yeah, having never grown up as a Christian, I just don't

know, and so you do go, God, I just, my prayer is that they experience

you like I've experienced you.

Do you know what I mean, that they would know you like I've

known you, it moves them from something that you do out of duty.

It moves from your head, it moves into your heart and it's something which is

alive and it captures you, doesn't it?

And yeah, that's always been my prayer for the kids.

I

think I was I would consider myself to have been a good person.

My parents certainly were, they were kind.

Yeah.

They were, they were good neighbors.

And they, I was taught not to lie, not to steal, just general principles.

You don't have to be a churchgoer to have those, ethics, morals.

So I grew up in a very moral home.

So sex before marriage was a big no.

Yeah.

But other things were very gray.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My dad, would occasionally swear.

My mum, very occasionally, not, quite mild.

But I, if I'd have been caught swearing, it would have, I would have been told off.

Yeah.

Most kids would be, but there were certain things that, I wouldn't do in cases.

I did do some of them, but, as we all do, yeah, of course

I was just a normal teenager.

Yeah.

But I would say that prior to my brother coming home and.

Telling me what has happened, I unconsciously was looking for something.

I thought it was the right boyfriend.

I thought it was some sort of validation in who I was and what I

look like how appealing I was to.

The Opposite Sex.

Those were the things that, although I, had lots of great friends I went out,

I went to parties and my life was good.

I was studying, I was doing my A levels.

There was, I would come home from going out at the weekend

and just be like, so upset.

And my mum and I would sit in the kitchen, she'd wait up for me.

And she'd make me a cup of tea and we'd just talk and it was usually, I wasn't

prepared to go so far with guys and they would go with girls who were, would.

And that really hurt me.

It was in me that I wouldn't do those things.

And I just think, thank God I was saved.

I became a Christian at the right time because that was

starting to get a bit problematic.

I liked someone, for a couple of years while I was doing my A Levels and he was

having a big party and lived in a nice big house and I made a decision that if

it went that way, I wouldn't run away.

But fortunately he lived in a nice bit of Liverpool in Formby

and he was having this party.

And I was totally, just in love with this guy.

I didn't know him really.

Yeah.

Anyway.

And he'd invited me to the party and I was so excited to go because in my mind it was

like, we're gonna as of tonight, I'm gonna start going out with him or something.

Yeah.

And my mum knew about him and different things.

Anyway, I'm being a, I'm a spanner in the works, but I now

know that it was probably God.

A massive thick fog fell upon Liverpool that one night.

And particularly Formby, the sort of lowlands right there.

It was just like a pea souper, as they say, and my mum was meant to take me,

she said, I'm not driving in that, you literally couldn't see your hand, and

I was like, please, you've got to take me, my life will be over, it was like,

this isn't going to affect my whole life, and she said, Jenna, I'm really sorry

I'm not taking you in that, so I was like, I'll get a taxi, and taxis weren't

running as frequently, so So I had to phone and say, I'm really sorry, I can't

come and he was like, okay, he wasn't really bothered, but I was devastated.

But I think God's intervened in

retrospect.

So did that happen before you became a

Christian?

Oh yeah, I think it was just before.

Yeah.

Okay.

It was.

Yeah.

And so it's interesting, isn't it?

The pressure on young people back then when you and I were

teenagers was really quite strong.

Yeah.

It's insane now.

To go and do things that just aren't great for you and the access to

things on the internet now and the expectations and social media and the

stuff that people see and you're just like , it causes you to fall on your

knees and pray for your kids a lot.

I think it's like, God spare them.

So growing up in that environment then, and obviously you, you became a Christian

how has that impacted your parenting?

Because obviously you grew up in a Christian environment, whereas I didn't.

I'm curious, how has that impacted how you

do parenting?

It was, it was, obviously I married a Christian so having children, from where

I'd go, they were part of the church that we go to and they went to certain

toddler groups that were church related.

And then choosing schools and yeah we didn't send our elders to the

Christian school straight away.

We weren't sure, cause we knew we wanted to have three.

Yeah.

Whether we could afford that at the time.

Sorry for those listening and you don't know

what the Christian school is.

The Christian school is a school here in Liverpool.

And it is a.

Private school, you pay for your kids to go there.

A minimum, it has to be said it's a minimal fee.

It's not what you would equate with a typical private school.

And so that's what you're talking about, isn't it?

If you send them to a Christian school, there is a financial

cost, which you need to be

aware of.

Yeah.

So we actually sent our first two to a normal school.

It was a church school.

And it, and his, he was there for two years.

But he was quite a sensitive little one.

Not crying a lot or anything, but just he wasn't tough at that point.

He wasn't boisterous.

He was quite gentle.

He was quite kind.

We made a decision after several months of, what do we do here is going in

speaking to teachers and we prayed and felt God say, have a look at the school.

Yeah, we both went and that was a, loved it.

Yeah.

So for the next two we just sent them straight there.

Yeah.

Yeah, and they've they've grown up in the Christian,

so part of your then, part of your parenting then, was obviously you

put them in the Christian school.

Yeah.

Which was obviously very intentional.

And actually Tim works there.

Tim, your husband is a teacher now at that school.

He didn't

at the time, but he now does.

Yeah.

And one of the, one of the stories I love about Tim is from one of

the kids called Jeremy Prince who started to keep a written record of

Tim's most popular saying

So Tim would come out with these classic one-liners.

Yeah.

And still does.

And still does.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which just have me crying, and so they, they've created

a book of, we've still got it

actually, . We've kept them

. Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

And why not?

Why not?

So you've you grew up in a Christian home, so your kids have grown up

in a Christian home, so one of the things you did is you sent them to

a obviously the Christian school.

But I'm curious, Jan, what are some of the things from your own upbringing that you

thought, I need to be aware of that for my own kids, or was there not anything?

Oh, I'm sure there's hundreds of things.

I think being a good neighbour, I think being a good friend, that was

important for me as a mum to instill that into my children and Tim's very

kind man underneath all the bravado in school, he actually, he'll help anyone.

I just think it was doing things together as a family.

And I had a very close family, it wasn't perfect, there's no such thing

as that, but there were a lot of things I wanted to emulate, and there were,

as with everyone, a lot of things I didn't want to, um, but less yeah.

So yeah, I just wanted my kids to be secure.

I wanted them to know they were loved, there was no

pressure to do or be anything.

It's just loving them and enjoying them, I wanted, my dad was great fun.

My dad died when he was in his early 50s, sadly.

He was fun when we were growing up and, I think I've tried to do that and Tim does.

And you've

got great kids to be fair.

I think Sam, your eldest is one of the most polite people that I've ever met

on the planet and Cerys, your daughter is just, she still cracks me up.

You won't know this, but you'll know this, Jan, but people listening

to the show won't know this.

When Cerys would come round our house when she was younger and just sit

and chat to Zoe, there was no filter.

No.

She had no concept of maybe I should say this or maybe I shouldn't

and the stuff we found out about you and Tim was hysterical.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, I won't show it on the podcast, but Sharon and I would sit

there and we'd just go, no tell us more, we'd totally encourage her.

I bet you

did.

Yeah.

Yeah, I wouldn't have done it as

well.

Yeah.

No, keep going.

Yeah.

Keep going, Cerys.

Keep going.

Tell you the story.

She doesn't do that as much these

days.

No, she's got a few more filters, fortunately.

Oh, Grace.

You obviously, you grew up in a Christian time.

You've met him, you fell in love, you started having kids.

What's been your career path?

After doing my A Levels, I didn't particularly feel I wanted

to go to uni wasn't anything that I really strongly wanted to do.

So like my brother had done, I applied to YBOM, which is Youth With A Mission.

And that was based in Derby, Nottinghamshire area.

It was a year team not just a DTS.

So I applied for that.

I went on what's called a selection weekend to this manor house in

Derbyshire, which was beautiful.

And I didn't get selected.

And I was gutted.

Yeah.

I met really great people on that weekend.

We had loads of fun.

And I just thought, I'd love to do this.

And they phoned me and said, I'm really sorry.

There was so many people who showed an interest and we can

only take blah, blah, blah.

And I, I just remember thinking, I was just gutted and

thought, what am I going to do?

I just felt really disappointed and something like a few days later, four

or five days later, I got a phone call on a Thursday night from the YWAM team

saying we've had a rethink we would like to offer you a place, are you

still interested or there's another team starting in in Ireland somewhere,

if it was Dublin or Belfast, and or you can come here and I was like, yeah, no.

I wanted to say, no, I'm not interested, but no, I said, okay yeah.

I didn't fully understand what that was about.

I did the year and loved it.

It was a great.

I was fairly young Christian at the time, young In My Faith and so that's

solidified a lot of stuff for me.

Great.

Yeah, the YWAM stuff's really, it's really interesting

when you look at people coming out of YWAM and I don't know if you've

got any experience with this, Jan, but there are a number of different

people types I see coming out of YWAM.

Certainly, when I was younger, when I was a teenager in my early 20s,

and I know a lot of people coming out of YWAM, so there was the people

went into YWAM, that the one group that came out, and they had what they

affectionately called the mission blues.

So in YWAM, it is a bit of a bubble.

Yeah.

And some amazing things happen on YWAM, you see some great stuff.

And you think this is great.

When I leave YWAM, I'm gonna go work in YWAM.

For you it was midwifery, wasn't it?

It's having to go work as a midwife and God do all this amazing stuff.

And of course the reality of the workplace and the, what happens on the mission

field aren't always the same thing.

And so people struggle with that.

And so I've seen a lot of people come back from YWAM and not know how to

adjust themselves to, and it's caused complications for them, I think.

And I don't think it's to do with faith.

I don't think it's a lack of faith or, not God not wanting to do something.

I just think it's a different scenario, different environment, maybe.

Yeah.

And then obviously there's people that go on to the DTS and it just solidifies

their faith and they come back and they are just, it's just a great time

just to separate themselves from their career, from life, just focus on God

for a little bit, get established in their theology and then attack.

I didn't do YWAM.

I did Bible school and it was the same thing for me.

I think it was a brilliant time because it was so formational for me

in terms of my faith and my theology.

So what type of person were you coming out of

YWAM?

I was definitely more confident in my faith in that sharing

about being a Christian.

It just birthed in me a desire to travel.

It was there in seedling form beforehand, but I went to Kenya for

eight weeks during my YWAM year.

That just then, mesmerizing.

Yeah, I was, I just got the bug.

Yeah.

And then while I was I think af just after a while oh, maybe it was

while I was there, God clearly spoke to me about going into nursing.

Cause I was thinking something that I can use when I'm traveling Yeah.

Yeah.

To travel.

I applied to do nursing and I got in the following year, I worked in an office

for two years in Liverpool, which I hated, but I made some great friends.

It's like everything I've done, I've been fairly happy because

I've just, I love people.

So nothing's been really awful.

Yeah.

Laterally it has been.

But then I just loved life.

I, loved meeting new people.

I loved traveling.

I loved going on holiday.

I loved just, I loved my life.

I think that's true for a lot of people actually,

on the whole, life's okay.

Life's pretty good.

I think there are some, yeah.

It's interesting when we were starting Crowd Church and I was

talking to Rich Rising about it.

He's a really good friend of mine.

Cause originally I thought about calling the church Hopeway, right?

What are you going to name the church?

It was, it took us weeks to come up with a name what are we going to call it?

So do we call it Hopeway Church?

And Rich was really interesting because he said to me, he said, you know

what, there are people that need hope.

But if you do a church that reaches out just to people that need

hope, it's quite a broken church that you've got in a lot of ways.

And actually he was quite right.

He said, Matt, I think on you and this was for me, this is not true for

everybody, but for me, there's more of a calling to reach out to people

who actually think life is okay.

Do you know what I mean?

There's a lot of people who wouldn't have a Christian faith, who would

not purport to be a Christian, who are fairly successful life's okay.

They're healthy, their marriage is probably okay.

They've got some kids are okay.

It's not a case of the church is for people that are just wrecked lives.

But it's, there is this truth that actually says, even if you're

successful, you're still quite broken.

You just don't really realize it yet, and I think actually when we come face to face

with the gospel, we recognize actually, yeah, we still need a savior, right?

So I think it's true for many of us that actually we go through

life and on the whole life is okay.

Yeah.

And so you were like that.

I'm interested.

You said until latterly.

Yeah.

So what's been going on there?

I dunno whether it's just growing up a bit.

Fast forward, 20 odd years.

I've still got My basic thing, I've got my team, my, my family, my mom, I've got,

still got my brother, I've been a midwife over 25 years, something like that.

I did nursing just for two years.

I loved nursing.

I just when I qualified, there were no jobs at the time in the areas I wanted

in Liverpool, so I went to Derby.

So I was there for four years.

And it was during that time, I decided to do midwifery, so loved

my training I was still single and I was living with a friend in Derby

part of a church, which was great.

My brother was still living there at that point, so I had nieces and nephews to see.

Loads of friends, great social life, um, all, around, around

church activities at the time.

But we were all the same age, we were all single, so it was just a great laugh.

So that, that was all good and then, you know.

Now I'd say, yeah, I'm basically a happy woman.

I'm very grateful for what I've got, but my job, my sort of working

in the NHS as I have done, it has taken its toll, sorry, just

for those listening outside of the UK, if you don't

know, the NHS is our health service, National Health Service.

So yeah, it's the system run by the government to deliver health

care to the population here.

I would say the first, I don't know, 15 years

weren't too bad, plodded on.

Things never used to bother me too much.

I could deal with it at work and leave it, go home, but I would say

increasingly, as I've got older, I'm finding that harder to lay it down.

So it was starting to filter into my everyday life.

My mental health really.

Yeah.

Then took a toll, took its toll on Yeah.

On that.

Yeah.

When you say it took a toll on your mental health, because obviously one of the

things that we talk about on what's, as I say, obviously, maybe not be obvious,

if it's the first time, if it's the first time, welcome to you, we like to

ask a number of questions like how you became a Christian, but what are some of

the biggest challenges that you faced?

And I know when we did, the conversation before the call, for

you, this was the biggest challenge that you faced in life with sort of

the help of God in a lot of ways.

Yeah.

So what was the toll it took upon your mental

health?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I just had Jamie, my youngest.

So we're talking nearly 15 years ago, it's a long time.

It seems a long time ago, but that's when, I was a mom to three.

Tim was teaching.

I was tired most of the time.

And I was doing quite a lot of night shifts.

So I could be Yeah.

Although my mum was a great help, I wouldn't have got

through any of it without her.

So she looked after the children and then obviously school and different things,

but I just think I felt very torn.

I wanted just to be with the family.

There were situations.

We gradually, the staffing levels in the areas that I was working

was getting worse over the years.

So you'd go on shift.

I'd get quite anxious before I got there.

Cause you just don't know what's going to hit you.

You may start the shift, you'd get a handover of certain patients or If I

was on a delivery suite, whatever, you'd be given a patient and then maybe an

hour in, two hours in, you'd be moved somewhere else that was low staffed and

mainly if you were in a ward or you'd be moved to the delivery suite or, and

that, that is unsettling in itself because you've met your patients, you've planned

what you're going to do, hour by hour.

And then suddenly you've got to leave it and hand very quick

verbal hands over to someone.

You go to this other area for maybe the rest of the shift or for a few hours

you come back and something else has happened with those patients you left.

So that went on pretty much week by week for years and years.

I remember going on shift one, it's always a Thursday night for

me that things would go wrong.

And it was a Thursday night and I remember being on nights, so I was

anxious having, the kids were in bed, but hated leaving them, went

to work and it was just like chaos.

It was like someone had dropped a bomb in the middle of the, it

was just like people everywhere.

Yeah.

Every single room was full.

There were women there that should have been transferred to delivery suite

because they were developing problems and their labor wasn't progressing.

There were women there who had medical conditions that shouldn't

have been there, but labor ward was what we call bed blocked.

It was, every room was full.

There were no midwives to look after anyone else.

So we had to care.

I was on the midwifery led unit.

We had to manage women that were really not well and labors that were not going

well, um, for as long as we could.

Basically it ended one particular night, that particular night.

Whereas I was looking at, I had four women and you should only have had one or two.

And they were all, I would say three of them had problems.

Wow.

So one was severely epileptic.

She shouldn't have been there till every suite still couldn't take her.

So I was worried about her.

There was another woman who wasn't progressing and that was problematic.

And then I had a three o'clock in the morning, I remember the shift

leader saying to me, you're going to have to take another patient.

And I remember saying, I can't, I just can't, I've got blah, blah, blah,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

She went, you've, you'll have to, everyone else is, dealing with this and that,

yours are at least quite stable for now, you're going to have to take this patient.

I just remember thinking, God help me and to cut a long story

short, it was her third baby.

I went in, literally introduced myself and said I have got some other patients.

I want to give you the best care.

I will be in and out.

I'm sorry I can't stay with you right now.

Yeah.

But if you need anything, or if you feel that your labour is progressing,

she was fine at the moment, she was having some contractions, but

she wasn't like inactive, it wasn't imminent that she was going to deliver.

It was just a lot of pressure.

It was a real pressured night and everyone was in the same boat.

I remember going into a, talking to a, Blah, blah, blah, saying,

given a gas and air, and then go in to see the other women.

You've got to write everything you do.

You've got to document.

So I was making sure my documentation was up to date.

Finding out is there a bed on delivery suite?

Yeah.

For any of them?

No.

It was just absolute nightmare.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I was with my other patient.

The emergency buzzer went in this room and me and a healthcare assistant both

ran at the same time, walked in and there was just blood everywhere and, she was

like in shock and the husband, the partner was just shaking in the corner and what

has happened is she'd gone to the loo.

And then the baby had just come while she was in the bathroom.

So we got, managed to get her to the bed.

Baby had fallen, she'd caught the baby.

It was very traumatic for the woman.

And then obviously I was feeling guilty for not being there and not

being able to stay with the woman.

Managed to get her into bed, all cleaned up and did her rob.

She was okay.

And then I had to get a pediatrician to check the baby that the baby

hadn't, I hadn't seen the baby be born.

Yeah.

So she'd said the baby had fallen and she'd just caught.

I didn't know what that meant, yeah, exactly.

What had happened, the cord had snapped and that's what the blood was.

The baby needed a head x ray.

Thankfully everything came back okay, but that woman was very traumatized I think

it was the blood more than anything else.

That was awful and then two other things within, I remember

going home that after that shift.

And just said to Tim, I can't do this anymore.

I'm done.

I can't do it.

He was like, of course you can.

You just need to sleep.

You're tired.

I remember going into the next shift and something not as catastrophic,

but, similar up there, three things in a very short space of time happened.

And one baby died.

Wow.

Because the doctors, the obstetricians were in theater.

They weren't able to get to this woman.

So I was told just to keep her comfortable for as long as possible.

We have, we had to run the trace, tracing, and that wasn't normal, that wasn't right.

So junior doctors were coming in and reviewing and saying, I can't help

you just give her more pain relief, so that was highly stressful and

I remember finally, I looked after this woman from something like seven

o'clock, half seven, and it was now one o'clock in the morning and we

were just going into theater with her.

I remember the consultant, one of the consultants, we were

scrubbing up ready because she was going to set Caesarean section.

And it was a crash section, so she was having a general anaesthetic

and I remember washing my hands next to him and he said, we're

going to have a cerebral palsy here.

And I just remember just feeling sick.

The baby was delivered and didn't breathe at all and the

baby doctors were working on.

Beautiful full time baby girl.

They worked on her and they managed to induce her heartbeat

with adrenaline and drugs.

And then she was transferred with tubes everywhere to special care next door.

And the mum was still asleep.

She, had a general.

And I was told to do my notes and then go into recovery and get her

to the ward, blah, blah, blah.

So where I was with her when she woke up, and she was the loveliest woman,

and she just said, Have I had my baby?

And I was like yeah, you've had, yeah.

And I was like, Oh God, help me.

I, what did I have?

'cause they didn't know.

Yeah.

I said, oh, you've had a little girl.

And she was like, where is she?

And I said, oh, she's had to go to special care.

She wasn't very well, she was when she was born and she started

crying and was reassuring her.

And she was like, where's my partner?

And he was with the baby.

So when she was stable enough, we transferred her to special care,

where she was told, your baby's not going to survive as she's, ill.

And for the first time ever, I cried in front of a patient,

I just, there were no words.

It's her first baby, beautiful baby girl.

And I just sobbed with her.

And I didn't get home till about half 10, 11 the next morning.

Cause I wanted to be they held her until she died.

And I wanted to be there with them.

That was the third, that was the worst, really.

I just remember being quite numb.

Yeah.

And I was an experienced midwife.

I'd been a midwife for a good 15 years by then.

For the first time, I'd never had depression or I'd been I was

an anxious person, but I had it.

That was the start of me going a bit downhill.

That was 2011.

Wow.

So I actually went to see the head of midwifery one day.

I just made a, I didn't know what I wanted to say to her.

Yeah.

I just knew I had to go and say it.

Yeah.

And I just said, you got to do something here.

Yeah.

What I went through that night, and then that night, and then that

night, no one should go through that.

Yeah.

I wasn't angry, I wasn't shouting, I wasn't crying, I was just flat.

Yeah.

And I said to her, I feel like I'm on my knees, and I can't get up,

and she just said, you're not well.

And I was like, I'm just concerned.

Yeah.

And she said, you need to go home right now and I want you to go and

see your GP and you need time off.

And I was like no, I just need to sort this out with you.

And she went, please, I hear what you're saying, but you're not in

a, in any state to, to be here.

I just remember driving home and

Tim I think was at work and the kids were at school and I just remember

thinking, what do you mean I'm not well?

I'm just a bit stressed and who wouldn't be after those incidents?

I'm okay.

And I went to see the GP as she said, and the GP was like, Oh, I

think you've got a bit of depression.

And I was like, what are they saying that I'm not?

Yeah.

I was off for eight months.

Wow.

I was recommended to, to go for some counseling.

And I did.

I noticed that during the sessions it was with a woman who was a Christian.

She would start talking about work and I would just.

I found myself pushing my hands like that and she said, are you aware that

every time I talk about work, you do this, I was like, and I was like, how

will I know when I'm ready to go back?

And she said you will just know, but it's not now.

Yeah, so that was a really difficult time.

Yeah.

No kidding.

So you were off for eight months then.

Obviously, which was, so they were saying something that you weren't

saying and you took the time off.

I'm curious in all of that, Jan, how did your, because it's a story that

sadly we hear a lot with people who work in the NHS, and without getting

political or having any kind of agenda I totally understand it because it is.

The stuff that you guys deal with is horrendous in a lot

of ways on a regular basis.

And I can see why you would say you felt numb because it's

a coping mechanism, isn't it?

To deal with those kinds of things.

Yeah.

Where was God in all of this for you?

I'm the type of person that will always beat myself

up more than anyone else can.

Yeah.

So I, went through every scenario and blamed myself, why didn't I

insist on a doctor coming earlier?

Why didn't I physically go into theatre and pull the consultant out?

Yeah.

Why didn't I shout more?

Yeah.

But that isn't who I am.

And it wasn't, wouldn't have been right to do some of those things.

What did you just ask me?

. My mind's just gone blank.

And where was God in all of this?

Yeah.

He was just very gentle.

. He didn't ask anything of me.

It was just, you need to sleep, you need to rest.

I think he taught me just about letting it go.

And it was a feeling of, I don't fully understand what was all

that, what was, what caused all of that and my reaction to it.

But I just know I've got to be gentle with myself., I would say that in

it all, I didn't ever lose hope.

I didn't lose faith at all.

We know that these things can happen.

Yeah.

But I would say God was quite close, but I think I became quite silent.

It was all in my head.

And I would mull it over and over.

Sometimes I couldn't even talk to Tim about how I was really feeling.

It was too deep.

There's that book, God on Mute.

Yeah.

I was like Jan on Mute.

I just went quiet and I think it took me , many years to come out of that.

I can talk the talk when I need to, can be quite outgoing, but there's something

in that experience that if it damaged me or it changed me and I would still

be able to be the same mum with the kids and probably Tim saw the real me,

but I think as nurses, as midwives, as teachers, we're great actors, so

you know how to put the front on.

Yeah.

And I think I probably became very good at doing that.

So people would always say, Jan's dead chilled, she's laid back, but underneath

I was really hurting and a bit confused.

And

were you aware, when you were quiet, that actually

underneath the mask you were hurting, you knew you were putting a mask on?

Because sometimes people do masks to the public, but they're

actually deceiving themselves,

more than anything.

I didn't know, yeah.

Yeah.

Therapy is great, but it wasn't comfortable for me.

I didn't enjoy.

Because of my job, I'm usually the one asking the questions and are you okay?

It wasn't easy for me to go into therapy or, don't think I was very good.

It wasn't easy for her to have me.

So if you could, you've obviously you've come through it.

There's some scarring by the sounds of things as there

inevitably is with these things.

If you could go back to a certain point in time and have a conversation

with Silent Jan or, when this was all starting to kick off.

, what would you have said to yourself?

It's not your fault.

This is a much bigger issue than you think it is.

Yeah.

It knocked my confidence.

Yeah.

For a long time.

I don't think it's ever been the same.

I've doubted myself, many times.

But I just think, actually, when when you look at it from an aerial point of

view, it was destined to happen, and it, sadly, it's going on all over the

country every day, those things and, with A& E and doctors are on their

knees, nurses are on their knees.

I'll protect the NHS.

I love it.

I don't regret my career.

I don't, I've met the most amazing people.

I've laughed so hard.

I've cried so hard.

It's been fab.

It's been right for me to do what I've done.

But it's getting harder out there.

Yeah.

It's not easy.

No.

And amazing.

The NHS absolutely amazing.

Yeah.

You're still in the NHS, you're now a community midwife.

Yeah.

So you get to hang out in your car a little bit and listen to music.

Is that right?

And

that's great because I listen to podcasts like this.

Listen

to the What's The Story?

You were telling me about the Rob Brown one earlier.

Yeah.

In all of this, Jan, because one, I'm aware of time.

Two, I'm aware that people listening to your story will be going.

I am going through something similar, um, because so many people do.

What's the one thing that God's taught you in all of this?

What's your one message?

I think I've learned it's okay to be really low.

It's actually really good to ask for help.

But it's like this old smiling, old dancing, old.

Perfect Christian life, it's a load of nonsense, it's you've got to be

real, be honest, and God is still God, nothing changes in that respect.

He has never left me.

I've been silent to him.

He has always been there.

Yeah.

And I know that.

Yeah.

The verse that, that has always been really important to me

is the night is nearly over.

And the day is almost here.

Yeah.

And that I would say I've never lost hope.

Even in the NHS even in the worst days now, and there've been quite a few the

last few years of a different kind, but where I've just thought, I'm out of here.

Yeah.

But where do I go?

What do I do?

Yeah, God is God and He's good.

Yeah, that's super powerful.

And there's a story that, it's listening to you talk about the

sense of call on your life, this is where God wants you to be.

But in that calling comes the darkest of days.

And I think that confuses people sometimes.

It's God, you have called me to this.

Why is it so hard?

And I think sometimes we have to go, God has called me to

this because it is so hard.

And he needs someone who's a light in this area.

I think it's really powerful, your story, Jan, and thank you for being a midwife.

You actually, you were a midwife to Sharon, weren't you?

Yeah with Zak.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's

What was it, Josh?

I don't know.

Yeah, one of

the boys.

Yeah, you're definitely involved somewhere.

I remember coming down and going, Oh, hello.

I remember not delivering food, because we

bring food when you have a baby.

Yeah.

And I was on the rotor.

I remember Sharon phoning me or you phoning me.

One on the night when it was me saying, Oh, thanks for that food.

That was so yummy.

We're so full and I went, and I went and got a takeaway for

you

to give my thanks.

I just remember it was something very sarcastic.

Yeah

it's just how we communicate, isn't it?

But I remember the takeaway because, and God love it, and the

way it works in church and out.

In the church, where we were, when you had a baby for a week or two, people

from your community bought you meals and it was this amazing blessing.

But what tended to happen was certainly by the time you'd had three kids, the

meals were all kind of spaghetti bolognese or chili because mincemeat was cheap

and also they're easy to prepare, right?

And also, everybody likes spaghetti bolognese.

Yeah, I can't.

Yeah that's maybe something you should pray through.

And so when you came around with the takeaway, we were like, thank you, Jesus.

I won't forget.

It's just really funny.

And I think we learned from that, actually, because we were

like, this is really interesting.

So when we do Meals for the People.

When they had babies, we were all like, let's do the takeaways,

let's do some chicken thing.

Let's just do something that's a bit, a bit more mixed up, but thank you

to everyone that did bring us a meal.

Not to complain in any way, it was all wonderful.

Jan, listen, thank you so much for coming on.

Oh, thank you.

Sharing your story.

Oh, no, it's been great.

Really enjoyed it.

And you can find more about Jan on you're going to be on crowd again, aren't you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Can't get away.

I hope so.

Yeah.

And if you want to, if you want to get a hold of Jan, if you've got any

questions for her, reach hold of Jan through the What's The Story website.

And I'm sure, I'm just filling the contact form, Jan will get it.

It's not a problem or contact her via the WhatsApp and we'll make sure you get it.

So you're a legend.

Love the bones off you, lady.

You're awesome.

Thank you.

And just like that, we've reached the end of

another fascinating conversation.

Crowd Church is a digital church, a community, a space to explore

the Christian faith, and a place where you can contribute and grow.

To find out more, check out www.

crowd.

church.

And don't forget to subscribe to What's The Story on your favorite podcast app.

We've got a whole lot of inspiring stories coming your way, and we really

don't want you to miss any of them.

What's the Story is the production of Crowd Church.

Our fantastic team is made up of Anna Kettle, Matt Edmundson, Tanya

Hutsuliak, and myself, Sadaf Beynon.

We work behind the scenes to bring these stories to life.

Our theme song is the creative work of Josh Edmundson.

If you're interested in the transcript or show notes, head over

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So that's all from us this week.

Thank you so much for joining us and we'll catch you in the next episode.

Bye for now.