After losing her baby Willow to miscarriage, Sam Naughton discovered that faith was no longer simply something she believed in, but something she had to depend on. As Baby Loss Awareness Week approaches, she shares how God and her church community carried her through grief, fear and a subsequent pregnancy.
When I became a Christian just before my 40th birthday, I had no idea how much I would come to rely on my faith. Like many people, I found my way to church gradually after taking part in an Alpha course, discovering a community that welcomed me and a faith that quietly began to shape my everyday life. I was balancing a career I loved, raising my daughter Ruby and looking forward to the future with my husband, Ben. My faith was becoming an important part of who I was, but I had no idea that it would soon become the anchor that carried me through the darkest season of my life.
When I became pregnant, we were overjoyed.
When I became pregnant, we were overjoyed. We quickly named our baby Willow because, to us, they were already part of our family. Early in the pregnancy, I experienced bleeding and spent a weekend in A&E, where I was reassured that miscarriage was unlikely. A few days later, Ben and I attended an early pregnancy scan, expecting everything to be fine, but instead, the sonographer fell silent. Anyone who has experienced baby loss knows that silence because somehow it tells you everything before a word is spoken. When we were told there was no heartbeat, it felt as though the future we had imagined had vanished in an instant.
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In the weeks that followed, I found myself struggling not only with grief but also with the way miscarriage is often spoken about. We heard well-meaning comments such as, “At least it was early”, but Willow wasn’t simply a pregnancy or a medical event. They were our baby, and we were grieving the loss of a child we had already loved. Meanwhile, life continued. I was still a mum to Ruby; there were school runs, meals to cook and work to return to. I kept functioning because I felt I had to, but inside, I felt completely broken.
It was during that season that my faith stopped being something I simply believed and became something I depended upon. I found myself praying more honestly than I ever had before, bringing God my grief, my confusion and all the questions I couldn’t answer. I didn’t suddenly understand why we had lost Willow, and I certainly didn’t stop hurting, but I gradually realised that faith wasn’t about having everything figured out. It was about continuing to trust God, even when life made no sense, and allowing my church community to walk alongside me instead of trying to carry everything on my own.
READ MORE: I learnt to trust God again after baby loss - and you can too
Not long afterwards, I became pregnant again, but the excitement I had expected was replaced by anxiety.
Not long afterwards, I became pregnant again, but the excitement I had expected was replaced by anxiety. Every scan became something to endure rather than celebrate, and I constantly feared history would repeat itself. During that pregnancy, I joined an early-morning online Christian prayer group before the rest of the house woke up. Most of the women were old enough to be my mother or grandmother, yet every morning they faithfully prayed for me, encouraged me and reminded me that I wasn’t facing those anxious days alone. Looking back, I don’t think they will ever realise how much they carried me through that season.
Those prayers didn’t take away the anxiety overnight. I still counted down the days until every appointment and held my breath in waiting rooms. What changed, though, was that I no longer felt I was carrying those fears by myself. My faith, together with the prayers of that remarkable group of women, gave me the strength to keep taking the next step, even when every part of me wanted certainty that no one could give.
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When our son Alby was born safely, the relief was overwhelming, but joy did not erase the love we still held for Willow. A little while later, Ruby, Alby and I were baptised together into the Church of England, and for me, that became a quiet declaration of the faith that had sustained me through loss, fear and uncertainty. I wasn’t standing there because every question had been answered. I was standing there because I had discovered that, even through heartbreak, my faith had grown deeper than I ever imagined possible.
Looking back, I can see that those experiences reshaped the direction of my life. After having Alby, I left my corporate career and founded Cocoon Healthcare because I wanted to create the compassionate support I had longed for during pregnancy, baby loss and pregnancy after loss. As we mark Baby Loss Awareness Week, I want anyone walking this path to know there is no right way to grieve, no expectation to have perfect faith and no shame in asking for help. Faith doesn’t remove pain or answer every question, but it can give us the strength to keep moving forward, one day at a time, and the hope that we never have to walk through our darkest seasons alone.
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