Sheri F.

It was 4 am and I had just given birth to my fifth child but the placenta was stuck. The midwife pulled and the cord broke. I started to bleed profusely. The medical staff was trying to get blood into me and calling for more blood. They didn’t seem to be able to keep up with my blood loss of 8 pints so far.

I then felt extremely cold and instinctively knew that my organs were shutting down. After what seemed an eternity, I was wheeled to the operating room. On the way there, I remember thinking, ‘OK, I am dying’ and I had an amazing feeling of peace. I really didn’t mind at all. I just felt so good. Then, I suddenly remembered that I couldn’t die because I had five children and I called out to Jesus to save me. Instantly, He was walking beside the trolley in my peripheral vision and I knew it was He. I heard Him say it will be all right and not to worry. I immediately felt calm and peaceful again. Then we were in the anesthetic room. I heard someone say that she’s had an epidural. I demanded that they give me a general anesthetic, as I didn’t want to be awake during the procedure.

My next memory is that during the operation, I sat up and looked around at the medical staff and was wondering why they were ignoring me as I had clearly woken up during the surgery. They should do something. I then remember being at the bottom of the operating table and half watching what was going on to my body but not really taking much notice. It really hadn’t connected with me that I was out of my body. I remember an older man standing to the left of me and thinking that he was the surgeon for some reason. But now, I realize that he couldn’t have been the surgeon who was working on me. This man was aware of me, although he didn’t speak to me.

Later that day, I asked a nurse why I had been allowed to wake up during surgery. She checked the notes in my chart and said that I hadn’t woken up during surgery, but I knew I had. I was in intensive care and had so many tubes and machines in and around me. I told the staff to take them all away and that I wanted to go home. They told me that I was a very sick woman. I insisted that I most certainly was not! Later in the afternoon, I was sitting up in bed, breast-feeding my daughter and a doctor came in and looked shocked. He said that I shouldn’t be sitting up and feeding but I told him that I was fine and wanted to go home. I was kept in hospital for another two days, much to my distress. I walked out of the hospital as if nothing had happened, other than a normal birth.

It only hit me what had happened during the whole episode a while later, when I was recounting the events to a friend. Three years later, I had remarried a man with no children of his own and I wanted to have a child with him. I had been told it would be too dangerous, as I had also had another retained placenta and lesser bleeding of 2 pints at the birth of my third child. We had accepted that. However, one night I woke up and although I didn’t see or hear anything, I knew that I had been told by what I assumed was an Angel at the time, to have another child and all would be well. I woke my husband and told him what had happened but he was unsure. I said, with some urgency, ΓÇÿyou don’t understand, we need to get pregnant now!’ I know this sounds crazy and I even wondered about my own sanity at the time; but the knowing was too strong and real to be ignored. I went out the next day and bought a pram and other baby items for the new baby that I knew I had conceived despite it being outside of my ovulation period. I had indeed conceived that night with only one attempt. I gave birth to a baby girl with no complications.

I have ‘known’ things and sensed spirits around me ever since that experience with my fifth child. I have absolutely no fear of dying. Sometimes I don’t feel connected to the world, as if my consciousness is somewhere else. I know what to say and how to direct people who are struggling in life and they are often shocked by what I know about them. I don’t know that I know these things until I say them. I feel instructed to do certain things such as start up a voluntary fundraising group, which I did and has grown massively over the past 7 years and raised an enormous amount of money for charity. I never worry about money, as I know there will always be enough. I know I am ‘looked after.’ I also know without any doubt that God and Christ exist.