Get her book today: https://a.co/d/0dGRNkO5

Connect with Pam: https://www.mendingmiracles.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorpamvredevelt
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/supportmendingmiracles
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pam-vredevelt-96a1b539

I'm so honored today to sit down with my new friend Pam, a best-selling author, speaker, and counselor who has walked through losing a baby to miscarriage and, later, losing her son at 16 years old. Her new book, Mending Miracles, is part of why I had to get her on this show. Pam takes us back to where it started, finishing graduate school, pregnant, walking into a routine five-month checkup in her new maternity dress, when the doctor couldn't find a heartbeat. Within 48 hours she was in labor and delivery, and she left the hospital with empty arms, a stack of bills, and a broken heart, still believing God was good, but completely confused about how he could let it happen.

Two weeks later, swimming laps and praying through her tears, Pam saw a picture of a book in her mind, and when she brought the idea to a friend who was a published author, that friend told her flatly, "I want the first three chapters on my desk by Monday." It was Friday. Pam cried her way through that handwritten weekend, not realizing she was doing the very thing neuroscience now proves accelerates healing, writing your story and connecting the facts to the feelings, exactly what David did raw and uncensored in the Psalms. A few months later, three publishers wanted it. That book, Empty Arms, landed in her hands in the most redemptive way possible, her editor delivered a hot-off-the-press copy to her hospital room the day she gave birth to her daughter Jesse, two years after the loss, saying, "No more empty arms." We talk about how common this actually is, roughly one in four women experience miscarriage, stillbirth, or a tubal pregnancy, and the numbers have only climbed since 2020, yet it's one of the griefs our culture still won't talk about out loud.

Pam, now the author of 16 books, shares the biggest misconception she sees in her counseling practice, that grief just fades if you stay busy and positive and never speak of it. She tells the story of a client who buried the grief of a stillborn baby for 14 years after her husband couldn't handle it and left the hospital, only for that exact pain to resurface as fresh as the day it happened the moment she finally had a safe place to talk about it. We go into what the neuroscience now shows, that unresolved grief and trauma don't just stay buried, they can actually get passed down to your children at a genetic level. Pam closes with a simple acrostic she loves, H-O-W, honest, open, and willing, which she calls the "how" of any real transformation. We're already looking forward to part two, where Pam opens up about the hardest story yet, losing her son Nathan at 16. Please subscribe, share, and leave a comment on how this episode spoke to you.

Naomi Van Wyk Links:
Website: naomivanwyk.com
Instagram: @naomivwofficial
Shop: naomivanwyk.com/pages/shop

Chapters:
00:00 – Introduction
03:27 – "I Think the Baby's Dead": The Moment Everything Changed
06:49 – Writing the Psalms Raw: Why Telling the Truth Heals
10:13 – 1 in 4: The Loss Statistic No One Talks About
13:38 – Pregnant Again, and Not Happy About It
17:01 – The Myth That Grief Just "Fades" If You Stay Busy
20:28 – Buried for 14 Years: A Grief That Surfaced Like Yesterday
23:53 – How Unresolved Grief Gets Passed Down to Your Kids
27:15 – 16 Books Later: Letting Go, Espresso for Your Spirit, and More
30:40 – The "H.O.W." of Healing: Honest, Open, Willing

Naomi Van Wyk Links:
Website: naomivanwyk.com
Instagram: @naomivwofficial
Shop: naomivanwyk.com/pages/shop