115: Rooted in Faith: Preparing for Birth After Baby Loss

In this episode, I'm joined by Lauren Murdock, a labor and delivery nurse with over 10 years of experience, childbirth educator, and the creator of the Rooted Birth Method. Lauren brings both professional wisdom and deeply personal experience as she shares her own journey with infertility and miscarriage.

We dive into the unique grief that comes with being a nurse supporting families through stillbirth and what it looks like to walk with God through pregnancy after loss. We talk about faith, surrender, and what it means to create a birth plan that includes your grief, your baby, and your hope.

Lauren’s story is tender and powerful. She opens up about the pain of miscarriage after years of infertility, her faith journey, and how she now equips women to walk into their births with peace and preparation—even when they’re holding grief too.

If you're facing another pregnancy after loss, or you're terrified to even consider it, this conversation is for you.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• What labor nurses wish they could say about supporting grieving mothers
• How silence can be the most healing response in the hospital
• Why it's okay to wrestle with your faith after baby loss
• Lauren's story of infertility, miscarriage, and motherhood
• How Rooted Birth helps you plan with your faith at the center
• Creating a birth plan after loss: where to start
• Tips for communicating with hospital staff to protect your heart
• How to invite God into your next birth story

Resources Mentioned:

• Faith > Fear Birth: https://www.laborlauren.com/fgtfbirth    Use code NBL50 to take $50 off!
• Free 5-Day Prayer Journal: https://www.laborlauren.com/prayerjournal
• Follow Lauren on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/labor.lauren

https://navigatingbabyloss.com/workshop

Free workshop for moms grieving stillbirth or pregnancy loss. Learn simple, trauma-informed practices to release guilt, calm the what-ifs, and honor your baby's memory with love instead of pain. Includes bonus Grief & Guilt Release Journal.

Did you know you can text me right from your podcast app? My podcast host has a new feature that allows you to send a message or ask a question and I will answer them in future episodes! (just an FYI- it's a one-way message so I won't be able to respond unless you leave your name and contact info in the message!) Look under the title where it says Send Jen a message and let me know what’s on your mind.

Download my FREE "Guilt and Grief Release Journal" at navigatingbabyloss.com/journal

WHERE TO FIND AND FOLLOW ME!

• Website-  https://www.jennifersenn.com
• Tik Tok-https://www.tiktok.com/@navigatingbabyloss
• Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/navigatingbabyloss/
• You Tube-https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz-2MCEY5PRiF6p6VB_2lxA

Transcript

 hi Lauren. I'm so excited to have you here with me today, I love the topics that we're gonna talk about. They're very close to my own heart and part of my experience, and I cannot wait to hear your expertise on all of it. So welcome. thank you Jennifer so much for having me.

I would love to how did you decide to take that passion and see a need for something that women are missing, as they are getting ready for their own labor and birth experience? absolutely.

I've been a labor and delivery nurse for over 10 years in a high risk hospital setting, and I have seen time and time again where families come in, getting ready to have their baby with no. Background or, knowledge on what the process will look like. I felt very passionate to be able to empower women to know what to expect so that they can walk into the hospital prepared and confident, in their bodies and how to advocate for themselves in the process.

And so that's why I started teaching childbirth classes. It's something that you think should just come so natural to you, right? Mm-hmm. Women have been giving birth for years, but when you get there, there's a lot of decisions you need to make quickly and so many unknowns that it's great to be prepared before you go in.

I completely agree I always want my patients to feel like they got a say and made the decisions for themselves not that their birth experience was something that happened to them. I feel very passionate that they feel, involved and that they were a participant and not just on the sidelines experiencing it.

That is really important. so I think lots of times when you think of labor and delivery, you feel like, oh, it must be so exciting. All you do is play with babies all day long and watch them come into the world, and it's just so easy and carefree. But we all know, everyone here listening knows from.

what is your experience as the nurse taking care of a mom who is experienced a loss? Yeah. being a labor nurse is definitely not always, Sunshine and rainbows, people who are interested in being labor nurses need to be, there for the mother because our role is supporting the mom.

the baby, may just be a bonus, but it's really supporting the mom through her experience and being her cheerleader. over the last 10 years I have had quite a few experiences with families experiencing loss through many different gestations.

it is such an honor for me. I hate that it's happening, but I love that I get to be their nurse. I want them to walk away feeling, loved cared for. Heard, seen, respected and not have to worry about anything else except grieving I feel like I'm serving them and loving on them I love that I get to do that even though I hate that I have to do that, No, I feel that I understand that exactly because. there's a lot of nurses that are like. I'm not going in there. You go in there. I don't wanna deal with that right now. very probably uncomfortable with it.

Yeah. Because you don't imagine this being part of your job. Absolutely. And I think too, like we as nurses need to learn how to be uncomfortable. And we need to learn how to sit in the silence. Maybe that's good feedback that you can give me, to share with my coworkers is a lot of my coworkers are like, well, I just don't know what to say.

And I'm like, you just be present. you don't have to have the right thing to say. You just need to sit with them, some people are uncomfortable in the silence, but I would rather be silent and be present. Than to avoid you. that is the problem with not just healthcare workers, but 

Family members and friends they're so uncomfortable with it and they don't know what to say. they try to say things that are gonna make it better and there's nothing that can make it better. Nothing you say. is ever gonna make it better.

So truly saying nothing or I always think too, it's so against what we grew up with because, you know, as children, our parents are like, stop crying, stop crying, don't cry. But it's really okay for you just to say like. I hate that this is happening to you. This is terrible that you have to go through this.

it's not gonna make them feel any worse. They already feel the worst they're ever gonna feel in their life. But just you acknowledging that is super, super helpful. you also are just so rooted in your , faith-based birth education. And I know for myself. and a lot of the other women that I talk to, when you have a loss, your faith gets really called into question.

And you start wondering, my gosh, I've held this faith all my life that God would protect me and he would bring my baby here safely, and here we are. How did God let this happen to me? Then I'd swung the pendulum to really leaning into my faith when I was pregnant again afterwards.

really praying that God would help see this baby to safety, but it was a really. Confusing, challenging time with my faith. what advice or words of wisdom, do you have for women who are suffering that? well first I wanna say. For those who have experienced loss and those who are suffering, I am so sorry that this is your story.

And I truly wish that it wasn't. I love Jesus with all of my heart, and I believe that God grieves with you And that God did not cause your pain to punish you. it's okay to wrestle with your faith, and those questions, and still know that he is good.

What is happening to you and what you're experiencing is not good, but to still know, I know that God is good in this and I don't understand it. but I'm going to, try to push through and communicate that out with the Lord, And, knowing too, the world we live in is not how it was meant to be.

but God does promise redemption in the end. even in the messiness of our life. I believe that God doesn't make bad things happen to us That is a part of our human condition here on earth.

But God does show us the way out of it. He is there to help us through it. And that's what I think is so healing once you get there, but when you're in the midst of grief, it's really hard to see that. I agree. I have a quick story that ties into that, just thinking of seeing God in the pieces of it.

last year I was the nurse for a family who experienced a full term loss it was very unexpected. they went in for a doctor's appointment, everything was fine, and then the next day everything was not fine. Her doctor is one of my friends.

they called me and said, Hey, this is what's going on. We, wanna get her on the schedule to come into the hospital. I said, I'm working the day that you want her to come in. I would love to be her nurse. the doctor was like, oh wow, okay. Thank you, for volunteering for that.

the family came in I got to meet them, take care of them. she ended up deciding she wanted a c-section. we did the c-section. played the music she wanted, and made it as calm as we could do. Like I asked her, what does she envision? And we made all of that happen.

But in the process of setting up to go to the operating room and then go back to her room where her family was. I put a baby blanket in there. it was a really cute light yellow with giraffes all over it. we have a whole room full of supplies and donations that families have donated to the hospital.

So I, was like, this is a really beautiful blanket. I'm gonna pick this one. I put it in the room, we go into the operating room, deliver her sweet baby I wheel her back into the room where we're gonna finish up her recovery, where the rest of her family is. she saw the blanket and started crying and said, who put that blanket there?

I said, I picked it out. is this okay. she showed me she had a giraffe tattoo on her arm her mom had lost Her sister when her sister was a child, and her sister's favorite animal was a giraffe. so everyone in the family had giraffe tattoos?

Yeah. Oh, I had no idea. I just saw the blanket and I was like, this is cute. put it in the room. And the whole family felt like it was her sister, smiling down on them and saying hi. And so even in that moment of like absolute hurt. There was still little glimpses of heaven.

Yeah. And so I just wanna encourage, when you're hurting and grieving, it's so hard to see that. But try to look for that because I do believe that God does provide that for us in our hurt. Oh my gosh. I, I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that story. That's beautiful. 

And so true. . Your babies are always with you, Oh my gosh. That's amazing. So you have your own baby now. How old? Yes. She actually just turned two this week.

Oh my gosh. we went through a lot to get her. we tried to get pregnant for over two years and went through, all of the tests, all of the doctor's appointments. I ended up seeing a naturopath and doing acupuncture any tests that we could do.

I was really battling with my faith during that season. I was still working at the hospital as a nurse and having patients come in who did not want their babies. I was trying so hard to get pregnant and struggled with like, I am like, God, I won't do drugs.

I will do whatever you want to just have a baby. it was hard for me, to work and see that, and also be experiencing infertility. we tried for over two years and then ended up getting pregnant we were so excited my doctor called me and said, your labs are not where they need to be.

my progesterone was too low and she said, you're going to lose this baby, and it's just a matter of time. that was really hard. I felt like we, prayed every day for God to keep this baby. but also surrendering to knowing I'm not in control of this.

we ended up miscarrying, within the first trimester, and I was not prepared for what it would feel like. it was extremely painful and I thought. being a labor nurse, I would know what it would feel like.

it was extremely painful, physically, emotionally, and just really the question of, I really wanna be a mom and am I ever going to get to be a mom? that was really, really hard. it wasn't until three or four months later that, we ended up getting pregnant with my toddler now.

throughout all of that infertility, struggle we ended up finally getting pregnant with my toddler. once I gave up and surrendered. didn't hold tightly to the outcome. That's interesting. I'm very type A.

Yes. that surrender, in my faith is difficult for me. it took years for that to happen. that was our experience. my friends who also have either experienced loss or who are moms, understood that hurt. And they had really kind things to say, but there was also a lot of people who would say hurtful things.

it'll happen when it happens, or, relax. And that's not helpful. I feel that too with talking to mamas who've experienced loss, I would never. say something like that, to them I am sad for the experience I had but I believe it made me a better nurse, having that conversation and being real and open about it is so good.

There's no question any version of a loss changes your whole perspective in all parts of your life. it changes how you parent, how you. hold the space for those that are grieving that's a huge gift to your patients.

They're lots of times when I talk to women, they're not getting that support in hospitals unfortunately. everyone's understaffed and lacking in some education, 

It's not being handled the way it should, which causes even more pain. so you have created a course. And it is for. faith-based birth education. And you talk in there about planning.

Yes. So planning for your birth As a lost mom. foreign to me because I think, My gosh, who would've ever planned that my birth would've gone so terribly wrong? How would I ever dare to plan for such a thing?

is planning for your birth a real thing? And how does that work after you've had a loss? Yeah. that's a great question. what's unique about my instead of doing a traditional birth plan, you can find online.

They're like little check boxes. what I've seen in the hospital is that a lot of patients will print them off without any birth education and maybe check off things that don't make sense or don't even apply to them. it shows me that they didn't do the education behind it.

And so that can be frustrating because it's like, well, this actually doesn't make sense. what is unique about my course is instead of doing a traditional birth plan, I've created, the Rooted Birth Map, and it goes through the method that I teach in my course, the rooted birth method.

The birth map guides you through preparation, reflection, prayer, and intentional planning that helps align your birth experience with your faith. this especially would be helpful for families who have experienced loss, if you love Jesus and want to prepare for your next birth.

With him in the center of it. I feel like this is gonna prepare you for it better, than maybe just a traditional birth. Plan. through the rooted birth method, we start with R which is renew your mind with truth and really renewing your mind what you believe about God, your body, and about birth.

And this is, I have journal prompts and scriptures for you to pray over for each one. these journal prompts I feel like would be so healing for someone who experienced loss to work through prior to preparing for birth Again. Yeah, that would be so great because the fear, that definitely resonates because there is so much fear during your whole pregnancy and then it ramps up when you get to the point where you experienced your loss 

The time of delivery, it would be so helpful. absolutely. I actually have something I can share with you if you wanna share with your listeners a prayer journal that I made, it's free, it's just a free five day prayer journal that, really it's a devotional and journal for you to work through pregnancy related things.

I think that would be helpful too, in preparing throughout your pregnancy. I would love to share that with you. Oh, that would be great. for the rest of the rooted birth map, it's opened your heart to God's presence, owning your preparation, doing that prenatal birth preparation, training your body and mind, equipping your support team, and then dwelling in his piece.

the goal of all of it is, to invite God into everything trusting him and, knowing that he's created our body with intention breath and support are gifts from him that we can learn how to use and mostly knowing that we don't do this alone.

We have our support team that we can rely on, but we can also rely on the Lord for. Speaking life, reminding us of truth and holding up our arms whenever we're weary. having a place to tap into when fear is activated or when you are faced with a decision and you don't know what to do.

It kind of is like taking you back home. Yeah. Absolutely. just knowing do you trust your provider? Is that going to be triggering if it's the same provider? are you wanting to deliver at a different hospital? maybe having a doula. I love doulas.

I think they're very helpful. just knowing that your support team, is there for you, fully understands the experience that you've been through. And can hold space for that in this next experience is incredibly helpful. that is helpful. and I'm sure every hospital's different, that you fully know when someone is coming in after a loss.

Are there different protocols? Are there different, procedures or things that you look out for? if they are a planned C-section or a planned induction, we would know ahead of time. but if you are just in labor and show up there are those awkward questions of what number of pregnancy is this and what happened last time, if we don't have access to your records right away. I talk with my coworkers a lot about how to ask those questions gently. but it is things that we do need to know, if you had a c-section prior We need to know that, and those types of things.

But sometimes that's not information we know ahead of time. are those types of things included in the map then? Like, you know, here's what to let people know, Here's what you can do if you just happen to go into labor yes. Absolutely.

I talk about all of that throughout the entire birth course. We go through what decisions matter most to you. what is the most important thing to you in your birth experience? I've had some patients who are like, you know, I really don't want.

IV, or I don't want this specific thing. And it's like, okay, that's totally fine, but is that the most important thing? If it came down to it and your doctor is recommending this, are we okay with that? where do we draw the line on our preferences?

And then also being able to flex and flow into what is unfolding for your birth. Yeah, because there's so many unknowns. that you're in good hands all the way around. Ultimately, By the Lord too, but your providers as well.

Yeah. you're in good hands in every direction. is there any last thoughts that you think, a mom should know who has experienced a loss thinking about becoming pregnant again or is there and scared? I would say that you do not have to hide your heartbreak from God.

he already knows your experience. I truly believe that he wants to sit with you in it, and that he loves you so much. grief and grieving is not a sign of weak faith. I believe that God welcomes our sorrow. even, John 1135, Jesus wept himself. When his friend passed.

And so, we are welcome to bring that to Jesus too. All of our hurts and all of our sorrows. he wants us to do that. just knowing that you don't have to hide that from the Lord, you don't have to toughen up and be strong because he wants you to come to him. even say God, I don't understand, but I believe you're still good.

I love that you said that because I think there's a certain amount of guilt moms feel when the new baby's born and you're excited and joyful then there's this moment of Is that disrespectful to the baby? I lost, does that mean that I've completely replaced them or forgotten about them?

And it's just, not possible. But I think in that moment, you don't know that yet. And you're afraid of what you're afraid of. Feel joy. And I think a lot of moms hold themselves back, I love that. that's really beautiful. And we can feel sorrow and joy at the same time.

And so, it's okay to feel both and we do it all the time about other things, but When it comes to this, it's extra sensitive and it feels different. absolutely. thank you so much, Lauren. I loved this conversation with you and I know right now you are doing your 30 days of prayer 

On Instagram, those are great resources To check out are they for expectant moms? Yeah. honestly, every day I just pray over a different situation. this week preparing for this. I prayed over the mom who's had experienced floss. over the postpartum mom, over the toddler mom, like me.

every season I've been every day kind of waking up and saying, who do I wanna pray for today? And it's been really, really sweet. my course also has audio prayers as a bonus, it has a full list of prayers for every stage of labor, postpartum, breastfeeding, all of those, hard times that you can just listen over.

put your headphones in, do some laundry, listen to, some scripture and prayers to recenter your heart. It's so great. Yeah, I, well, I've been enjoying 'em myself. They're beautiful. So, yeah. Thank you. So is that the best place to find you and get more information about your course Yeah, absolutely.

labor, labor Lauren on Instagram. Okay. And then it's labor lauren.com for my website. Awesome. Well, I'll be sure to link it in the show notes, thank you so much for your time for sharing your expertise and your own story thank you. The important work that you do for others. So appreciate.

Thank you Jennifer. I appreciate you. I think you're doing amazing work and I'm honored to be in this space with you and call you a friend.