Guest Blogger - Brooklyn Langstaff - Redemptive Birth Story
To the mama lying awake tonight with her hands on her belly, heart racing, thoughts spinning…
Maybe this is your first baby, and the unknown terrifies you. Maybe you would give anything to skip labour and just hold your baby in your arms. Maybe you’ve given birth before, and it didn’t go how you imagined. Maybe there was trauma, interventions, emergencies. Maybe the memory of that birth still makes your stomach tighten. Maybe you’ve suffered loss. Maybe you’ve watched someone else bury a baby. Maybe fear has taken up residence in your heart and you don’t know how to move forward.
I have been that mama.
Six months before my wedding, I was told I might never carry children. My husband and I had dreamed of a big family.
One month after our wedding, I miscarried. It was Tuesday, March 9, 2021. The doctors were cold, even looked me in the eye and said 'I don't know what to tell you. Either you are or you are not experiencing a miscarriage. I could do bloodwork, but it won't stop anything. Just go home and rest." And so I did, I was on bedrest for 5 days and stopped bleeding and I was sure God had healed that pregnancy. And then on Sunday, I came home from Morning worship and lost our baby. My world felt crushed! I remember sitting in a cold, dark, empty house and screaming at God because how could he allow something so cruel to happen.
Then came another miscarriage, then another pregnancy and by 6 weeks I was bleeding again and positive I was loosing my third child! I remember the bloodwork, extra appointments and ultrasounds. Every appointment felt like walking on a tightrope. My mind raced constantly: Will this one make it? Can my body do this?
I knew I wanted a home birth, to labour in the space I felt at peace and comfortable. My water broke and I didn't go into labour. The midwives were busy and couldn't come and had me drive into the hospital to be checked. At the hospital, I was examined by a midwife I had never met and didn't know my story. She misjudged my labour and sent me home. I remember driving back, heart heavy, tears streaming, saying, “I can’t take this if this isn’t labour.” Just three hours later, my daughter arrived with paramedics pulling in minutes before she was born.
Once I delivered her, I was transferred to the hospital. Things happened without my consent. My husband was separated from me for nearly an hour. It was not the birth I had imagined. I felt robbed of my plan, my voice, my experience.
And yet, there was redemption. My body had carried her, laboured on its own, created life. I felt the fierce knowledge that I could do this — that my body was strong and capable. Over her, I prayed 1 Samuel 1:26-28: “Lord, I prayed for this child, and You have granted me what I asked of You. I give her to You. Her life is Yours.” Even in the brokenness, there was beauty, and there was hope.
Then my son was born 22 months later. His birth was calm, healing, and redemptive. I stayed home. The midwives were present. Everything unfolded as I had hoped. Over him, I prayed Jeremiah 1:5-8: “Before I formed you in the womb, You knew him. Before he was born, You consecrated him. Lord, do not let fear take him; be with him to deliver him. Give him Your strength.”
His birth reminded me that even after trauma, hope can be restored.
But then came my third pregnancy — Scarlett Mae, “wished-for child of strength.”
At sixteen weeks, we lost my nephew to stillbirth. I wrote his obituary beside his grieving mama who had no child to hold while silently praying that the same thing would not happen to my baby. The fear felt suffocating. I was exhausted, broken, terrified. I spent many nights with nightmares and a debilitating sense of fear.
This pregnancy stretched me in ways I didn’t know I could endure. I was on medication just to survive the nausea, barely able to function. I run a small business, and every day I had to carve out tiny windows to get the essentials done. Often times leaving tasks unfinished, emails unanswered, the farmwork piling up. The emotional weight was crushing. Relationships strained. My body and mind felt like they were failing under the stress. My placenta wasn’t forming properly. I bled often. A hernia left me in constant pain. My iron levels were dangerously low. I had been told my diastasis recti would never fully heal. Every day felt borrowed. Every kick, every tiny movement inside me felt like a miracle.
Scarlett went past her due date, a stark contrast to my first two, who arrived early. Every day beyond what I thought I could handle required complete surrender, to trust, to let go of control, to rely entirely on Him.
I prayed over Scarlett Mae, over and over: “Lord, You carried me from before my birth; carry her. You have made her, and You will bear her. You will carry and save her. Let her life be a testament of Your faithfulness.” Isaiah 46:3-4 became my lifeline.
When fear gripped me, I declared: “You are my peace, God. You are near the brokenhearted. You make all things beautiful in Your time. You are my Waymaker, my Promise Keeper, my Light in my darkness.”
The night before Scarlett Mae was born, I went to bed with no contractions. No pain. Just peace. Deep, steady, unexplainable peace. I surrendered completely.
By morning, labour began. Less than six hours from the first cramp to her in my arms. One midwife arrived with minutes to spare; the second did not make it in time.
She was born en caul, still wrapped in her sac, calm, whole, crying.
I looked at my husband and whispered, “She’s alive. She’s alive.”
And the miracle continued. My hernia healed within two weeks. My iron levels stabilized. The diastasis recti the doctors had worried about? Gone. My body had been made whole in ways I never imagined.
Mama, if fear has taken over your heart, if grief has settled in your bones, if anxiety feels unshakable, hear me:
Fear does not mean you lack faith. Fear does not mean your body is broken. Fear means you understand how sacred life is.
Peace is possible. Peace that surpasses understanding.
It is waiting for you, not because the risk disappears, but because God is present even when the outcome is uncertain.
Surrender is not weakness. It is choosing to trust, even when your hands shake.
Even in your brokenness, even in your fear, He is faithful. He is near. He is your peace.
And the prayers you whisper now , over your belly, over your heart , He hears them.
You are not alone.
Brooklyn Langstaff
