Today we’d like to introduce you to Michelle Smith-Pratcher.
Hi Michelle, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My journey into this work began with loss.
I unexpectedly lost my baby girl, Miracle, at 19 weeks pregnant. As I tried to heal and make sense of what I had experienced, I started learning more about pregnancy and infant loss. Somewhere along that journey, I realized this was a community I wanted to support and create space for.
At the time, I didn’t know if I would have the opportunity to become a mother again, but I held onto hope after loss. Hope for healing. Hope for life. Hope that I could one day create the kind of space for other families that I needed during my own loss.
Eleven months later, I became a mother again.
As I continued my own healing, I started looking for ways to support other mothers who had experienced pregnancy and infant loss. I found a pregnancy and infant loss training that helped educate me, gave me tools for my own journey, and equipped me to begin holding space for others.
Eventually, I launched my nonprofit, Miracle Speaks, and began writing about my own journey. I created support groups, community spaces, and awareness events for families impacted by pregnancy and infant loss. I didn’t care if two people showed up or twenty. I knew the space needed to exist, and honestly, I needed it too.
Because I had been so open about my own loss, friends and family began calling me when someone they loved experienced a pregnancy or infant loss. People knew I had walked through it, and they trusted me to sit with them in those moments.
That’s when I started looking into becoming a doula and providing bereavement support.
I completed my doula training in the spring of 2017, and suddenly, so many pieces started coming together. I was a doula, but pregnancy and infant loss remained close to my heart and became an area where I could offer specialized support.
At the time, I wasn’t connected to a doula organization, but I knew about Black Parent Initiative and its culturally specific doula program. I wasn’t able to fully commit then, but we agreed that if they had a family experiencing a loss, they could call me.
Then life brought things full circle.
A childhood friend was expecting her son, and her husband worked for BPI. They asked if I would consider being their doula through the organization. I told them I would love to support them either way, but if connecting with the program worked out, even better.
It did.
In 2018, I became a contracted doula with BPI’s Sacred Roots program. I continued supporting births while also building Miracle Speaks, hosting support groups and awareness events, and eventually self-publishing my first book, *Hope After Loss*.
In 2019, I stepped away from doula work for a season. My children were young, I was homeschooling, and I knew I couldn’t give both my family and birth work what they needed from me.
Then, in 2020, Sacred Roots was going through some changes. I began helping our former Program Manager, Linda Bryant-Daaka, behind the scenes with intakes, organizing records, program communication, and other administrative needs. Eventually, I was offered a position doing the work I was already helping with and became the Doula and Lactation Program Coordinator.
I served in that role from 2020 to 2022 before eventually moving into managing the program.
When I look at the whole journey, I can see how one season continued to lead me into the next.
I am now a mother of five, four living children and one angel baby, a wife, a doula, curator of space for black families, an Author, and a Program Manager. The hope I held onto after losing my firstborn, Miracle, eventually led me into the heart work I do today.
Miracle Speaks may not be active today, but the work never stopped. It just looks different now.
I still get to create spaces for families. I still get to support mothers. I still get to walk alongside families experiencing pregnancy and infant loss. I still get to use my own experience to make sure someone else doesn’t have to walk through theirs feeling alone.
What began with the loss of my baby girl became a calling to hold space for others.
And in so many ways, I’m still holding onto the same thing I held onto all those years ago:
Hope after loss.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No, of course not! My journey started in loss, and along the way, between life and all the different roles I serve in, there was always something to navigate.
Even establishing Miracle Speaks came with its own challenges. I believed so deeply in the work, but I was trying to figure out the nonprofit world with little to no information or resources. I didn’t always know what I was doing, but I knew why I was doing it, and that kept me committed. Looking back, I truly believe God met me at every part of the journey, even in the moments when it was hard for me to see it.
There was also the struggle of balance. I was a mom of four little ones, a wife, and trying to pursue the things that were on my heart. I loved being a stay-at-home mom. I loved homeschooling my children. But I also had these passions and this work that I felt called to, so I had to figure out what making room for both looked like.
I relied heavily on my village. They supported me every step of the way and covered down at home when I was out doing the work. I am forever thankful for them because I could not have done it alone.
Then there was writing my book. I wanted to tell my story, but I had to learn how to self-publish a book while also learning how to write one! I didn’t care about how many copies I sold. The important part for me was getting my story out. Writing *Hope After Loss* was part of my healing.
It took me years to finish because writing forced me to revisit parts of my journey that I hadn’t fully gone back to yet. There were things I had to sit with, process, and heal from in order to even put them on paper.
Even the transition from being a contracted doula to eventually managing a doula program was a journey in itself. It wasn’t easy. There was a learning curve. It required patience, grace, growth, and honestly, more healing. I had to learn that I needed to take care of me first if I was going to continue showing up and holding space for other people.
Through all of it, one thing kept me connected to why I started.
Every time I had the honor of witnessing a baby enter this world and hearing that first cry, I heard Miracle.
To me, that was Miracle speaking loud and clear: “I’m here, Mommy.” Because I never got to hear her cry.
Through every mother I supported, every baby I witnessed being born, every family I got to hold space for, I felt her voice. I felt her presence.
That’s what kept me going.
The journey has not always been easy, but every part of it has shaped how I show up in this work today.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My work really centers around creating spaces where people feel seen, supported, cared for and like they belong. A lot of my work has been in maternal and child health, birth work, pregnancy and infant loss, lactation, and managing programs that specifically serve Black families. But honestly, I think what I do goes beyond one specific area. I create space and I create solutions.
I love taking an idea and figuring out how to bring it to life. Whether that is building a program, creating an event, supporting a family, bringing people together, or figuring out how we can do something better, my mind is always going. I’m always thinking, *What do people need? What’s missing? How can we make this work? And how do we make people feel cared for while we’re doing it?*
I think that’s probably what I’m known for. I can take something from an idea or a conversation and turn it into something real.
I’m most proud that so much of the work I do today came from my own journey. Losing my daughter Miracle led me into pregnancy and infant loss work. That led me to becoming a doula. Becoming a doula eventually led me to managing a culturally specific doula and lactation program. Motherhood, marriage, loss, healing and community have all shaped how I show up and the kind of spaces I want to create.
And although Miracle Speaks, the nonprofit I started after my loss, isn’t active today, that work never really stopped. It just shows up differently now.
What sets me apart is probably that I care just as much about how something **feels** as I do about whether it gets done. People can tell when something was created just to check a box. I don’t want to create those kinds of spaces. I want people to walk into something I’ve created and feel like somebody actually thought about them.
At the heart of it, that’s really what I do. I create spaces, experiences and solutions with people in mind.
What are your plans for the future?
I want to create more culturally specific, intentional spaces for families to heal, grow and thrive. I am a curator and creator of space, so my goal is really to just do more of that.
What that looks like could be so many things. It could be diving more into storytelling, creating more events and spaces for community, mentoring, speaking opportunities, or even things I haven’t thought of yet.
I just see so much that I’m looking forward to in the future. I don’t know exactly what all of it will look like, but I do know that whatever I do, I want to stay connected to the heart work. I want to keep creating spaces that mean something, that feel intentional, and that allow me to continue pouring into families and community in different ways.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thebpi.org/sacred-roots/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juscallmeshell/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MichellleX/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-smith-883190137/?isSelfProfile=true
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@blackparentinitiative6863
