Navigating the NICU Rollercoaster: Julie Hatch, NNP’s Story

When you envision bringing a child into the world, nobody prepares you for the possibility of walking through the double doors of a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The flashing lights, the constant hum of monitors, and the physical barrier of an isolette can leave birthing and perinatal individuals feeling isolated, helpless, and completely detached from the experience they imagined.

In this episode of Quiet Connection, I'm sitting down with Julie Hatch, a seasoned Pediatric and Neonatal Nurse Practitioner with over 30 years of experience in the NICU. Julie shares what it's truly like on the front lines of infant intensive care, from the sudden rush of high-risk admissions to the quiet, profound moments where parents and nurses carry hope for each other. 

We break down the reality of hospital environments, debunking common misconceptions about who ends up in the NICU and why. Beyond the technical machinery, Julie reminds us that a parent’s energy and unconditional love are deeply felt by their little ones, even through the porthole of an incubator.

If you've ever felt robbed of those initial bonding moments, or if you're currently navigating the uncertainty of a medical journey with your child, this conversation offers a gentle reminder: taking care of your own mental health isn't a luxury, it's essential. Hope isn't something you have to carry alone.

Key Takeaways

• The NICU is a Built-In Village: While terrifying, the NICU creates an unexpected community of nurses, social workers, and fellow parents who support one another through shared trauma and triumph.
• Hope is a Vital Tool: When medical answers aren't immediate, holding onto hope, or letting your care team hold it for you, helps carry you through the hour-by-hour uncertainty.
• Parental Energy Transcends Physical Touch: Even when a baby is too fragile to be held, your calm presence, voice, and energy send powerful signals of safety and love.
• Self-Care is Not Failure: Prioritizing your own mental health and rest as a parent directly impacts your child's wellbeing. You can't pour from an empty cup.
• Bridging Eastern and Western Medicine: Western medicine saves lives in acute crises, but Eastern practices like acupuncture offer crucial support for long-term stress, PMHDS recovery, and nervous system regulation.

Don't forget to visit Vermont Birth Network to learn more about connecting with perinatal and postpartum practitioners in Vermont!

Transcript

Chelsea Myers (00:02.572)
Today I am here with Julie. Julie, how are you?

Julie Hatch (00:07.572)
I'm great Chelsea, thank you for asking. How are you?

Chelsea Myers (00:11.286)
I am okay. I'm okay. I'm really excited to chat with you today, Julie. I feel like I'm saying this so much lately. Julie, you are another guest who has been so gracious with me in my having to schedule and reschedule. So I appreciate you.

Julie Hatch (00:21.987)
No.

Julie Hatch (00:27.214)
Not a problem. That's life.

Chelsea Myers (00:28.84)
Ugh, it is life. It is life. I'm so excited to have you on, Julie. I was just talking to you before hitting record. I love every season to have at least one or two people who are sort of what we would call like experts in the field who sort of walk this journey along with those of us who have experienced all the challenges that may come with having kids and you are one of those people.

Julie Hatch (00:49.88)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (00:57.832)
rather than me list down all the things that I know about you, I'd love to give you the opportunity to sort of introduce yourself and let us know what it is that you are doing in the world of maternal health and, and, and neonatal health.

Julie Hatch (01:16.366)
Okay, well, I am a nurse practitioner. I first went to school to be a pediatric nurse practitioner, which is great for well child health and normal newborn healthcare. And then I went back to school to get my neonatal nurse practitioner certification, which enabled me to work in the neonatal intensive care unit, which I really liked. The intensive care unit had lots of

For an adrenaline junkie, it's a perfect kind of a place. So I spent 30 years in the neonatal ICU, interspersed with little bit of primary care, pediatrics. And then not too long ago, I left Western medicine. I became an acupuncturist where I still like to treat kids and newborns and mothers, although it's fewer of those kinds of patients.

But so I have 30 years in the NICU and I have three boys of my own who knock on wood are still alive and well and thriving. Yep. Yeah. So, and then recently I've written a novel, is totally fiction. It's a medical thriller, which takes place in the neonatal intensive care unit. So that's, I guess.

Chelsea Myers (02:21.709)
That's important, yes.

Yeah.

Julie Hatch (02:41.708)
That's part of my experience of working in maternal child health, but in a fictional way.

Chelsea Myers (02:47.597)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, your experiences led you to that to to writing that book. And I, I said this to a few guests now, I feel like everyone I talked to has written a book and my stack of books now from all of my guests that I have to read, like my TBR is, is like over my head now. So yeah, it's it's in it's on the list. It's on the list. I just have a few to get through. In between.

Julie Hatch (03:11.847)
huh. Not a problem.

Chelsea Myers (03:16.351)
in between all of my all of my you know romantasy stuff that keeps me sane i'm reading my guests books as well so you know you gotta balance right you gotta keep it balanced

Julie Hatch (03:23.256)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That keeps you busy, I'm sure.

Chelsea Myers (03:31.987)
mean yeah until when I am when I should be sleeping but anyway that's enough about me. So yeah I'm super curious what led you into wanting to work in pediatric nursing just in general.

Julie Hatch (03:36.942)
You

Julie Hatch (03:51.086)
It's always what I wanted to do from nursing school. I liked the pediatric rotation the most. And when I got out of school, most nurses are told to, or new grads are told to go into med-surg, learn how to change bandages and, you know, do the routine nursing stuff. But I was fortunate enough to interview with a recruiter who, for the hospital that was just opening a brand new pediatric intensive care unit. And she said, no, you're...

to do that stuff. You can go, want to train you right from the get-go. We want to train you how we want you to be able to work. And it was the best choice I made to go right into pediatric ICU. Never looked back. And so then I did that for a while as a regular nurse, as in a bedside nurse. And then I went back to school to become a nurse practitioner where I could use those skills in primary care, pediatrics, working with healthy

or episodic illnesses kids. But then I got another opportunity to work in the neonatal intensive care unit. really, do like the intensive care. I'm a pretty mellow, calm person. So the intensive care unit works perfectly for me. So all those 30 years, I never looked back. And now when I'm an acupuncturist, I work far less with kids and I miss it terribly. And I am now doing medical volunteer trips to help with kids.

Chelsea Myers (05:13.057)
Mmm.

Julie Hatch (05:17.536)
It's just in my nature, I guess, to work with kids, sick kids especially.

Chelsea Myers (05:21.535)
Yeah. Yeah. And it does, I mean, I think it, does take that kind of personality, right? It has to be something that's in you. From, yeah, from a lot of the people that I've met, it's just something that's in you.

Julie Hatch (05:29.26)
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how it got there or where it's from, but it's been there and it's part of me and so can't can't argue it. I gotta go with it.

Chelsea Myers (05:40.05)
No, yeah, you follow your passion. I'm curious, you've said to like, you kind of, I don't even, this is my other warning that I forgot to tell you. My brain will close all the tabs sometimes. That just happened. yeah, I'll be halfway through a sentence and then it's like system shutdown. We roll with it, it's okay. So.

Julie Hatch (05:55.17)
Yeah

That's a great way to put it.

Chelsea Myers (06:07.709)
were you said you were drawn especially to the intensive care neonatal intensive care. What about that setting sort of drew you in? said you're a pretty calm individual. I would assume you have to be when navigating babies who are kind of having episodic crises. But tell me a little bit more about about what felt like home in the NICU.

Julie Hatch (06:27.619)
Yeah.

Julie Hatch (06:34.03)
Well, it was nice to be able to work with, well, for one thing, it's a team environment where there are many practitioners that are taking care of one baby, many nurses, doctors, social workers, nutritionists, it's a whole huge team that keeps these kids alive and well and able to go home. And equally part of that team are the parents.

not all parents want to be part of the team. Some parents sort of bowed out of the whole responsibility thing, but that was far and few between. So the team includes the parents and that is really rewarding to be able to work with parents in helping to save their babies. And more times than not, certainly the outcome was good. Yes, there were some very sad outcomes and that's part of the nature of the beast, but much, much, much more.

was a happy ending where the babies go home with the families and the families are prepared to take care of them at home. And it just brings it full circle from, it's just the whole team involvement, really involvement in helping these kids, these tiny little, super vulnerable little babies.

Chelsea Myers (07:46.53)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That makes so much sense. And it kind of mirrors our whole expectation of like motherhood and what we hope to be, right? Like you're talking about a village, a village in the NICU. And that's kind of what the dream is for going into parenting. It's not always the reality, but in the NICU, at least for you, you had that village. You were all relying on each other.

Julie Hatch (08:13.206)
Yes. And the, sorry.

Chelsea Myers (08:14.643)
in that vein. sorry, go ahead. Go ahead.

I don't remember.

Julie Hatch (08:20.46)
And I was going to say that there's also, because it is really a village and not just the healthcare workers, but the other parents. There was always places where parents could hang out together. Sometimes they were squeezed in right near each other. So the stories that mothers and the support that mothers and fathers, but I speak really more about mothers, got from each other and gave to each other was huge. I know that that was life-changing for many of the mothers of the babies there.

Chelsea Myers (08:50.315)
Yeah, do you think that is unique to the hospital that you were working in? Or do you think that that's a general? I have very limited experience with the NICU. They called my daughter a flyby. She was only in there for a few hours. So I never physically even entered the NICU because I was still in recovery.

Julie Hatch (09:05.811)
good.

Chelsea Myers (09:14.205)
Do you think that that's unique to where you were working or is that kind of like a universal camaraderie between NICU families?

Julie Hatch (09:21.302)
I think that it is, well, the old NICU that I worked in, was, they really were babies and parents stacked in, well, not stacked in, but all in the same big room. So it was very little privacy and it was not ideal, which is why they built a new NICU, which is how most NICUs are now, where they have your private rooms, maybe two babies and two families in one room, but usually it's one room, one family. But they offer,

I mean, for babies that are going to be in there for weeks on end, the parents definitely connect. And social services helps to facilitate that. And there are classes and there are get togethers, which obviously are optional. So if you choose to get some support from other mothers, it's readily available.

Chelsea Myers (10:09.611)
Yeah. I'm super curious because again, I have my very limited view of the NICU from my guests and just from research. What are some misconceptions you think are held about the NICU and the type of babies that are being treated in the NICU?

Julie Hatch (10:33.902)
Probably some misconceptions might be and I would say I sort of use the word misconceptions lightly because maybe sometimes they're not so misconceived. Maybe they're unfortunately accurate in that the parents sometimes don't have as much, in spite of what I had just said, parents don't have as much access to their babies at certain times and there's always a reason for that. Like there's an emergency going on or

There are million reasons why that could be, but parents can still feel like they don't have access to their baby at any particular given time. And the staff is always very sensitive to that and aware of that. And that's constantly a work in progress of how to make it so that parents have access and invited to be in with everything. But there's also the HIPAA privacy. So if you're talking about one baby, another parent can't be there. So there are some problems with being.

able to be with your baby 24-7. But that's always being worked on.

Let's see, I think sometimes there's issues with siblings, baby's siblings that want to come in and visit. And again, that's a really a safety. You have to screen them for chickenpox and have they had a cold. mean, if a premature baby gets a cold, it's devastating. So we can be a little bit strict about that, about not letting siblings in or certain nights, certain evenings where a couple hours they come in and they get all scrubbed up and they get.

But they're not as easily, they can't as freely come and go as the parents can. So again, that's not really a misconception that really can happen, but again, try to be aware of it. I think that that's what comes to mind first and foremost.

Chelsea Myers (12:24.533)
Yeah, yeah, I, those are things that I wouldn't have thought of my mind had originally gone to, like, the types of babies and the types of illnesses you were seeing, I think. And note, so I'm so glad that you brought that up, because those are things that I wouldn't have thought of.

Julie Hatch (12:37.056)
Uh-huh.

Julie Hatch (12:41.102)
you

Chelsea Myers (12:44.469)
I just know like from my experience when we talk about the NICU and when we're doing a lot of advocacy for like NICU awareness and stuff, we're talking about micro preemies and we're talking about little teeny tiny babies. And that's not always the case. I'm assuming the majority of the patients that you saw in the NICU were premature babies, but it's not, that's not the only reason to be in the NICU.

Julie Hatch (13:09.524)
absolutely. Yeah, the micro preemies probably take up, that's they take up the bulk of the of the time and the staff. But there are babies that can be born full term and have what's called meconium aspiration, where they inhale their poop on their way out. And that can be that can be deadly easily. It can be a fatal problem. And so they are really intensive. They're probably the sickest babies in the in the NICU, even sicker than the tiny little micro preemies.

So that's really serious. And then we also get the flybys like you that sometimes they'll be the baby will come out and show us a sign of perhaps possibly having an infection or the mother had an infection. We have to watch the baby really carefully. And so they come in for 48 hours of antibiotics. Everything pans out to be fine and then they're on their way. So there's a fair amount of that where they're just in for 48 hours or maybe

Chelsea Myers (13:42.412)
Yep.

Julie Hatch (14:06.414)
four or five days and then they're on the way out. But by far the bulk of it is definitely premature and I don't know what the percentage of micro-premiums is, a lot, but also babies from 28 to 34 weeks is a pretty common population. There are also full-term babies that don't always need NICU, but sometimes start off there with drug withdrawal, neonatal abstinence syndrome.

that if the mother was treated with methadone or not treated with methadone, was taking heroin, whatever the reason is, the babies come in with signs of withdrawal. Once we get that captured and we can medicate the baby adequately, then they can go to a regular floor They don't need intensive care. Once we see that they don't need intensive care, once they prove themselves as just needing medication to withdraw. think those are probably the big ones, like you had said.

Chelsea Myers (15:04.587)
Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate that. And like I said, I love it too. It's almost my favorite when my guests take my questions in a direction that I wasn't expecting, because I'm like, my gosh, I learned, I got to learn something. In following kind of that same, like learning about the roles in the NICU, what was your role? You were a pediatric nurse practitioner, NICU nurse practitioner.

Julie Hatch (15:13.634)
Hahaha

Chelsea Myers (15:33.323)
What does that mean though? Like what was your interface with the patients? What would that look like?

Julie Hatch (15:38.542)
With the patients meaning the babies or the parents or both?

Chelsea Myers (15:41.461)
I know, I know, or both. I use it as a broad term. Yeah, what did it look like with the babies? What did it look like with the families? What was your role?

Julie Hatch (15:52.431)
As nurse practitioners, filled in medical schools for the whole time I was there the medical schools were cutting down the number of hours that residents had to spend in the NICU. Most of them didn't like it or could spend in the NICU. So they were condensing that so they to be able to get the bodies in there to take care of the babies. In the 90s, the NICUs were just blowing up with babies. They were expanding so fast and there weren't enough doctors. So they hire nurse practitioners to do what the

what the residents do. I once made a joke that I was like a third year resident over and over and over and over again. Every year I started my third year of residency. But we had so much, we had a ton of autonomy. We had a great team to work with. And we worked with a fellow, a doctor doing his fellowship in neonatology. He had direct supervision over us. And then there was an attending who had direct supervision over the whole NICU.

Chelsea Myers (16:27.958)
Ha ha ha!

Julie Hatch (16:51.552)
I learned a ton. Every day I'd go in not knowing what was what I was always learning and what exactly was going to happen. was you never knew it was always an exciting job. And so that was what mostly my role with the babies was just all of their care, figuring out what kind of tests they need, what kind of fluids they need, what kind of medications they need, what kind of interventions they need, goals, plans of care and

so to include the parents. Parents came after. So there was rounds in the morning, which could take, started at 7 a.m. and could sometimes go until 10 or 11 a.m. And then to see the parents and give them the update of what we talked about on rounds. And then you do your work for the bulk part of the day. And then you have to go to sign out rounds. So we were on rounds all the time talking about the babies and coming up with what we're gonna do for the next eight hours, the next 12 hours.

It was never a dull moment and very little downtime because there was always a lot to do. There were occasions when there weren't so many babies in the NICU, but not very often.

Chelsea Myers (18:01.473)
very often. Yeah. And from what I understand, it it's just kind of a totally it's its own environment. The NICU is its own environment. and, like I said, I'm learning, I'm learning through parents who have experienced it,

The transition into parenthood via the NICU is a very, different experience that you can't understand unless you have gone through it. What were some common themes you saw in the parents that you were meeting? Or were there any common themes in terms of like, I don't even know the right word.

Julie Hatch (18:29.756)
Chelsea Myers (18:48.519)
just their experiences, I guess how they came into the NICU initially and how they left were there any common themes throughout throughout the stays?

Julie Hatch (18:57.422)
Yeah, it's a huge, it's such an adjustment. It is not at all what you expect to have happen when you decide to have a baby or don't even decide to just that you are pregnant. And it's not what you expect to have happen at all. And it steals away really important or can we try not to let it, but it really does steal away important parts of those initial minutes, hours, days of motherhood.

where the bonding, we try hard to allow bonding to happen, but this, know, and the little ones that are on ventilators, they can't be held very much. That's one of the hardest things for parents. You know, they want to touch the baby. And if the baby's really unstable, just a slightest touch will make them, you know, drop their heart rate and drop their saturations. And they just can't tolerate it. And that's so hard for parents to say, why can't I touch my baby? And it's just not good for the baby, which is just so counterintuitive for a new parent.

But it's true. again, try to, parents, when they first deliver, and again, I'm talking about the premature ones, we try to get the mother in there to be able to see the baby. he's in his incubator or he's wrapped up in saran wrap, which we do to help preserve heat. They're really, they're very inaccessible to the parents. And we try to make a point of explaining everything to them. But that's...

That's probably one those heartbreaking things is they just can't touch their baby and they're a brand new mother and that is just not the way it's supposed to be. Another thing was with breastfeeding. Breastfeeding we tried to encourage, well we did encourage and did all kinds of things to help make it happen but it still was not the experience that you'd expect of breastfeeding a regular full-term healthy baby.

Chelsea Myers (20:29.921)
Yeah.

Julie Hatch (20:49.582)
Some other things, the not knowing of what's gonna happen. And sometimes we'd have really sick babies and they would wanna know, is he or she gonna live or are they gonna be blind or, you know, they needed answers. What's gonna happen? And you just can't, we don't have crystal balls. And I learned that the hard way. I would say to the parents, no, it's okay, he's gonna get through. And then bad things happen and I was all wrong. And so it's far worse to do that.

I think, than to have to tell them the truth that either we don't know or the dismal truth or more often it's that we don't know because we don't know. Only God knows what's going to happen with these little babies. So that's really hard for parents too. I think those are the big ones, not being able to touch them, especially initially. But then the happiness when they finally can touch hold the baby. That first time that they hold the baby, whether it's days later or weeks later sometimes, it's just so happy. It's such a great momentum.

Chelsea Myers (21:29.644)
Yeah.

Julie Hatch (21:48.943)
moment. Such a great moment. So yeah, and the roller coaster, there's definitely roller coasters. These premature babies are so labile. So they'll have a good day, then they'll have a bad day, or they'll have a terrible two hours and then a great five hours. And it's a roller coaster, roller coaster for these poor parents that just don't know what to expect. no, well, the practitioners have some idea of what to expect. the

Chelsea Myers (21:50.253)
Yeah.

Julie Hatch (22:17.002)
emotional psychological roller coaster with the parents is really challenging I found.

Chelsea Myers (22:23.169)
Yeah, well, and I'm curious too, how that impacted your own mental health and wellbeing, because you're kind of on this roller coaster with all of these babies that you're caring for, but then you're also right, like you said, like having parents come to you be like, are they okay? Are they gonna survive? Like they have a lot of questions, they have a lot of fears, and that's valid. So you're on this roller coaster with them, but you're also kind of expected to be.

like an anchor and like solid. What, how did that impact your own kind of mental health while you were going through it?

Julie Hatch (22:52.429)
Yeah.

Julie Hatch (23:01.312)
I think that I was lucky, fortunate or not fortunate enough to not get too sucked in with a roller coaster. I was better able to be more objective and be the nurse practitioner, not the friend. Sometimes I was, you know, could be sort of a friend also in the shoulder to cry on. Absolutely. And those were really, really hard ones to take care of. But if that's what the...

if that's what was called for, that's what felt right between us and that's what happened. And it could be really hard and it was really important to have my colleagues to talk with and the rest of the team, the social workers. I don't know if you've ever had a social worker on this program, but social workers were, my God, they were saviors to all of us, to the families and to the people that work there. So that kind of network support was crucial. But by and large, I was able to,

Chelsea Myers (23:43.041)
you

Julie Hatch (23:59.439)
I wasn't always able to leave it behind when I went home. Sometimes I would bring a lot of it home with me. But by and large, I could sort of leave it, separate myself from the emotional roller coaster.

Chelsea Myers (24:12.971)
Yeah, which I think was probably, I don't even want to say I think, that's kind of a little bit of a superpower or a very lot a bit of a superpower because you were able to maybe compartmentalize that piece of it. You were able to be a stable like resource so you could care for the baby and also be there for the families.

Julie Hatch (24:35.488)
Yeah, that's a good word. The compartmentalizing is exactly what happens. Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (24:40.181)
Yeah, yeah, I struggle with that. So you have that superpower. That is not a superpower that I have. I would not do very well in a NICU or intensive care situation. But that's why I said it takes a special kind of person.

Julie Hatch (24:52.526)
Yeah, it's, it does, I guess. There are people that start off and just can't do it at all. And then people that just love it. It's just, that's like any other job, I suppose. I mean, I would have a hard time working with geriatrics, let me tell you. But sick babies is fine.

Chelsea Myers (25:03.724)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (25:08.077)
Yeah, I mean, I don't think I could do that either. Yeah, and that's so and it's so interesting. And you mentioned something earlier and obviously like we can't know unless we did like a survey or whatever. But why do you think why do you think there? Why do think that there is kind of maybe a? Oh, the tabs closed again, the word.

Why do you think doctors are shying away from the NICU or residents are shying away from the NICU? What do you think it is that sort of pulls them from that?

Julie Hatch (25:40.395)
It's a v-

Julie Hatch (25:44.877)
I think that when you go into, so they start off going into pediatrics and when you go into pediatrics, you're taking care of, you have a big spot in your heart for kids. The NICU is very technical and sometimes you even lose sight of the fact that there's a baby there. There's all these machines around, these tubes and alarms and you gotta do this, you gotta do that. And sometimes you lose sight of the fact that there's a baby there. So it's a little less, I mean with.

Yeah, so I think that when the residents come through, also they have not a whole lot of time. They have a month here and a month there and then a month there. So they can't get really involved in it unless they choose to say, wow, I really like this. And then they choose to spend more time there. But it's very, it's not exactly what you go into pediatrics for unless you like this specialty. And it's a lot of hours they spend. Well, I suppose.

Chelsea Myers (26:34.858)
Yeah.

Julie Hatch (26:37.774)
I don't know if it's more hours than the regular rotations, but it's a lot of hours, a lot of intensive hours.

Chelsea Myers (26:44.013)
Yeah, that makes sense. It was just a general curiosity. just, I, this is being fully transparent. I have like zero knowledge of the medical field outside of that. really like medical dramas. So I'm thinking like The Pitt and ER and things like that. So, but.

Julie Hatch (27:00.472)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (27:07.949)
It like it's a common theme there too, even if you've to bring it current, like if you've watched The Pitt at all, which I'm not sure if you have, like, have you watched The Pitt it so it's incredible. Number one, number two, I'm not the only one who feels this way. A lot of parents that I've spoken to who have experienced birth trauma or who have experienced any kind of medical trauma are finding The Pitt to be healing.

Julie Hatch (27:16.586)
just started watching it. I love that show.

Chelsea Myers (27:36.718)
because it's showing us the humanity behind the medical system. But something that I've picked up on, I'm not gonna do spoilers for you. This isn't a spoiler, because it's season two and you just started it. in season two, there is, and this is also a viral meme right now, there's baby Jane Doe. So there's a baby Jane Doe, but no one wants to touch the case. All the ER doctors don't.

Julie Hatch (27:37.069)
Mmm.

Julie Hatch (27:41.429)
Mm-hmm. Like, good point.

Chelsea Myers (28:05.611)
want to touch the case. And I kind of find that I feel like in back in the day in ER and stuff, it's like everybody avoided peds and everybody so I'm, it was just a general curiosity of like, I wonder why. But you did you explained it perfectly. Like, it's very technical. And the the patient is almost removed from the situation at times. Yeah.

Julie Hatch (28:30.028)
Right. Yes. I haven't gotten to this part of The Pitt, so I will look forward to it. The other thing that comes to mind, so I don't know what, but something that comes to mind is, why is the baby a baby Jane Doe? Do they not know, what's the backstory? Is it a really sad story that brought

Chelsea Myers (28:49.118)
Well, that's why I said that's why I said I'm not gonna give you any spoilers

Julie Hatch (28:52.654)
So why is the baby in the...so they may not want to touch the whole social part that goes with it. I don't know.

Chelsea Myers (29:00.333)
Yeah, I don't know either, but you'll get there and then you can giggle to yourself and you'll understand why everyone is saying baby Jane Doe right now. anyway, it was just, yeah, so it's just kind of been a curiosity for me. And then when you reinforced that, when you said like a lot of residents weren't going into that and so nurse practitioners stepped in and kind of took over that role, I was like, oh, interesting. Okay, so maybe this is pop culture.

Julie Hatch (29:03.412)
Yes.

Julie Hatch (29:08.876)
Yeah.

Julie Hatch (29:24.717)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (29:29.693)
mirroring reality. But anyway, that was a rabbit hole. was a rabbit hole. So you started to talk about it a little bit and I would love to dive a little bit deeper into it for families. So anyone listening who has had a NICU experience or maybe supported loved ones who had a NICU experience or for families, like you said, you don't know and you don't

Julie Hatch (29:32.622)
Yeah, no, that's good. That's good.

Chelsea Myers (29:55.896)
prepare for that. You don't go into pregnancy saying, we're going to get ready for the NICU. What are some things you can expect when entering the NICU? Like, what are some things to be aware of that you will see, that you will hear? What are some commonalities that parents can kind of, I like to say, be prepared, not scared? So having an idea of what that environment looks like and sounds like.

Julie Hatch (30:17.997)
Yeah.

Julie Hatch (30:22.782)
I tried to, in the beginning of my novel, I worked harder bringing that across, because I really wanted to bring across what I've experienced. this also takes place more in the old NICU. The newer NICUs are much better in terms of noise control and crowd control. But nonetheless, there can be a lot of noise. And you think, you should be going into a nice quiet.

dark place where babies are. No, the lights are on. We're much more aware of what we're doing or what we shouldn't be doing because of the effects that it can have on the babies. But nonetheless, it does happen. The lights are on, the alarms are blaring, people are running around, hey, we need somebody in this room. And so there's a lot of frenetic activity. And again, with the new NICU, you're a little less aware of it.

But once you're there enough, you become more more aware. You get tuned in to what the emergencies are that are coming in. Because even though there's better sequestration, like from room to room and windows in between them to block down the noise, you're still very aware of the emergencies that are going on. So it can be very frenetic energy. Yeah, it can be. And again, we're trying to make it, people are trying to make it so that it's a little bit calmer.

But anyways, that is the biggest thing that I think of is the sound, the alarms, and the people running around. All that kind of stuff is hard to swallow when you first get there. You have to scrub. Constantly being aware of not bringing any germs in. People don't mask, but you have to scrub your hands and you put on a gown and all those ways to keep yourself, keep your baby protected from germs coming in from the outside. And that just gets to be a way of life. You get so that you just...

you're always washing your hands. It's just the nature of the beast. Other things, I think it's really the way that people run around and are so busy tending to sick babies. And sometimes you just want to be, know, stay away. Let me just be with my baby. And even that can be hard if they're in an incubator in an isolette with plastic all around them, you know, a plastic isolette. There's ways you can put your hands in there.

Chelsea Myers (32:17.25)
Yeah.

Julie Hatch (32:44.408)
But there's a barrier between you and your baby. And again, depending on the age and for how long that they're in the NICU and what's wrong with them, that can last for quite a while. And you have to be satisfied with just touching them with your hand through the little porthole of the incubator. But so to answer your question, I think that the noise and the activity is the biggest thing to get used to, hardest thing to get used to.

Chelsea Myers (33:04.301)
What?

Chelsea Myers (33:09.335)
will say from my guests who have had babies in the NICU, that is the one thing that they say they even to this day, even when their kids are grown, they say I can still hear the alarms and I can still hear all the machines. So that aligns. Yeah, that that aligns with parent experiences for sure. what were if, again, you said like, you were pretty good at being able to

Julie Hatch (33:23.852)
Yeah.

Julie Hatch (33:31.32)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (33:37.229)
separate, you could be the shoulder to cry on if you needed to be. But were there any, like go to words of wisdom you would give to families entering the NICU or even during the hard days? I mean, like you said, you can't give them like, this is all going to be fine. It's all going to be okay. But just to kind of be able to get to the next moment.

Julie Hatch (33:58.839)
Yeah, there's hope is one thing you can't take away from anybody. People can be going through absolute hell. And as long as they can hold on to some kind of hope, that can help you get through to the next moment and the next day and the next day because you don't know. And I think that the more...

optimistic you can be hopeful, hopeful that you can be the better it is for your baby. They can feel that I know that they can feel the energy that a mother has or is emitting. you can emit know, so hope. I can't say positivity because it's very hard to be positive sometimes in there. But be

To hope, I mean, some people go online and Google everything to find out, and that's really a bad idea. I would say don't go to Dr. Google to find out your questions that you have. Go to the doctors and the nurses and the nurse practitioners to get your answers. And just whatever faith you have, if you have a faith, or just faith of your baby that your baby will make it, whether there's no guarantee in the

Chelsea Myers (34:45.449)
Yeah... No!

Julie Hatch (35:07.246)
what kind of a baby you're gonna be bringing home. But I heard so many, so many, so many parents say, I don't care what you give me, I just want my baby alive and to come home with me. I don't care what kind of disabilities there are or anything like that. Because the life is just a, it's a beautiful life no matter what. And I don't know, just stick with the hope that things will work out the way that they're supposed to work out.

Chelsea Myers (35:31.15)
Yeah, and hope is so powerful. Hope is something that we talk about a lot. It's something we talk about on the podcast. It's something I talk about in my personal life, holding onto hope. my biggest thing is like, if you can't hold onto hope, you have to have someone who can hold it for you. And I don't know if that, yeah. So I think too, for a lot of people and for a lot of guests that I've spoken to,

Julie Hatch (35:49.686)
Yeah, nice.

Chelsea Myers (35:57.75)
you guys, the nurses, are the ones that are holding the hope for a lot of them. I've done series on social media from NICU families and I've spoken to so many NICU families on the podcast and the one thread through every experience is how much they appreciated their nurses.

I don't often hear about the doctors. I don't often hear about the doctors, but I always hear about the nurses. And I think that speaks to the level of care that you're not only able to give to their babies, but to the parents as well. this is my general blanket thank you to you and all nurses, neonatal nurses, NICU nurses, pediatric nurses. I love nurses in general.

Julie Hatch (36:21.164)
Yeah, well, that's nice.

Julie Hatch (36:49.964)
Hahaha.

Chelsea Myers (36:50.097)
I think nurses run hospitals and I think they just are doing yeah, no shade to the doctors in my life, but nurses are a different breed, nurses and CNAs. You guys do the real work.

Julie Hatch (37:00.725)
Yeah.

Julie Hatch (37:08.97)
Yeah, we go, it's, yeah, we're coming at it, the patient from a different perspective. And also in the NICU, we're there every day that we're on call or that we're on service. don't, you know, we have the same baby through the whole hospitalization. So we have a lot of continuity for the, for the families, which goes a long ways. Doctors will come in for a month and then leave to go on to their next rotation. And so there's a lot of

discontinuity, but the nurses provide a lot of continuity and a familiar face and we know the baby and we know the history and so makes it easier for everybody.

Chelsea Myers (37:46.36)
Yeah, yeah, that's why nurses are freaking rock stars. No, I, so, okay, this obviously I will edit out, but we've been through, my husband and I have been through enough medical trauma. My husband was in a catastrophic motorcycle accident. He should have been killed. yeah, it.

Julie Hatch (37:53.102)
you're great.

You

Chelsea Myers (38:11.721)
And I went through a of medical trauma too, but especially with his experience, we have every nurse's name written down from that experience. And we made sure to like go back to the hospital and thank them all personally. Like the nurses made that experience tolerable. And you know what it is? It's because you carried the hope. You carried the hope for us. Yeah, so I'm biased and I love nurses.

Julie Hatch (38:29.526)
Yeah, that's nice to hear.

Julie Hatch (38:36.694)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (38:38.241)
I'm just looking at my notes really quick because I want to make sure that I don't miss anything based on...

Okay, you answered so many of my questions without me even having to ask you. So no, means that you're a pro. So okay. So let's transition a little bit to what you're doing now. Because now, like you said, you're still pulled back, you're still pulled back to that environment. But you're doing more of the traditional Chinese medicine, which I'm also super interested in. Do you find that your time

Julie Hatch (38:53.102)
so good.

Chelsea Myers (39:17.594)
working in the NICU impacts how you work as like a functional practitioner or Chinese medicine practitioner at all.

Julie Hatch (39:27.542)
not so much. The Western medicine and Eastern medicine are so different, which is why I left Western medicine. Western medicine absolutely, especially in the NICU has, and I'm sure where your husband was, has so much going for it. we wouldn't be here without it. But I chose Chinese medicine because I was more interested in holistic preventative.

Chelsea Myers (39:35.453)
Yeah!

Julie Hatch (39:53.881)
promoting health and preventing illness rather than treating illness, which I liked when I did it, but I wanted to get into something more holistic. And when I realized that Western medicine is primarily medications and surgeries, I thought, yeah, no, there's gotta be something more to help. It's nice to have a blend of what I know from Western medicine and to blend it with Eastern medicine. That helps a lot, because when people come in and talk about their Western diagnosis, I look at it from the Eastern perspective, but I am able to take what...

they say from the Western perspective. And so it's really kind of, I'm really lucky to be able to blend the two and I think deliver a more, even a more complete kind of a treatment based on my understanding from both perspectives. But I love Chinese medicine. It's so rich and there's so much to it.

Chelsea Myers (40:38.326)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (40:43.533)
Mm hmm. I'm I am learning so much just about Chinese culture in general. Again, this is just a personal like rabbit hole. And the more I learn, the more I love and learning about traditional Chinese medicine has been something that's been very, very interesting to me. So when I saw that that that is what you were doing, I was like, another thing that like I get to I get to gush about a little bit.

Julie Hatch (40:50.958)
Mmm.

Julie Hatch (41:08.174)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (41:11.979)
But the reason I ask the question is because something you said earlier too, like the parents energy impacts the baby. Like even if you can't touch baby, your energy and your hope is being transmitted to baby. And energy work is such a big part of, especially like acupuncture. I mean, you can speak more on that than I can, but.

Julie Hatch (41:37.015)
Yeah, energy work is a big part of acupuncture. there's not, at least when I was in the NICU, there was not a lot of time or room for thinking about energy. But I absolutely believe it. I always did believe it, that when your baby's inside of you, your emotions, the messages that you're sending your baby. And I think it's sometimes hard for pregnant mothers to appreciate that. But it has so much to do with

how the baby's going to be as a little person. And in Chinese medicine, the time of conception, I forgot what the whole thing was, but from the moment of conception is when all kinds of things are set. I shouldn't say in stone, starting the trajectory for the baby from the time of conception, before you even know you're pregnant, can implant a bunch of stuff into the child. So yeah, the energy and so on and then definitely,

Chelsea Myers (42:24.907)
Yeah? Yeah?

Julie Hatch (42:34.734)
Parenting, I was a parenting coach for little while. we silently, not with language and not even with body language, but what we exude to our children is so important and they know how to pick up on every little ray of energy from us, good, bad, or indifferent. So you just want to expend as much positive energy as you can. You want to give them all the positivity that you can.

Chelsea Myers (43:03.883)
Yeah. And that, it relates to like, obviously we're primarily like a perinatal mental health and like birth trauma and all of this stuff are my guests, that's where their stories go. But it's not to say even like you have to be roses and sunshine and rainbows all the time. If you're not in that space, if you don't have that energy to be able to give to them that taking care of yourself is the best gift that you can give yourself and your kids.

Julie Hatch (43:22.446)
All

Julie Hatch (43:32.759)
Absolutely.

Chelsea Myers (43:33.965)
Yeah, so that you can bring your energy back to the game and that you can feel good about it. So it's not a failure. It's not a failure if you're not feeling those positive things. But I do believe you that the energy, yeah.

Julie Hatch (43:48.696)
That's.

That's a very good point. Yeah, because for parents, as parents, you can't possibly feel that way all the time at all. So yes. But so what you, you're right, self care and giving yourself some love and attention and caring rubs off eventually on the kids, best thing you can do, because then you're in a better place to face the hard times and the not so fun, not so positive times.

Chelsea Myers (43:59.2)
No!

Julie Hatch (44:20.546)
Good point, very important point.

Chelsea Myers (44:22.753)
Well, and it's modeling to them to do the same thing, right? It's modeling to our kids that it's okay to take care of your needs so that you can be the best version of yourself. I never got the impression from you that you expected everyone to be roses and sunshine all the time. I just, kind of wanted to make that connection that I do. do, I am a little...

Julie Hatch (44:32.024)
Yep.

Julie Hatch (44:39.588)
You

Chelsea Myers (44:45.485)
I call myself woo woo. I'm a little woo woo. I believe in energy and I believe that our energy really impacts our relationships. And when you're not in a place where you can give the best version of yourself because you don't have it, you can't access it, you got to take care of you. And that energy radiates throughout your whole family. So yeah, that struck a chord with me.

Julie Hatch (44:48.809)
Hahaha

Julie Hatch (45:09.602)
Yep. You're right on.

Chelsea Myers (45:12.331)
Yeah, well, and a great way to not that not that this is like a cure or anything, but I do I do not give advice. I don't like I don't promote different things, but I will say in my own experience, something that has helped me in the past, not with my acute perinatal issues, but with my mental health in the past, acupuncture has been incredibly helpful.

And so it isn't, I'm not saying, I'm not telling you what to do listeners. I'm not saying go get acupuncture or go do this, but I'm saying in my personal experience, this is something that was helpful for me. and I think if it's something that aligns with your, with your belief, give it a shot, give it a shot. Why not?

Julie Hatch (46:04.11)
Yeah, I think a lot of people think that acupuncture is just for pain, headaches or muscle pain. But there's so, like I say, it's a very rich medicine and does so much more than that. And I won't say I specialize, but I really enjoy treating women with stress and anxiety. And there are other disorders also, but it can help so much. I love it when a patient gets off and goes, oh, I feel so great. Like their stress is gone and they can get back into the day.

Chelsea Myers (46:08.631)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (46:30.421)
Yes!

Julie Hatch (46:33.953)
It can be really powerful stuff.

Chelsea Myers (46:36.907)
Yeah, yeah, it absolutely can. And again, this is just speaking from my personal experience, and from the expertise of Julie. So to I do want to spend I do want to spend a little bit just a little bit of time talking about your book. It is a work of fiction, but it's influenced by your experiences in the NICU. You said it's a thriller, which also piques my interest. Tell me a little bit more about that and where it came from.

Julie Hatch (47:09.702)
I can tell you where it came from. Again, in the 90s when things were exploding and an administration likes a full NICU because it's a big moneymaker and I talked about that in the book. The NICU was like, at least it was the number one moneymaker in a hospital, least our maternal. was a women's health and babies, but so it was a number one moneymaker. So administration liked a full NICU and when there weren't enough babies,

Chelsea Myers (47:12.173)
You

Julie Hatch (47:37.987)
They would come through in their little high heels, clicking, saying, know, why aren't there more babies? And I turned to one of, and so there was one of those down days in the midst of weeks and weeks of really a lot of babies, a lot of patients, really high stress. And we had a what down day. And then the next day it filled up again. And I turned to one of my friends and I said, what the heck? is administration, I won't name names, going out and pulling in

these pregnant mothers to make them deliver early so that they would then fill up the NICU. And that's what I said and we all laughed and went, ah, well, that's the basis of my book is that the administration, well, that they're forcing mothers to deliver early in order to fill the NICU, in order to make a buck for the hospital. And part of it in the book, another component is pharmaceuticals. Again, we need pharmaceuticals. I'm not dissing them.

Chelsea Myers (48:26.029)
Mmm.

Julie Hatch (48:35.532)
Sometimes their ethics aren't quite right. And so I get into that a little bit in the book. One of the little subplots is about the ethics of pharmaceutical companies holding things over parents' heads. anyhow, so that's where it came from is that, these doctors must be, somebody is making these mothers deliver early. And so that's what the whole thing is, that the protagonist delivers early. And so the whole book is about how she finds out

who's doing this, why they're doing it, and catching him and proving it and all that kind of stuff.

Chelsea Myers (49:10.369)
Yeah, I kind of love that you wrote that because I think anybody listening can agree that you care deeply about the work that goes on in the NICU and like you keep saying, like there is a place for Western medicine and what we were doing is really important. And you can also look at this and create this work that's like, they're making them have the bit, they're just going out there and making people go to like.

I just, I don't want to laugh, but I do at the same time. I'm like, what a perfect person to write that kind of a book. You know what I mean?

Julie Hatch (49:50.531)
Yeah, it's one of those things, a lot of people say that writing starts with a what if, like a what if scenario. What if this were to happen and then this happens and then the story goes on and so that's what I was like. What if there was somebody that wants to make these others deliver early? And it does sound, yes, obviously that's very dark and to the extent that I take it in the book, it's not really realistic. However, there are times when doctors will do a C-section before they go away on vacation.

where they'll bump up, they'll induce a baby before Christmas holiday comes along. So there's very obviously much milder forms of what I write about, but that does happen. They try to manipulate. I can't say whether they do it for money. I hate to believe that, but just to try to make it best for the baby, the mother, and the doctor. That's how they do. They manipulate. They will manipulate deliveries for that reason.

Chelsea Myers (50:17.899)
Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Myers (50:40.234)
Yeah.

Chelsea Myers (50:44.233)
Yeah, that's something that I've heard. I've heard about doctors trying to stick to timelines or trying to get home for dinner or trying to leave for a for a vacation. And again, we're not dissing doctors, but it is so there is a any good work of fiction, any good work of fiction has a nugget of reality in it. So like I said, like

Julie Hatch (50:56.717)
Mm-hmm.

Julie Hatch (51:01.197)
No.

Chelsea Myers (51:11.007)
Yeah, I'm like really excited now and I may need to put it higher on my TBR. But anyway.

Julie Hatch (51:11.244)
Yeah, yeah.

Chelsea Myers (51:23.099)
Okay, all right brain brain stopped again

Julie Hatch (51:24.11)
I will tell you it's a very quick read. The chapters are short and it's a very quick read.

Chelsea Myers (51:33.304)
Perfect, that's what I need. And I'm always good, like I love the whole like true crime thriller genre. yeah, it's going up on the list. Okay, I'm gonna start to, I'm gonna wind us around. I feel like we're at a good wind around point. So let me just figure out how to do it. Cause you know, I'm supposed to be professional but I'm really just a mom who's exhausted.

I so okay, so I'm really excited. I'm excited that we got to talk about your book a little bit. I'm excited that we got to talk about what you're doing today, especially with traditional Chinese medicine, just because I got to nerd out a little bit with you. And I'm really, really grateful that I was able to chat with you and that moms and families are going to hear from someone who was in the trenches just

Julie Hatch (52:06.35)
Good.

Chelsea Myers (52:31.189)
I mean, beside them on their journey for so long and for those who haven't experienced it to get some insight into what it can look like and maybe be able to not have as many fears going into the NICU.

Chelsea Myers (52:51.307)
I don't know how much of a lag there was.

Let's see. Can you hear me right now?

Chelsea Myers (53:06.579)
You can't hear me, can you?

Chelsea Myers (53:19.073)
Julie, can you hear me?

Julie Hatch (53:24.151)
Yeah

Chelsea Myers (53:24.941)
no!

Well done.

Can you hear what I'm saying at all?

Chelsea Myers (53:36.941)
No! Hold on. I'm getting a lot of smiling and nodding, but I don't think you can hear me. Hold on.

Chelsea Myers (54:04.545)
I don't know if you're seeing my messages. You're such a great job nodding and I don't know if you can hear me.

Julie Hatch (54:11.382)
Well, I hope that it was helpful to your listeners.

Chelsea Myers (54:18.696)
good. goodness. This is all gonna catch up and you're gonna say, you're gonna say what is happening. Julie.

Julie Hatch (54:31.566)
You

Chelsea Myers (54:34.241)
Can you hear me right now or no?

Julie Hatch (54:38.158)
Now I can, yeah. There's a lot of lag, a lot of interruption.

Chelsea Myers (54:44.062)
Yeah. Okay.

Okay.

I'm gonna talk and I'm gonna hope that you can hear me.

Julie Hatch (54:57.378)
can hear you.

Chelsea Myers (54:58.573)
Okay, okay, okay, okay. So...

Chelsea Myers (55:05.965)
Okay, I'm just making sure, I'm making sure that you're not hearing me from before, that you're hearing me now. Okay, good, okay.

Julie Hatch (55:13.25)
Yes.

Chelsea Myers (55:18.049)
So I just, want to thank you. I want to thank you for your patience. I want to thank you for your time and your expertise. And if you could kind of leave my listeners with a message to take away from your story today, from sharing your experience, what would you hope that message would be?

Julie Hatch (55:47.599)
I would hope that that message will first of all, thank you for this opportunity, Chelsea. It took me back to the years that I were just so, I don't know, interesting, rewarding, exciting, really great, 30 years of my professional life. And I think that what I would say is, and again, I don't wanna be all rose colored glasses and whatever her name is, whatever.

Chelsea Myers (56:17.025)
pop-ins and like, yeah.

Julie Hatch (56:18.781)
Yeah. But to try to see things as hopefully as possible, with as much hope as possible. And even when you feel like there is no hope left, there always is hope left. And you just never know what tomorrow is going to bring. You never know what six hours from now is going to bring, especially in a, well, with any motherhood of any child. It doesn't matter whether you're in the NICU or whether you're running, you know.

Chelsea Myers (56:43.894)
Yeah?

Julie Hatch (56:46.924)
people are running around the house. Things, this too shall pass is one way to put it. And so just to hang on to the hope and belief in the better days ahead if you're having a bad day, because there are always better days ahead.

Chelsea Myers (57:01.889)
Yeah, and I know that that's going to resonate and it's resonating with me today. So thank you again. It has been such a joy.

Julie Hatch (57:08.59)
You

Thank you.

Chelsea Myers (57:12.92)
Alright, I'm gonna push stop. It's not gonna hang up on us.