The NICU Translated Podcast

Mary Farrelly (00:00)
If you've ever walked into a NICU and felt your heart race, whether you are a parent, a doula or brand new nurse, you are not alone. I remember my very first NICU shift. The lights were super bright, the beeping never stopped, and the tiniest babies I'd ever seen were surrounded by more tubes and wires than I could count. And in the middle of it all were parents who love their babies fiercely, but didn't always have the words, the tools or the support to feel empowered in that space. That moment was the start of a journey I didn't

fully understand at the time and one that's brought me here to you today.

Hi friends, welcome to this very first episode. I have been dreaming up this podcast for like two years now and it's so exciting to finally put it out into the world.

I thought that we kind of start this very first episode together just getting to know each other and you getting to know a little bit about me because you might be thinking like why Mary? Why do I want to listen to her voice every week talking to me about the NICU?

So I thought I kind of rewind all the way back to the beginning of my story, which, it goes all the way back to like Little Mary. I grew up in upstate New York, I had a lovely childhood. But I was always that girl that the friend that wanted to play two things. I either wanted to play ⁓ birth. So I wanted to, you know, birth the stuffies and have...

like little nursery of all these animals and dolls that I take care of. Or I wanted to play business, where I was the one who had these like super inventive ideas for, know, I wanted to make a nature club for my friends. I wanted to build an ice cream truck and bring it around my neighborhood and like line it with ice packs. So I always kind of had that idea that if there was a problem, I wanted to fix it or make it better. So.

Little Mary grew up, went to college, wasn't sure what I wanted to be, thought, you know, a nice job might be a lawyer. That's something that a lot of people want to do. So my first degree I actually majored in, pre-law and I minored in Italian. So I was able to do, you know, I studied abroad, did all the magical things and then realized towards the end of my first bachelor's degree that I really wanted to

help people and that my call to meet women during their prenatal and birth and postpartum experience was more than just something I wanted to play as a little girl. It was truly a what felt like at the time like a calling. So I decided that I wanted to become a nurse midwife. So I went finished up my first degree, worked on a bunch of pre-reqs. I worked as a medical assistant in an OB-GYN office and got a tons of

prenatal hands-on experience there, which was super helpful, informative. And then I was accepted into a second degree nursing program. So it was super accelerated, you know, do all the things in 18 months to become a registered nurse. So throughout that entire training, I did it with the goal of going back to school one day, working for a bit, and then going back to school to become a nurse midwife, get my master's in nursing midwifery.

And so with that in mind, I did one of those first like pivotal moments where you don't even realize it's happening. And when it's happening is I took my very first doula training during nursing school. So I was like, you know, cute little 23 year old who had never had a baby or, know, really knew anybody in my close circle that experienced birth or pregnancy. I mean, obviously people did, but I wasn't.

It wasn't like I had a sister or anybody who had been going through that. my nursing school had partnered with a doula training program. And as part of that, I was able to become a certified doula. So I then used those skills throughout the remainder of nursing school to work as a community doula. So I worked mostly with low income and teen moms and kind of offering free doula services for them, which was...

really an incredible way to start as a nurse because I from the very beginning was learning all of the you know, the medical diagnoses and the Pathophysiology and pharmacology anatomy and physiology and all those things that go into nursing school But I also was learning at the same time the art of being a doula what it means to show up and Walk alongside people during some of their most vulnerable moments and in a way

in a role where you're not there to save the day, like sometimes medical professionals do, but in a way that I was walking alongside them and helping them make empowered and informed decisions. So I learned those skills at a very young age as a nurse. Then I graduated, thought I wanted to work in labor and delivery.

knew which hospital I wanted to work at because it was where my now husband was working, so was going to move to a new city. And I interviewed and they're like, you know, we just don't have any other labor and delivery new grad nurse jobs, but we do have this job in a NICU. And I was like, the NICU I had seen in nursing school, I remember when I was also, another job I had in nursing school was as a care partner in labor and delivery. So I was like a tech basically. So I got to

I was the one setting up supplies in the deliveries, but I didn't do the hands-on care, but I was there and watching everything. I remember a 24-week delivery that I went to as a tech in Labor and Delivery and seeing this NICU team come in, and I thought they were just so cool. I was like, how in the world did these people know how to care for this incredibly small and fragile infant?

And I was like, I could never, literally I remember thinking that I could never do that. I'm here to do the labor part, the NICU is for somebody else. But here I am a couple, know, 18 months later with this choice, do I want to stay at this hospital that I want to work at and work in the NICU or try to figure something else out? And I remember being like, you know what? I can, you can do anything for a year. I'll try it for a year or so. And then I'll have that year of experience as a nurse and I can go anywhere I could

try again to go into labor and delivery and then follow that path that I had set up for myself. But that was 13 years ago. And since then, I have only ever worked as a nurse with NICU patients. Those tiny little babies just wrapped me right around their finger and I never looked back. There was actually one moment about three years later, we were ready to move to a new city. And I also had that choice.

there were two jobs. could have taken a NICU job or a labor and delivery job. And I realized that moment was like, if I commit to NICU, then this dream of being a nurse midwife is no longer for me. It's not like it's gone forever, but I just kind of realized it was no longer for me. And I took a NICU job and have continued on ever since. So the NICU is so incredibly special. And one of the reasons why I fell in love with it so much is that you were able

as a nurse even, to form these really powerful, really beautiful relationships with the families and the babies. ⁓ Labor and delivery and other types of nursing, tends to be, you're really in a super important moment in a family's life, but it is usually not that long of a duration. Some births are longer than others, but it's less likely that you're going to be with that family for days.

weeks, months, sometimes longer. And in the NICU, you really get to form these special relationships and watch these incredible tiny humans, the babies in the NICU, grow and develop and transform from being these tiny fragile little fighters to babies that are chunky and going home and defying all the odds to get there. So there's really nothing like it. ⁓

and it is such a special part and I'm so honored to have been a part of so many families' stories throughout the past decade or more. But also throughout my NICU journey, I've had many different roles. I've always worked at the bedside in some capacity caring for patients, but I also have throughout my career,

taken on other leadership roles in ⁓ hospital admin from being the charge nurse, team lead, to a about five year time when I served as my unit's nurse educator. So I created and taught curriculum for new nurses that were learning basically like what is the NICU and how to take care of NICU babies. Because in nursing school even,

If you're lucky, you maybe get four hours of shadowing time in the NICU as part of your mandatory curriculum. And some nursing programs, especially if the program is not near a NICU or multiple NICUs, may not have any exposure. So we kind of joke for our new nurses that come through the NICU that you basically have to unlearn everything you learned in nursing school because what is true for an adult often is the opposite for a neonate or a baby.

So I helped to create a new curriculum and teach that for hundreds of nurses that went through the orientation period. because cf that I learned also about myself that I truly love to teach. I love to take concepts that are confusing or overwhelming and translate them into ways that people can really understand. And throughout that experience, I also

kind of honed in on the value that the key to feeling safe and empowered in most situations that otherwise would feel traumatic or overwhelming, like the NICU, is empowered education, is understanding enough to be able to feel confident in the ability to advocate for yourself. And for nurses that were new, this would look like, this is really where my,

My focus was being able to build their confidence to be able to advocate for their patients and feel confident in their clinical judgment skills and ability to interpret and understand the differences in the unique voice that a NICU baby has. Because they're not able to tell you, my tummy hurts. We have to use clues and really be in tuned with all their different.

more subtle signs that they can show us about things that are going on. But it wasn't until I started my journey into becoming a parent myself that I was really, my eyes were wide open, blown open to how challenging the NICU experience is for families. So as a new nurse, you're really focused a lot on

I mean, it's incredibly overwhelming to be a new nurse in the NICU. I remember some of my very first shifts as a brand new baby nurse. The first time I was asked to put an IV in a baby and I was like, you have got to be kidding me. Like this thing is the size of a spaghetti. This baby's arm is the size of, you know, a hot dog. And I don't know. I can't, you guys are cool. You can do it. I'm not cool enough to do this.

And so there's a

learn as a new nurse in the NICU. And there's a transition and a transformation there from beginner to novice to expert. But when I started my journey towards parenting and had ⁓ my own experiences, which I'll touch on here, I really realized, especially as a new nurse, how little I really understood what families were going through.

⁓ You know, you always you know, it's hard for a family like you can see that families are struggling and are upset but sometimes I felt like I was I didn't even realize this like I was so focused in on the Tasks that needed to be done as a NICU nurse, which is very true You know You have all this charting and all these hands-on medical care that you need to give to this baby in order for them to continue to survive and thrive but

We didn't have the real understanding or training to be able to support families in their most vulnerable moments. So families often got down the totem pole. Like if I could get to them and help them in a way that I had capacity or understanding for, I obviously would. I was a doula at heart. Most nurses do not go to nursing school because they want to cause harm. We all go to nursing school because we have this innate drive to help.

That is really the most people when they choose nursing that is is where their heart and their their values are But my journey to becoming a parent was had a lot of twists and turns For my own journey. I had multiple miscarriages before becoming pregnant with my first daughter and throughout this experiences I really had my eyes open to all the power of words to hurt

or to harm and when you're in a vulnerable situation, for me, like a loss, but for families also in the NICU, how sticky those words are. So even if we don't realize what we're saying in those moments, whether you're a healthcare provider, a doula, another family member supporting your loved one, our words are really incredibly powerful. And I had one instance when I was in the

I was in the emergency room, actively bleeding with my first loss. And, you know, wasn't quite sure yet whether this was just bleeding or whether this was the end of my pregnancy, but I knew in my gut that it was not going to be good. And the resident came in and I could tell was just baseline uncomfortable with talking to me about this specific topic. You know, the ED is not OBs and not everybody or ED being emergency room.

or emergency department, they're not as comfortable always with, you know, labor and delivery and OB-GYN type topics. But this provider said to me, you know, the lab show that that you're this is definitely a miscarriage and this pregnancy is ending. And then he said to me, well, at least this means you can go to a winery with your friends now. I was like,

That's true. I'm not sure where you think that's going to help me. And obviously those words still very much echo in my head. And even though in the moment I just kind of went with it, I was so just angry thinking about how those words, how that, that is how that experience was for me. And it was from their words, not my own lived experience.

So I did have my second daughter or my first daughter after my three losses, she was a beautiful rainbow baby. And I call her on social media. I don't use my kids first names, my nickname, one of my nicknames for her is Moop, M-O-O-P, which is a little silly, but. So Moop was born and did not need the NICU, but did have a birth experience that required a lot of advocacy on my end and my doula.

⁓ which was also very formative. And then after my second daughter was born, I thought everything was going great. I had actually a pretty lovely postpartum experience for the first, you know, 10, 12-ish weeks or so. I felt really supportive. I was like, I can have five more kids. This is easy. This is great. So beautiful. And then I went back to work.

And right around that four-ish month mark, I started to have some really intense symptoms of postpartum depression and anxiety. Just extreme feelings of overwhelm, anger, rage. I wouldn't say just anger, like straight postpartum rage mixed with like feeling like I just nothing made me happy. Like I just didn't want to do anything. I just wanted to curl up in a ball and that was it.

I just didn't, I just couldn't. So that's when I started my journey into understanding the mental health aspect because before then it was more of this lived experience, how it feels like to be a patient in the healthcare system, the power of words. But now I was experiencing all these mental health symptoms that I had never had before. And they were incredibly humbling. I also for years as a nurse had told people in my life, including my patients,

about how important therapy was, but had never done it myself. The classic nurse, know, we're like the most horrible patients. We never take our own advice, but I recognized and people, my loved ones in my life recognized that I needed more than just getting through this. this was, this required additional support. So through a lot of trial and error, I found a therapist whom I loved dearly.

and got me through to the other side of my postpartum mental health experience. But throughout that journey and on the other side, really once I kind of re-stabilized and was able to feel more of myself, I realized if it was this hard for me, someone who had at that point, you know, seven plus years of NICU experience, so I was an expert in baby care.

Plus I had a supportive family. Plus this was my second baby, so I shouldn't have been surprising. I went back to a fairly supportive work environment and it was still this hard for me. So I had this epiphany realizing like if it's this hard for me, how impossible must this feel for NICU's families, especially with that transition to home.

So when families go from 24-7 nursing care, continuous monitoring, being able to turn around and say, I have a question and there's a nurse or a provider there to help you answer it, to kind of being like, here's your baby, off you go. And I realized that I could be that person to help support families through this transition. So I had the NICU, the knowledge of my years of NICU nursing, plus I had the skills of my doula skills. And so...

I created and founded the Niku Translator. Initially, rewinding even further back, I had started the Niku Translator Instagram as like a fun creative outlet during COVID for myself. So, you know, some people like to like embroider or craft. I really enjoy making reels and working on Canva and making templates. So that was like my crafting therapy, but I had paused it and like totally ghosted on it for at that point, almost two years. I was there, but I had just...

not touched it. And it was June, I remember, and I just got down in my, I was in my basement, I was like, I'm just gonna post on Instagram, I'm just gonna do it, like you just gotta do it messy, just put it out there. So I opened up and I said, hey, I'm back, I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I can't wait to see where that comes. So that was in July of 2023, so just over two years ago at this point, if you're listening to this fresh on the launch date.

and I decided to start a business as a NICU doula And at that point, the word NICU doula and still is a fairly new concept. There were a few people using that phrase before me. You know, I didn't invent the term NICU Doula but I knew that this is something, a gap that I could help fill, especially within my local community. So I started taking, I decided,

I had to learn the behind the scenes of how to be a business, what is an LLC, what is business insurance, how to write a contract, and all the pieces that go into being an entrepreneur, which I also realized that I truly love this. If you remember in the beginning of this episode, I was that little girl who wanted to start businesses and fix ideas and do all the things. So this part also scratches that itch. I love learning about this new thing and it's...

Like I feel it. felt like a new grad in business and now maybe by two years later I'm like, you know, maybe a beginner to advanced beginner. I'm starting to get the hang of it a little bit But I started taking clients I decided I only wanted to do virtual work because I still at that time when I started my youngest was not even a year old And my oldest had just turned four. So I'm still very much in the trenches with my little ones

And my youngest or her nickname is Squidge. So I have Moop and Squidge, which are not obviously their legal names, but that's what you might hear them refer to on this podcast. So I continued to take virtual clients and really focused in as is the NICU duo in building family's confidence back up from their NICU experience into their life as parents at home because

As we're going to talk through in many of these episodes, it is a different transition that requires additional support because the NICU really shakes things up. It really changes kind of how families experience those early days and months of postpartum. So working with NICU families as a NICU doula just continued to open my eyes bigger and bigger and bigger into the need for specialized support for families. So...

Medical professionals do an incredible job at caring for the medical needs of these fragile and critically ill premature or not newborns. The neonatology and neonatal medicine, the improvements that have been made even in the 13-ish years of nursing that I've had are incredible. Like we're able to resuscitate babies that are

22 weeks and even when I started NICU nursing the cutoff was 23 weeks and even then those outcomes were not as good as they are now. So the medical care is incredible, but what is often missing is the emotional and practical support of NICU families. And so I started realizing and hearing from other doulas in my communities that I was a part of as a NICU doula and as a birth doula, trained birth doula.

⁓ that there is a gap in their own knowledge of how to support their clients through NICU experiences, but wanting in this knowing that they could bring their doula skills and support families who are going through the crisis that is the NICU for many families. So I initially started building a smaller training called Navigating the NICU for Doulas that offers foundational knowledge and understanding of the NICU so that doulas can help

their families navigate those early days prenatally for NICU prep and throughout the NICU stay and beyond. And then even beyond those classes, I had so many people, families, nurses, and doulas and other support professionals reaching out and wanting more. So I created a full NICU doula certification program called NICU Doula Academy, which has

30 hours of nursing education contact hours accredited through AHNA which is the American Holistic Nurses Association. So it's a 10 week certification program that allows people to hone in on their NICU support skills to be able to show up for families in a way that is currently missing. a lot of NICUs, just because of how the logistics of how healthcare runs, especially I'm in the United States,

especially with patient load and staffing and charting and all the other ratios and demands that a lot of healthcare providers have, NICU Doulas can really step into that space. So I'm excited to talk more about some of the work that NICU Doulas that have gone through NICU Doula Academy and everything the NICU Doulas are doing in their communities and also how nurses are starting to take

the training as NICU dualism, bringing it to the bedside to show up for families in a way that maybe wasn't even thought of or fully prioritized before. So I started this podcast as a way to help build empowered education for families and the professionals that support them. I know families in the NICU are often learning

like it feels like a fire hose. They're getting all this information sprayed at them constantly. They're postpartum. They're, you know, probably still bleeding, maybe in pain. They are overwhelmed by their own experience and don't always have a lot of time, but are craving better understanding of what's going on with their baby so that they can be able to support them and advocate for them and parent them.

The NICU Translated podcast is going to be a easy to use, heartfelt, but practical resource for families and professionals to be able to help translate the NICU with this empowered education. So we're gonna have three different kind of formats of episodes. We're gonna have the NICU Translated ones, which are going to be short little breakdowns. So we're gonna talk about different diagnoses like, know, CPAP or...

RDS or all the alphabet soup of what is in the NICU. And we're gonna break it down into ways that are easy to understand. So if you're a family, you can learn about these different acronyms and diagnoses and equipment. If you're a professional, you might be able to learn another way to talk about these topics with your clients or your patients. I'm also gonna have some lists and guides. Again, this is like, we don't have hours to talk to each other. These podcasts are not gonna be two hours long. I don't have that much time.

I'm a busy mom, nurse, doula, business owner, all the things also. So I know that our time is valuable. So the listening guys are gonna be like, top five NICU myths, seven ways to support a NICU family, like easy to understand practical things that you can implement immediately after listening to the episode. And then we're gonna also have interviews. So I'm bringing on some incredible people that are both NICU parents themselves.

doulas, nurses, therapists, other experts that can bring their special knowledge on different topics and kind of go deeper in those areas. So those episodes are gonna be able both to get to know other people in our NICU community, because it's a really special one, and to kind of go deeper on different aspects of NICU care that maybe are gaps in our own knowledge. And so the beauty of adding experts in also is the NICU Translated Podcast is not just about.

the weeks or days that you're in the NICU. Because of my focus as a NICU-Doula during the transition to home, we're also really going to hone in on how to support these babies in the days, weeks, months, and years after discharge because the NICU journey does not end at discharge, as we know. It is an incredible moment and a point of celebration, but the NICU is chapter one and Life After NICU is chapter two. So we're going to bring people and topics in that are relevant for

the full spectrum of the NICU journey and understanding. So some things that we're gonna have coming up, the next episode is gonna be NICU 101 Crash Course. You can go back and listen to that at any point. I'm talk about when can my baby go home, five things to know about preemies, building your NICU support team. And again, listening to some experts and other students even who have gone through NICU Doula Academy and are now making an incredible impact in their own local NICU and NICU communities.

So I wanted to first just say thank you for taking the time to listen and to follow along on this journey, whether you are a NICU family yourself or a support professional like a doula or a nurse or anybody in between, I am just so honored to have you here and I wanna make this for you. So I'm always open to ideas and feedback and topics.

⁓ I hang out on Instagram a lot. I'm at the NICU translator and then my website, thenicutranslator.com is filled with resources, free resources for families and professionals. And if you are a professional, like a nurse or doula, nanny, newborn care specialist who is interested in really going deep and becoming that trusted resource for your community, all the information about the foundational course, Navigating the NICU and the full certification course, NICU Doula Academy.

are there as well. So that's it for this episode. The NICU will always be a place of machines and medicine and miracles, but can also be a place of connection, compassion and hope. And that's the journey we're gonna take together here because the NICU is only the beginning and together we can make this journey less overwhelming and a lot more empowering. NICU love, love Mary.