#1 Bundle Birth-isms

Justine:

Guys. What? Sarah, what? It’s July 11th.

Sarah:

How did that happen? We’ve been talking about this for

Justine:

I think over a year.

Sarah:

Yeah, at least

Justine:

I’m so excited. It’s here! If you’re listening right now, especially on July 11th, we are so excited you’re here. We made this podcast for you specifically, and we’re just pumped and we wanna start it off with a little fun, get to know, Bundle Birth and Bundle Birth isms. We say things a lot here at Bundle Birth Nurses and Bundle Birth. And I posted actually recently on Instagram stories asking what are some things we say, what are some Bundle Birth isms? And there was definitely a theme. And so I’m surprised. Well, we had all of those written down, so I’m glad there was no like random outliers.

nd so we wanted to explain a little bit, especially cuz there’s people coming to Bundle Birth Nurses every day that are new and it’s gonna be nice to just explain what they are. And so we have a couple and there might be a part two, cause we say a lot of things. To get us started is Sarah, do you wanna start with like the,

Sarah:

The main one,

Justine:

The main one, the like the bread and butter?

Sarah:

The bread, I guess it’s the bread and butter. This is like my one, I think it’s my only trademark anything right now. Everything else is in the works. I was thinking about this episode and I’m like, how do you ever start out a podcast? Like that is so much pressure. We have other episodes recorded, and I’m like, ah, how do we like invite them in? And this to me is a way for you to understand sort of like the lingo at Bundle Birth. We all have OB lingo where like, I’m, you know, I have a G2P1 that presents to L&D SROM at 1600, right?

Justine:

It’s a different language.

Sarah:

Yes, exactly. And so we want you to be able to speak “Bundle Birth” and know what we’re talking about when we reference certain things. Because what we’ve found is a lot of these isms apply to not only work cuz that’s sort of where they, well, that’s actually not where they started. I’m gonna tell you where they started, but then also for life, which is really important to us here at Bundle Birth. So the first one: you’ve maybe heard, I do have a YouTube channel if you don’t know this already and on my YouTube channel I say at the end of every single video, drum roll, please, “and don’t forget to flex and flow and I will see you soon. Bye” Every single time.

Justine:

Someone actually wrote that in our Instagram box, like, I’ll see you next time. It’s so cute.

Sarah:

Well, and flex and flow actually started from growing up in Ecuador. So, fun fact about me, I grew up in South America in Quito, Ecuador. I moved there when I was in seventh grade and then graduated high school there. And one of the things about growing up in a third world country in a country that maybe isn’t quite as politically, financially stable as the United States, although right now, who knows what’s happening with the United States there were many, many times where we said this in order to cope with whatever was going on. I remember one time, like there was no milk in the grocery store for a while. There was no eggs in the grocery store for a while. And like, we’d have plans to make eggs or <laugh>, you can get over not making eggs, but you know, we’d have these plans for life or you’d plan ahead, or something was supposed to be delivered on a certain day and it never was. And so what we would say in order to cope was flex and flow. And the idea is that being flexible and going with the flow are two of those components where we have to be flexible in life and just go with the flow. So flex and flow, I have said with clients for years, and I really adopted into the Bundle Birth ism language when I started Bundle Birth. Then I had somebody tell me, you should say that at the end of your video. So I kind of did. And now it’s my thing. It’s what I’m known for. And really, I think I’ll probably get a tattoo at some point because not only is it important for labor, we know that labor is not the same for everybody, we know that it is flexible and you have to go with the flow. Same idea is say birth plans or when I’m prepping families, I’m like, you know, I can give you an answer. I’m teaching a childbirth class. I can give you an answer of like, sort of what this looks like. But there is so much flexi flowy going on in there where we have to be able to sort of just go where the river takes labor. And this is the idea of holding your hands open and I’m probably giving away another one that like, sort of plays in, but we’ll just go with it. Is this idea of picking up what you can control and letting go of the rest? I have this imagery and this picture, which maybe we can post actually – let’s do it on your Instagram and mine today for the podcast of hands in the sand.

And we’ve recreated this for Cancun. I’m sure it will play into our Cancun learning retreat, but that when we pick up what we can control, we can grip on so tightly to what we want and what happens is, first of all, we’re not able to receive the other good things that fall into or are trying to fall into our hand, right? But there’s this release of tension. This softening in our body, which we know for labor is so important, but also for life that we’re trying to sort of hold loosely to our expectations, hold loosely to, you know, our plans or whatever we can control hold onto what you can control. And then trust that the sand falling through the fingers is supposed to fall through your fingers. And so for me, those two really go hand in hand and I’ll say, pick up what you can control and let go of the rest.

Some of that for labor is like who’s in the room or what lighting they have or what supplies they bring for labor or how they choose to cope with pain. And sometimes when labor is flowy and we’re flexing and flowing with how slow or fast, induced, uncomplicated, all of those things, that this sort of catch phrase for we’re flexing and flowing helps to diffuse the tension and helps realize that one of the things they can control is their ability to be flexible and go with the flow. And so I say this in my regular everyday life, anybody that knows me they’ll see that I will come up against a conflict or like, oh boy, what’s this that we have to face now and be like, all right, flex and flow, we’re gonna be flexible and go with the flow. And that to me is one of the most, probably significant coping tools that I have for my life. And then I use regularly with clients and at the bedside for birth,

Justine:

I will say too, I think in the past like few months, I’ve started to say it regularly, not just her on the birth, love it, like walking out of the grocery store and they didn’t have something exactly. Wow. Flex and flow. And they, the other day, Jordy of my sister was like, you’re branded. I was like, it just came out naturally.

Sarah:

I have clients that I’ll run into in LA somewhere, or they’ll follow up for a second pregnancy or they’ll just text me on the regular and they’ll be like it’s funny, it’s usually their husband where they’re like, I heard my husband say the other day flex and flow. And I was so proud. That’s so awesome because it is, it’s one of those like sort of phrases that does, you’ll find yourself that once you sort of get it, it applies to so many circumstances that are hard to cope with. And that are like, oh, I’m really struggling with expectations. I’m really struggling with like letting this go. And, and I will say that like when I have been flexible and gone with the flow, that there’s sort of this organic movement of life that happens, and we can either fight it or we can sort of release and, and go with it. And when I’ve done that, I can think of many times in my life, which could be a whole nother podcast episode of when I’ve let go of those expectations and something better has come to me because I’ve sort of just like, all right, my hands are open. I am soft. I am not resisting I’m flexing and flowing.

Justine:

You are flexing and flowing. I love that. And I love that you incorporated the other one too. So that’s great.

Sarah:

Yeah. Bonus

Justine:

Bonus

Sarah:

Justine, you have a Bundle Birth ism that you brought on a whim that I would love to hear about. Tell us about the hashtag team underwear movement.

Justine:

Yeah. I would love to tell you, I think too, I don’t think I talk about it enough recently and I need to like start bringing it back up because there might be a lot of people that don’t know. If you’ve been around for a little while, at least maybe a year, a year and a half. You’ve probably heard team underwear and have learned. And maybe you’ve been like, what are you talking about? Are they just giving underwear out? We have a pin. We have a really cute pin in our shop team underwear. So and a sticker actually. Oh yeah. And a sticker. We do tracing Tuesday on Instagram. If you didn’t know, it’s very fun. It’s a case study. I told, I told my friend the other day, I don’t think I’ve been committed to anything more in my life than these tracing Tuesdays.

I think we’re on like our, fourth 34th, 34th, 35th week of case studies with random like tracing Thursdays instead of Tuesdays thrown in there, a part of tracing Tuesday was a case study about offering a patient underwear when, you know, they were SROMMED or wanted to get up and, you know, move. And it sparked a lot of drama in my messages about like, not being able to give underwear or why would they give underwear? And then I was like, oh, like, that’s not a thing. And I was like, yeah, it wasn’t a thing. When I first started, when I first started L and D it was, you know, take off all your clothes, put on your gown, pee in the cup, get on bed. No questions asked. It wasn’t totally, you know, do you wanna take off your clothes?

you can leave your underwear on or not. It was, you know, about a year and a half into my practice that I was like, we just, they had underwear on five minutes ago in the elevator and it was fine. And now they have to take everything off. And I had this realization that I felt like we were stripping people of their rights, as soon as they walked on the, of their rights. As soon as they walked onto the floor. And I didn’t love that. And I hope none of you guys love that. And if you’re just realizing that now it can be a, it can be a hard thing to realize, especially being a nurse and wanting to care for people and wanting to do the best and wanting to empower our patients. And that’s usually why we get into this field.

And then we’re just like disempowering them by saying they can’t do a lot of things. And so hashtag team underwear came from not only offering underwear or saying, yeah, wear your underwear, do whatever you want to do, whatever you want. You’re a human being with rights. You have patient rights. You wanna get up, you can get up, but let’s talk about it, right? Let’s have conversations. Let’s stop pretending like these aren’t adults in front of you that can make decisions for their body and have body autonomy. Right. And so, you know, it’s led into so many different themes of what we do here at bun birth with, you know, education and shared decision making. And a lot of things, especially in mentorship that are, they can do what they want. Let’s educate them, tell ’em our recommendations. Right. We, we also talk about like the word, let first recommend we can’t let you outta bed versus we’d recommend you stay in bed.

There’s so many things in our verbiage that are, we just, we’re trained to say, because we’ve heard other people say it, right. We hear our preceptor say that. And we’re like, okay, that’s how I say that. So that’s how I’m gonna say that for the rest of my life. Totally just so nervous about saying something wrong. And I think that when you let that go and you open your hands to just having conversations to patients like open and honest conversations, and being honest about, like, I don’t know why they’re recommending that, but I can make a phone call. Cause that’s a really good question, right? No, one’s asked me that before. Let me go figure that out. And just being flexible to different patients and different experiences and different expectations that everyone has for their birth experience. Cuz yeah. Birth is labor is labor for a lot of times and birth is birth, but everyone feels like different about different things. And so that’s a rant for me, but team underwear, body autonomy, patient rights, they are in control. I like to say a lot of times, like you’re the captain of this ship, I’m just a passenger. Like you tell me what you want. Sarah, you say something in mentorship that I love of the, I want you to make a decision outta knowledge, not out of fear. And so I think that comes into it too. Like just learn how to educate your patients truthfully and honestly,

Sarah:

Yes. Ooh. That’s a good podcast episode. Let’s write that one down.

Justine:

Yeah. Because so many times I think we just like, we don’t wanna get into it with them. Right, and, and also I will say that I’ve had a lot of nursing students tell me that they have instructors that tell them, don’t ask them cuz it gives them a reason to say no, it gives them a chance to say no. So we, we even get trained sometimes into not asking our patients, if we can do something, it’s, I’m gonna give you your medicine now. Right. Instead of like, is it a good time to give you your medicine now? Like that’s just, that’s very different.

Sarah:

And the outcome is likely the same. Oh likely. But it has a completely different feel of the energy in the room that you bring to your patient’s experience.

Justine:

Yeah. Is it okay? Is it okay if I do this 99.9% of the time, they’re gonna say yes or they’re gonna be like, can we do it like five minutes actually? Great. Yeah, we can do it five minutes. So that’s team underwear, team underwear is a movement and I’m thankful for everyone that’s on the team. And I, we will, I will say that we’ve had patients and doulas and nurses like be connected because they all had a pin on. So get that pin, represent team underwear. And it also sparks a lot of conversations with your coworkers, which is really nice.

Sarah:

Well, and when you wear that pin, it’s saying, I stand for the shared decision making model, which we can talk about in another episode. And I, I am here to support your preferences, your wishes to the best of my ability under the lens of safety. Yeah. you know, and the question for us always is, is it truly a safety concern or is it just what I’ve been told? Yeah.

Justine:

You comfortable with this? For what reason?

Sarah:

Right? I have to be honest. I totally didn’t get the team underwear thing at first, like I was like, what is this team? Underwear thing? Hashtag I team underwear. I’m like, okay, cool. But then when you explained it, I was like, oh my gosh, this is entirely our values here. And I think about like just how uncomfortable it is to feel naked. You already in labor feel vulnerable and like, like looked at and potentially uncomfortable being in a hospital setting and then your commander the whole time. And you’re worried about like people getting a peek or who’s behind the door or your butt hanging out, like, you know, and that to me was where like I started to connect with it too of like, yeah, like we need to offer underwear for the sake of just comfort so they can soften, they can release tension and they’re not always so on guard, which physiologically, you know, miss physiologic birth over here that really can help labor as well. So I love that component of it too. There’s so many things we can do. We’ll do a whole episode on team underwear. At some point.

Justine:

We also have another one that came out of like mentorship there. If you wanna talk about that one. Yeah. Was it mentorship?

Sarah:

It came into mentorship out of my personal life. I think it was in month one. I had been going through something within a relationship of mine where I remember where I was on the 101 in LA driving up towards the valley, and I remember I was on in my little car and I was just losing my mind, filling in all the blanks of what this person meant and what it, what it turned into and like, oh, I’m sure this and that. And like I was going on and on and on and on. And I feel like a little small voice inside of me stopped me in my tracks and said, Sarah, don’t write their story.

And I like to the point where I was like, I felt like I was slapped in my chest and like, okay, that’s a very good point. And so, but I couldn’t shake it. Like I thought about it the whole rest of the day. And I journaled about it the next night and just was like, and then it just sort of spiraled into my own personal life of like how much story am I writing for someone else? And how many gaps am I filling in? And how common is this? Right. It is very common that you have an interaction, you get a look from somebody and next thing you know, they hate you. They’re out to get you they’re blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or like that person’s into me. You know, it could go any type of way when that’s their story.

Right. And, I know for me, I don’t want people telling me how I feel or what I think and not giving me the benefit of the doubt. And so, you know, I’d already sort of been going over this in my life. And one of the things in our Bundle Birth Nurses mentorship, which is a 12-month program that really walks you through all of labor and delivery, what you need to really have a solid foundation and beyond. And we do these things called real talks, which is, we said in the teaser episode is sort of where this came from. And so what we did was it’s one thing to like, teach, right? Cuz you have to learn the base knowledge, but then it’s like, okay, but like what does this really mean for our lives and what’s like the reality of being at the bedside or like, but, but we have opposition from physicians or opposition from our manager or whatever, and like how do we navigate these situations?

So we started doing these real talks where we’d sit on a couch and be like, all right, let’s vibe. What that turned into was this really cool addition to mentorship where me and Justine just sort of talked about the things and what came out. Of course, because it was happening in my regular life was don’t write their story related to our patients and how often as nurses we’ll be, we’ll walk in the room, we’ll see a dynamic, we’ll make the judgment call, we’ll see their birth plan. We’ll, you know, be annoyed by something that they’re doing or a way that they look or we’re uncomfortable with some difference that’s in the room and you walk outside or you are staring at them and you’re making all sorts of assumptions about who they are, what they stand for, what their dynamic is in their life, whether they’re a good or a bad person.

And then guess what else? We take it to a whole nother level. And we go to the nurse’s station and we bring that to the nurse’s station and create drama and talk poorly about our patients. And so the challenge from mentorship that I, I am so excited that we get to bring on a broader scale and sort of to give you a teaser into mentorship. Mentorship is more than just education to me. It’s like life skills as well. And this idea of don’t write their story. I know for me, when I am at my most vulnerable on one of the most important days of my life, when pain doesn’t always bring out the best in people, let’s be honest, especially during transition. And you know, and who knows what history, what trauma, what life experiences, what relationship dynamics, what concerns about the pregnancy, what previous interactions with the medical system, their care provider, et cetera, have happened with this patient and this human being in front of you.

And all of a sudden you’re writing the story. And naturally we typically write the worst story possible rather than let me assume the best in them. And so don’t write your story or don’t write their story cuz you can write your own as well, but don’t write their story as this idea of stop you for a second, have this sort of self-accountability and collective accountability that like I’m hearing some story writing here. We had a family meeting the other night. We have these like long family meetings. I’m home with my family for another like day.

Justine:

They have agendas for their family.

Sarah:

Oh no. Yeah. Like it’s on a Google doc and it’s, it is amazing for real. And somebody was telling a story about something that happened and I’m like, it’s I hear a lot of story writing here.

And again, it just, it sort of just is this to me sort of unthreatening way to hold each other accountable to be like, Hey, like I think you’re filling in a lot of gaps. And the question then becomes, can we give the benefit of the doubt to this patient? You know, or to this person in front of us for this life skill. And when I am, you know, catastrophizing, whatever has happened in my personal life and writing this horrible story of like, well now I’m gonna be broke you know, or whatever that the idea is slow down. And the skill that I use with patients all the time when they’re, oh, I, you know, I got this lab result back. I’m like, okay, what do we know now? That’s the question that I usually ask to break the cycle of anxiety along those lines of what do we don’t what do we know now?

Not what could be, cuz anxiety is, well, this could lead to this could lead to this, could lead to this and then it’s this big ball of anxiety that catastrophizes and writes the worst story potentially. Right. And so instead to stop that and go, what do we know now? Let’s focus there and let’s stay there. What is the story we know? And what are the gaps that I need filled in this relationship? What, what do I want to know? What do I need to know from this patient? The answer probably is not very much, but instead it’s just, this let’s slow down. I’m not gonna make up what, what or who they are. And I’m gonna give ’em the benefit of the doubt for who they are and what their story is.

Justine:

I love that. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you say this is story writing. I think there’s a lot of story writing. I think that’s great.

Sarah:

Yeah. Yeah. I think, and, and I think too sort of at Bundle Birth, like behind the scenes in the office or whatever, like we live by these principles and we’ll be in meetings or we’ll be like, yeah, let’s flag some flow or like, well don’t write their story. I think that we’re writing a, you know, and we’re hold held accountable to writing stories, you know? Like I think there’s a lot of story writing, I guess I’ll start using that more but let’s not write their story. And

Justine:

That, how could you say that? I think I’ve heard you say that. No, for sure. I know I have, but the, like I hear a lot of story writing maybe because our conversations, I’m not writing stories. So you don’t have to

Sarah:

Say maybe we’ve just gotten so honed in on that skill

Justine:

But I think that, you know, I, you touched a little bit about just people, but I think I, I use this a lot with, cause I think I’m pretty much, I have a foundation. I’m not doing this for patients. I’ve done it enough where I just automatically, but coworkers and colleagues, I’m more so now, like I’m not gonna write their story. Like if they react in a certain way, I’m like,

Sarah:

That’s so true.

Justine:

Hard night yeah. Let’s see. I’m not

Sarah:

We’re providers. And we’ve, we’ve pulled that in and that’s where I love that. That’s a part of the foundations, like the very first month of mentorship, because then what happens is when we’re struggling and we’re debriefing on calls or something that, Hey, this provider, this interaction happened and well, I guess it’s this and I’m sure they this and they’re gonna respond this way. If I speak up, that then that don’t write their story comes in of like, well, are we writing a story here? And what story are you writing? What if we wrote a different story and you’ll never know until you try. And so it’s sort of that like giving the benefit of the doubt to each other because we’re all, you know, I wanna believe that we’re all good in our hearts that we don’t get into this job because we want to harm people or not give them the benefit of the doubt or hate our lives and want them to be miserable. Like I just, I don’t, I will never believe that. No matter how many times I’m told that by Instagram, you know? And so with that, it’s like, it’s like, how do we not get sucked into that mentality along the way? And believing the worst in people and it’s sometimes easier to do so. So anyway, that’s my rant on don’t write their story, guys.

Justine:

It, it is easy to do. It is easy to write their story right away. But I think all of these are easy to do and you have to just start challenging yourself of like, okay, team underwear, I’m gonna offer underwear to every single patient today, and they might not say yes, by the way, they might not want ’em but that’s the point they get to choose or, you know, flex and flow. I’m gonna try to save flex and flow tonight and just get that mentality or don’t write their story. You keep saying it. And I am definitely, I can definitely say that it just starts sleeping into your life and it’s great.

Sarah:

Well, and the, the goal of not only this podcast, but just our lives and what we desire for you is to live thriving lives. Right? And so when we’re thinking about this first episode, I’m like, oh, we’re not gonna talk about like aro like early AROM for a first episode. It’s like, how do we let you know our hearts for you? And part of our hearts for you is that you would be able to live out some of these principles and therefore live a more free, more joyful, more fulfilled life.

Justine:

Reach out to us. If you have started using these mantras, we wanna hear what your experience is with them, because we think it’s important. And I wanna share, I love to say sharing success stories with other nurses too, because we’re all learning from each other. Us included. We learn from you every day. And we all just want ourselves to be like Sarah said, thriving or living your best. Life’s what we say here. And so that’s, I guess that’s another ism. I know that’s like a thing. People say it in the world, but we say

Sarah:

It’s true. We say it a lot. Like I’m not trying or don’t waste your life. This could be, we could have a total part too. Don’t waste your life. Oh,

Justine:

Well we’re gonna have a part two.

Sarah:

Yeah, we’re gonna have two – let us know in the comment box down below wherever you’re listening. What is your favorite Bundle Birth ism? Is it something that we’ve said here? Is that something else? And maybe we’ll find some other ones for a part two. And then also like Justine said, let us know how you’ve integrated these into your life or which one you felt most challenged by to integrate into your life and practice.

Justine:

Thanks for spending your time with us here today. On this episode of happy hour with Bundle Birth Nurses, if you liked what you heard, it helps us. If you subscribe, rate, leave a raving review and share this episode with a friend. If you want more from us, head to bun, birth nurses.com or follow us on Instagram.

Sarah:

Now it’s your turn to take what you learn today and apply it to your life. Giving honorable, flexible, autonomous, and care that gives every patient the benefit of the doubt. And don’t forget to flex and flow. We’ll see you next time.