Provided by Jen Hamilton
Audio By Carbonatix
The first time I saw Jen Hamilton on social media, she was attempting to swaddle a chicken like a baby to the dulcet tones of Chopin’s Nocturne op. 9 No. 2. (You’ve heard it.)
It was surprising and funny and the perfect amount of awkward, and I hit the follow button. Today, her millions of followers still get the occasional swaddle video, but Hamilton’s content is largely focused on her day job as a labor and delivery nurse: the good (cute newborns), the bad (poop on the table) and the heartbreaking (when parents come home without their babies).
She speaks passionately to nurses about the importance of listening to patients about their concerns and about advocating for mothers of color, who often receive substandard care and have the mortality rates to prove it. She educates expectant parents on how to speak up for themselves and how to make the labor and delivery experience what they want it to be, both physically and emotionally.
Her first book, “Birth Vibes: Stories and Strategies for an Empowered Birth,” published earlier this month by Grand Central Publishing, is the repository of her wisdom and experience. Hamilton shares her own birth story as well as those of countless patients (all HIPAA-compliant, of course). She explains the ins and outs (literally) of labor and delivery in ways that are clear and easy to understand without being dumbed-down; she goes over possible complications with an intent to inform, not scare; and in the final, moving chapter, “A Love Letter to Those Who Are Grieving,” she sits quietly with people whose birth experience didn’t end with a living child.
Hamilton spoke to students at Arizona College of Nursing on Thursday, and on Friday evening, May 22, she’ll bring “Birth Vibes” to Changing Hands Bookstore, 6428 S. McClintock Drive, Tempe, where attendees can hear her discuss the book and get a signed copy.
I caught up with her on Friday morning in north Phoenix. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Grand Central Publishing
Obviously, you’ve been doing social media for a long time and talking about various aspects of the birth experience. What was the process or the decision to turn it into a book?
So I never went out and was like, “Man, I really want to write a book.” But these days, in order to write a book, a lot of publishers want you to already have a social media presence. And so I had publishers reaching out to me saying, “Hey, you have this audience. Why don’t you write a book?” And originally I was like, “No, I’m a nurse. I don’t even write in a journal, so I don’t know that that’s the life for me.” But I did have a couple friends who had written books and so I kind of talked to them about it. Whenever I did, they were like, “Actually, I’ve really enjoyed writing a book. Maybe you should try.”
So one of my friends, Hadley Vlahos, she wrote a book called “The In Between,” which was a New York Times bestseller. And so she introduced me to her publishing agent and she said, “Just talk to him to see what you think.” And so he said, “Just write a sample. Write a chapter. If you were to write a book, just write a chapter.”
And I absolutely loved it because the stories in the book are obviously HIPAA-compliant, but they’re real things that have happened in front of me. They’re real things that I’ve experienced with patients. I just kind of anonymized them and changed different things in the story. But the catharsis that you feel finally getting out some of the things that you know … I mean, it is traumatic to be a nurse. And so to be able to write about those things was, I don’t want to say fun, but just like you said, a healing experience. And so I sent off that sample to my publishing agent, who sent it to publishers, and so many people enjoyed it and so I ended up having some meetings with people and then they were like, “We want you to write a book.” So then I was off to the races and started writing.
How did the process work?
I did hire a book coach who kind of helped me through that process. So what I would do is I would write a chapter and then I would send it to her and she would edit for like grammar and structure. And whenever I first started writing, she had to kind of understand the way that I talk because I would write things that maybe aren’t proper or professional.
So whenever she took out “titties in the wind” to put “naked,” I said, “No, we’re going back.”
That’s wonderful. How do you take everything that’s in your brain, your knowledge and experience, and put it on paper?
One thing that was important for me was that it felt like you were coming to work with me, right? So I wanted to describe what it feels like to be in that room, what it looks like to be in that room, what it smells like, what it sounds like. I kind of started with that as my process: kind of setting the scene of what it sounds like to tap your fingers on the door as you walk in or what the sun looks like in the morning coming through the blinds as I’m starting my shift. So I wanted people to feel like they were there before I got into the nitty-gritty of what happens.
The book came out May 5. What has life been like since then?
Wild, whirlwind. Extremely crazy. I was crossing my fingers that maybe it would hit the New York Times bestseller list, but to be number one is not anything that I ever even considered as a possibility. So when they called me and told me that, I was absolutely blown away.
What have you been hearing from readers?
Oh, that’s my favorite part. There are people that are making videos about either they’re pregnant and like, “Oh, this book has allowed me to feel calmer about going into this experience.” I’ve had people who have had babies who say, “This has helped me process some of my birth trauma.” I’ve had people who are nurses who say, “This is going to change the way I show up for my patients.” And then I have people who aren’t nurses, patients, laboring people or anything like that who say like, “I will never have a baby, have never had a baby,” but they enjoy the stories of human connection.
So, because I’m not a mom, I’ve never read “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” or any of those books. What does your book add to the canon of prenatal literature, do you think?
I think that it’s instead of just being purely informational, I think that I really relied heavily on explaining things through story. And what I was really hoping to do is show that you can have births that go different than you thought that are still transformative, beautiful experiences.
Because I think that one of the things that I see a lot now is that you prepare your whole pregnancy for the birth itself and sometimes you go into that process and things are different than you thought, right? Like, let’s say that you planned your whole pregnancy for an unmedicated birth, you don’t want to get an epidural, you don’t want any pain medicine, but maybe your first child has been thrown up all night and you haven’t gotten any sleep, right? Does that mean that you’re failing at birth if you reach for a tool in that toolbox because things are different?
Absolutely not. I want people to be able to pivot with grace when necessary and hold onto the values that are important to them throughout the process.
Is there anything else that I’m not thinking to ask that you feel is important to mention?
So “Birth Vibes” is not an alternate to a birth plan specifically, but I want people to not just plan their birth thinking about the things that they either want or don’t want to happen, I want them to think about how they want to feel during the birth process.
How do they need to be communicated with? Is there anything in their past that makes today having a baby extra hard, right? Is there someone that you’ve lost recently that you wish was there, or have you been through trauma that makes this difficult? What are the things that feel comforting to you? What are the things that annoy you? Who’s by your side and what are they doing for you?
I think that we can build this cocoon of safety around you so that no matter what happens medically, you still feel held emotionally. So that’s the essence of what “Birth Vibes” is.
