Q&A Celebrating 200 Episodes: From Doctors to Disney

On this episode of Erickson Creative, we celebrate 200 episodes by delving into a little bit about the hostess with the mostest: Hilary.

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Timestamps:

00:01:45 Quit hospital, don’t miss it, laid off nurses. Favorite blog post on Pulling Curls.
00:03:34 Long-lasting versus short-term, breastfeeding feels like tugging, not a fan, guilty pleasure: Ted Lasso.
00:08:22 New doctors empower patients; old doctors burned out.
00:09:48 Questions about Hillary, upcoming episodes on infertility and speech.

Producer: Drew Erickson

[00:00:00.000] – Hilary Erickson

Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Pulling Curls Podcast. Today on Episode 201, we are talking all about me and about podcasting, and we’re even trying video, so let’s untangle it.

[00:00:12.100] – Hilary Erickson

Hi, I’m Hilary, a serial over-complicator. I’m also a nurse, mom to three, and the curly head behind Pulling Curls and the Pregnancy Nurse. This podcast aims to help us stop over complicating things and remember how much easier it is to keep things simple. Let’s smooth out those snarls with pregnancy and parenting untangled, The Pulling Curls Podcast.

[00:00:40.280] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, first off, this is the first episode of season five. We have done over 200 podcast episodes. Can you even believe it? And I am publishing some of our episodes on YouTube. You’ll see more of me on social media. I just literally cannot wait. Okay, I can wait. Video is not my favorite, but we’re trying to jump out of our comfort zone a little bit. I have some questions here on my phone that people submitted that I want to answer in all about Hilary episode, all the things you’ve just been dying to know because I know there are so many things.

[00:01:14.480] – Hilary Erickson

All right, first one. What made you go into nursing in the first place? I just really enjoyed my high school anatomy class. I was fascinated by the human body and I just really enjoyed it. I just thought nursing would fit well with being a mom because that was one of my ultimate goals and all that jazz. I decided this as a 16 year old in my junior year of high school. I probably wasn’t even 16 because I didn’t turn… Well, I was 16, maybe so. Yeah, 16.

[00:01:47.540] – Hilary Erickson

Then they asked, “Do you miss anything about working in the hospital?” If you guys don’t know, I did quit the hospital in late 2020. Do I miss it? No. My unit that I used to work on, they just closed it and just laid off all the nurses, which just shows you how much hospitals care about their staff. I wasn’t even shocked.

[00:02:07.510] – Hilary Erickson

All right. What’s your favorite post you’ve ever written about on Pulling Curls? I think it would be probably not like… My favorite post that I’ve ever written is probably, Ode to the New Mom, which was my thoughts for a new mom about how much a baby changes your life and how that’s okay. But the other one I love is my kick count post because I learned that one in four still births can be saved by moms doing kick count. So it’s something I’m really passionate about after writing about. So there you go.

[00:02:35.440] – Hilary Erickson

This is a favorite. Have you ever thought about having a podcast or a blog? Yes, I have. Am I not out there enough?

[00:02:45.220] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, what’s your favorite rare Disney character? Where can you find them? I mean, I don’t know that I have a rare favorite Disney character. My favorite Disney character is Mary Poppins. You can find her sometimes around the park. I don’t have a rare one, though. I know sometimes my social media looks like I’m a Disney influencer, but I really just talk about pregnancy all the time, I feel like.

[00:03:08.150] – Hilary Erickson

Here’s another one. What does birth feel like? What does birth feel like? I talked about this a little bit in my pain episode that was the last one before this, but it’s really not that different than super painful stomach cramps. In some ways it’s not that un painful than kidney stones. The main worst part is when the baby comes out and that ring of fire.

[00:03:30.410] – Hilary Erickson

But a lot of it is pain that you’ve probably felt before. It’s just how long it lasts versus short term with a stomach bug or something like that. Then the next question was, what does breastfeeding feel like? It just feels like they’re tugging at your breast. I wasn’t a fan of it. You guys know breastfeeding didn’t work for me but it just feels like somebody’s sucking your breast, but except they do it all the freaking time. So that’s what it feels like. Those are my thoughts on that one.

[00:03:58.270] – Hilary Erickson

What is your guilty pleasure TV show? I love Ted Lasso and I feel guilty about it because of all the swears, but I love it so much that I wouldn’t say it’s a guilty pleasure anymore. I watched the Real Housewives of Orange County in the beginning. I loved that Jury duty that was on this summer. I don’t know. There’s a lot of shows that I like, but I don’t really feel like I have a guilty pleasure. I’m off of the main reality series binge.

[00:04:26.630] – Hilary Erickson

Okay, next question. If you could relocate and live anywhere in the world, where would you go? I have no idea. So our plan is to move when my youngest graduates high school. So she is starting high school. She’ll be a freshman, so that gives us four more years here. But I’ve been real honest and I said if the housing market is the same as it is now, we’re probably going to stay here. We have a great price. We bought this house at the very low of the Arizona market. Of course, we sold our California house at the low of the California market, but we have a great price mortgage here.

[00:04:57.930] – Hilary Erickson

So I don’t know. I would love to travel the big cities of the world and spend a month in each of them, like London, Paris, New York, Chicago, LA. I don’t know. Cairo, I don’t know. I would just love to travel more. But as far as where I want to live, I don’t really know. Isn’t that weird? Do you guys have a place you really want to live? I don’t know.

[00:05:18.510] – Hilary Erickson

How did you meet your husband? We met at BYU. Hi, Mormon girl over here. We were in the same ward. He was in Marching band. He was not in Marching band the two years that I was in Marching band at BYU. But people were like, Oh, you got to meet Drew. He’s in Marching band. So yeah, that’s how we met, which if you don’t know the LDS culture, it is not unusual to have met your spouse at BYU.

[00:05:42.650] – Hilary Erickson

What is the hardest part of your job now and how does it compare to your struggles as an L&D nurse? I think I take it personally. If things aren’t successful, I take it very personally. It’s all on me. I don’t have really a team. It’s just Hilary. I do have a husband that produces this podcast, but in general, it’s just me. So that part is probably the hardest part.

[00:06:08.220] – Hilary Erickson

And how does it compare to your struggles as an L&D nurse? It’s obviously not as physical. I don’t have a manager that I dislike. I’m not relying on a team. I’m not bothered by the people that I work with. But on the other end of the spectrum, I’m completely alone. So it’s very different than being a labor and delivery nurse. But I love being a blogger/podcaster. I love writing, I love talking to people. I don’t love video all that much. I love graphic design. So it really takes a lot of the things that I love to do and combines them into a job. But yeah.

[00:06:40.770] – Hilary Erickson

How old were you when you decided to be a nurse and why? We already went over that, 16. And was it always L&D? Absolutely not. Although I don’t know if you talk to many 16 year olds, they’d be like, oh, I want to be up in people’s lady bits all the time. That sounds amazing. But I really liked the autonomy in labor and delivery. You do not have a doctor breathing down your neck that often. I liked that my patients could, in general, they were healthy and could mobilize themselves versus med surge. I liked the camaraderie of labor nurses.

[00:07:12.450] – Hilary Erickson

Labor nurses have a special selves. They’re just different. I love that. I love that about labor nurses. But I didn’t start in labor and delivery. I wanted to start in labor and delivery, but I did nursing home for a couple of years. I worked in a pediatrician’s office for three years also simultaneously, those two. Then I worked hospice for a little bit and then I worked labor and delivery. So I’ve done a few different things.

[00:07:38.080] – Hilary Erickson

What made your favorite doctor to work with your favorite? I would say just acting like she took my input, she valued it, we worked together. She talked about her life. She was interested in my life. She just thought of me as a peer rather than a subservient. The same questions for your least favorite doctor? I would say my least favorite doctor chucked an instrument at me in the OR because it wasn’t working correctly. So he threw it at me. Not directly at me, but he definitely threw it in my direction and not my favorite.

[00:08:10.890] – Hilary Erickson

We also had another doctor who just thought he was like a God and could do whatever he wanted. I will say both of the two that I didn’t like were older. One has died now, I believe, and one just retired. Thank goodness. I do believe that the new doctors that are coming in are so different and really open to patients being in the driver’s seat rather than them being in the driver’s seat.

[00:08:34.760] – Hilary Erickson

But to be fair, these older guys ran their own practice for years and probably only got minutes of sleep ever. So I think it just made them onerous. So I love to see that these new doctors are keeping some work life balance because I think older doctors lack that and it ended up with what we ended up with.

[00:08:52.940] – Hilary Erickson

Tell us about your favorite vacation. I think my favorite and recent memory is when we went to New York. Me, my husband and my daughter. I just loved New York. I loved Broadway. I loved the big streets. I love big cities. I did Chicago with some blogger friends a few years ago, and it was amazing. I love big cities, so I’m excited to try and go overseas at some point. Fingers crossed that that happens soon.

[00:09:16.120] – Hilary Erickson

Last question, what’s your favorite movie? Probably Steel Magnolias. I just love the relationship of the women. Of course, she’s pregnant and then she ends up dying, which I have used patients who wouldn’t control their diabetes or whatever. I was like, Have you seen Steel Magnolias? Which is probably not the best way to respond to a patient. But Steel Magnolias is probably my favorite movie.

[00:09:38.420] – Hilary Erickson

I mean, there’s a lot of movies I love, although I fall asleep in a lot of movies. I really am much better with the one hour sitcom scenario, which is probably why I love Ted Lasso so much. But yeah.

[00:09:48.950] – Hilary Erickson

Anyway, those are the questions about Hilary. I hope that helped you to get to know me better. Thanks for joining me on this episode. Next week, I have a real sweet couple coming on the podcast that I’m super excited to talk with. They took the online prenatal class for couples, but they had an infertility journey and all these different things. So I think a lot of you are going to be able to relate with John and Morgan that are going to be on the podcast.

[00:10:08.610] – Hilary Erickson

And then the week after that, we are talking about speech, which we are back to school and speech might be on your mind. And this is a real great interview with someone that I think a lot of you are going to get some help from. So we will see you then.

[00:10:20.380] – Hilary Erickson

Thanks for joining us on the Pulling Curls podcast today. If you like today’s episode, please consider reviewing, sharing, subscribing. It really helps our podcast grow. Thank you.

Keywords:

doctors, retirement, patient-centered, work-life balance, vacation, New York, breastfeeding, duration, short-term illnesses, tugging, dislike, guilty pleasure, TV show, Ted Lasso, The Real Housewives of Orange County, treating as equal, throwing instrument, arrogance, older age, graphic design, nurse, labor and delivery, autonomy, supervision, Hillary, prenatal class, infertility challenges, speech, back-to-school season, insights, taking things personally, team, podcast, struggles, current job, manager, favorite movie, Steel Magnolias, relationship between women, pregnancy and diabetes, movie reference, falling asleep in movies, 1-hour sitcoms, phone questions, various topics, choosing nursing, high school, quitting job, hospital, laid off nurses, staff concerns, favorite post, changes after having a baby, kit counts, silver saving, social media, Disney influencer, birth pain, stomach cramps, kidney stones, “ring of fire”, pain similarities