Spotlight Series
Guest Name: Hollie Hauptly
Credentials: CEO of Birth Boot Camp
Hollie Hauptly: um yeah it was like my bio like with with my first I went into pregnancy and birth like I knew nothing like I had no idea what I was getting myself into it was just you know we had been married and we were like let’s have kids that’s the thing you do right so um I was really lucky that I had a friend who was like you know go see some midwives during your pregnancy and I was like I don’t know what that is so um but I had had a really crappy experience with some obies in the town that I lived in at the time and so I was like I don’t want to go see them so yeah I’ll go check out these midwives let’s see what this is all about um and so I kind of give her lots of credit because that kind of started me down this road of like doing research and learning and even though I had no idea what I wanted for my birth my Midwife then told me you know go take a class and in her class we learned about what doulas were and I hired a doula super last minute I hired her when I was 38 weeks and had him at 39 weeks um but I just had an amazing experience and I was like more women should be like feel this amazing after they give birth like in our society it’s there’s so much fear um and they just they walk in and they do what they’re told and hopefully they leave with a healthy you know everybody says it’s a healthy moment a healthy baby well yes that’s you know our goal like there’s so much more to it um and I just yeah I literally switched um my last assignment for my Master’s Degree was due the day he was born um but I totally I totally switched I was teaching fifth grade at the time and I was like I’m not going back to that so literally two days after I told my husband I was like I’m going to be a doula and I’m going to I’m going to totally do that um and I never looked back I’ve been doing it ever since so I just we just see so much trauma and my goal is to change that and sometimes it feels like I’m not doing much but if I can help you know one mother one couple have a better birth experience and I’ve done my job
Dr. Betty DeLass: love that love that we are so aligned on so many things with that yeah my next question for you is um What Makes You Different
Hollie Hauptly: well so I was thinking about that and I’m like well um I think one of the things um for me personally is just the experience that I have um in birth work it is it can be a difficult like uh it can be a difficult lifestyle being on call um and a lot of doulas kind of burn out after two or three years and so when people hear that I have almost 15 years of experience they’re like you there’s not that many of you out there there’s a handful of us um so I think just the kind of the depth of the experience I’ve pretty much helped help couples in hospital birth home birst birth centers kind of all of the above um I’m I’m not scared to be in a hospital you know some doulas don’t love being in the hospitals and they don’t they don’t love that whole like um the the advocacy part of helping your clients get what they want I really have I’m I don’t have a problem being in a hospital setting um you know like I said I had three of mine in the hospital I’m pretty pretty comfortable there um another thing that really sets me apart is I really focus so much on education and preparation and I think that that is one reason why I don’t have a problem being in the hospital is because my clients are really well educated and prepared and so they know how to get what they want um they’ve chosen a care provider that’s going to support them in the plan that they want they you know know what questions to ask they know what is on their birth plan like they are just super prepared um and I pretty much require all my clients to take a class um just hiring me as a doula it’s not enough I don’t have you know I visit with my clients once or twice during their pregnancy um and that’s not enough time to give them all the education that they need um the most popular class that I teach is 25 hours it’s 10 weeks over 25 hours so they are getting a lot of Education um and it’s about everything um because While most of my clients want an unmedicated birth with low interventions and things like that that’s not always a guarantee and birth is unpredictable um and so we are prepared for all of it of what if an epidural becomes necessary what if um I need to be induced what if I need to have a C-section like we cover all of it so they’re just super prepared
Dr. Betty DeLass: I love that love that um because birth is really unpredictable we tell our our patients that as well okay next question is who is an ideal fit for you like who who would be like that perfect match
Hollie Hauptly: um the perfect fit is somebody who um is looking for support and education the idea is that they are probably no later than like 25ish weeks because with my CL my class being 10 weeks long they’ve got to have some time to get all of that information in um now if they can’t make it to an inperson class they um we do have it all filmed online on demand and so that is option and they can get that information faster that way um you know so if they do hire me and they’re a lot closer to du8 they can kind of cram all of that information in but ideal like perfect is if they contact me sometime early second trimester and we can kind of start that relationship get them ready get them signed up for class um and then it’s really like we get to know each other so well in class spending that much time together that by the time we’re we’re preparing caring for their actual birth and writing their birth plan like we are so comfortable with each other I know exactly what they want um it just works so well
Dr. Betty DeLass: that’s awesome that’s awesome love that okay my next question is what does the process look like to work with you
Hollie Hauptly: so if somebody is interested in hiring me as their doula um usually most people contact me through my website and they just fill out my form on there and then we get in touch and we schedule a free consultation and I’m happy to sit down with them and that can be in person or online on Zoom whichever they prefer um but we just talk about kind of like what my services look like they can ask any questions they have um we go over my contract things like that so that takes about 45ish minutes um and then after that they just if they choose to hire me they sign the contract it’s super simple It’s All Digital online um and then we’re just in communication throughout the pregnancy um we stay in touch I am like their personal Google they can message me if they’ve got questions and I can send them resources get them connected with other Professionals in the area um just whatever they need throughout the entire pregnancy
Dr. Betty DeLass: that’s awesome that’s awesome what about with Birth Boot Camp how do they work with you with that
Hollie Hauptly: um so if they’re taking a class with me I just get them registered and it’s super simple because it’s part of their package but if they are taking an online class I will help get them set up on that um and somebody can even take a Birth Boot Camp class without hiring me as their doula like they can even just go to birthbootcamp.com and we’ve got our online classes there that anybody can take at any time
Dr. Betty DeLass: yeah and and talk a little bit about you’re telling me at a previous meeting with that we’ve had together about how you have Educators all over the country and all on demand like talk to me how many states you’re in how many options are out there that kind of thing like that
Hollie Hauptly: yeah I can’t tell you the number of states yet um my goal to get us in all 50 states we’re getting there um we do have people Coast to Coast like we have people all the way on the east coast and we’ve got some people in California and and the Northwest and stuff like that so we do have instructors teaching Birth Camp classes all over um and we do have a directory so if somebody’s like I want to see if there’s an instructor in my area they can go to our directory on our website and put in their location and see if anybody’s there um and yeah again if nobody’s there and they’re interested in taking a class the best thing to do is just to take take our onto man class so it is it’s a video it’s all streamed super easy to access it’s with me and one of my um colleagues that we teach the classes together and we have a lot of fun together so we try to keep them like engaging and active and they can still do all the Hands-On things it’s all just in video instruction so
Dr. Betty DeLass: awesome awesome okay next question what does postpartum recovery look like with you whether that’s through the birth education Birth Boot Camp or asadulla give us that that that second half of of the pregnancy postpartum
Hollie Hauptly: yeah that is actually something that I think a lot of birth classes leave out is they kind of just like glance over this postpartum period whereas our whole we have a whole class that focuses on that um and so we really focus on what it’s going to like what your postpartum recovery is going to look like not just physically but mentally and emotionally we include the partners as well because a lot of people realize that Partners can struggle with postpartum mood disorders like your world’s just changed so much and so there’s a lot of adjustment and transition and stuff so we talk about all of that um and we talk about like what to expect with baby um part of our class they get a three-hour breastfeeding class as well taught by an ibclc um so that is our goal is just really prepare them so they’re not so um you know Dearing headlights like surprised by what happens in the postpartum I know of my first I was completely unprepared for it like I like the birth was great but postpartum was really hard for me I I had him on the night of our last child birth class and so I missed it so I’m sure like if I would have gone I would have had all this great postpartum information um but that’s why I’m like I’m so passionate about talking about it just like I think knowing what to expect is half the battle like if somebody would have told me that the second night is supposed to be hard with baby I would have been like all right we can get through this you know and just the ups and downs and stuff like that so yeah um so that is a big part of it is just preparing for it even one of my one of my visits with my clients is we’re talking all about postpartum you know and let’s get a meal plan set up let’s do you have people bringing you freezer meals do you have um family that can come take your dog for a walk like just the little things that they don’t think about yeah um and then and I do also work as a postpartum doula and so um if they just hire me as their birth Doula I always do at least one visit just to check on them see how they’re doing um talk about the birth because a lot of times they might have questions about the birth they might you know they’re kind of in laborland when they’re in the midst of it they don’t remember all the details so they might be like did this happen and I don’t remember this and what time did this happen so I love to talk about those types of things um you know but just checking on how they’re doing um how baby’s feeding because a lot of times that can add a lot of stress if they’re struggling with that um but a lot of clients hire me as their postpartum Doula too and so I go in there sometimes it’s just a few days and sometimes they’re like no we want you for weeks and so we um you know I go a few times a week and it’s just helping them with whatever they need postpartum and sometimes it’s just Mom can get a nap and a shower um and those are her main goals for the day so um it’s a lot of fun but I see I see such a difference in my clients that have a lot of help postpartum um they need support and whether that’s from me or whether that’s from family whether that’s from you know another birth professional or something like they just do so much better
Dr. Betty DeLass: yeah yeah I agree okay next question um what’s something that uh what’s something that most people don’t know that you think they should know about your services or even birth
Hollie Hauptly: that is a good question um I think I think a lot of people don’t realize how personalized it is because I get questions like well what do you do at Birth I’m like well every birth is different like it’s really hard to to say exactly what I’m going to do at every birth because because no two births are the same um and so it really is from
Dr. Betty DeLass: I’m like what do you how do you stop myself from leaking I’m like well that could be 500 different things so right
Hollie Hauptly: right yeah and some births I’m very hands on and some births I’m very hands off like it just really depends on the situation um and even our classes are that way like you know I kind of have my outline that I follow but I’m also like we can chat about anything like they have the opportunity to like really like break down like what are their fears and concerns like what you know everybody has different things that they’ve heard about birth and let’s let’s dispel those myths let’s talk about all these things um and so I think a lot of people just don’t realize well that’s a phrase people tell me is I didn’t know how much I didn’t know or how much I needed to know
Dr. Betty DeLass: seriously seriously
Hollie Hauptly: I’m I’m hearing more and more of people who are like well my birth class I’m pretty much just like looking up videos on Tik Tok and YouTube and I’m like well that’s great but you just do they know all the different induction techniques that they need to look up and do research about or do you know you know just there’s just so much out there that you can’t know what all to search on Tik Tok
Dr. Betty DeLass: yes okay next question is do you have any type of special thing that you want to promote to anyone who’s watching and listening of like things that you have to offer any like this is your your moment to shine
Hollie Hauptly: yeah so we have um we have what we call our birth plan blueprint um and so I’ll make sure that you get a link for that um but anybody can get it and it just talks you through the steps for writing a birth plan and writing an effective birth plan because there’s lots of templates out there and all sorts of things for different birth plans um and I won’t write my clients birth plans they have to do it they’ve got to do the work to I will support them in it but I’m not going to write it for them yeah yeah um and so it just kind of walks them through of like of all the things they need to do um to get to that point where they can like put pen to paper um I I really think that there’s a big misconception out there about what birth plans are so we kind of talk about that too like what a birth plan is and what it isn’t it’s not a contract it’s it’s not a you know something that’s like this is going to happen it’s you know this is what I how I would really like things to go in best case scenario but we have to be flexible
Dr. Betty DeLass: um like a birth preference list versus a birth
Hollie Hauptly: yes
Dr. Betty DeLass: yeah
Hollie Hauptly: so yeah I’ll make sure I send you the link to that so anybody can go and they can get signed up for that
Dr. Betty DeLass: perfect awesome well thank you okay last question and like I I think this is like the best question ever is what is the main thing that you want to be known for
Hollie Hauptly: oh it’s that preparation part like it’s the whole education part I I heard too many stories of people who you know they’re just going to go and I’m going to try I’m going to try to do this thing and if you have no idea what to expect you’re it’s not likely to happen I have seen it happen a few times but just it’s just rare um and so you really so many moms are like I want to try to do this unmedicated then I’m like then you need to do the work to prepare for it and even if your birth doesn’t go as planned because you’ve prepared for it you know how to like navigate it how to make decisions you know even if things have to have to change
Dr. Betty DeLass: yeah absolutely I love that preparation awesome any last final words for our for our Watchers and viewers here before I let you go
Hollie Hauptly: um yeah just prepare and learn as much as you possibly can um and definitely look into hiring adulla they are worth their weight and gold um of having that support
Dr. Betty DeLass: awesome any um you want to list your website any social media handles things like that let us know where we can find you
Hollie Hauptly: yeah so they can just go to birthbootcamp.com or my personal one for local Utah clients it’s just Utah Birth Doula um and yeah pretty much everything is on those two websites
Dr. Betty DeLass: perfect perfect well thank you so much Hollie for coming on today and sharing your story with us and answering all these wonderful questions it was really really awesome to have you
Hollie Hauptly: yeah thanks for having me it was great