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Sa'ti Ariel Key

Sa'ti Ariel Key was born on July 28, 1997 at The Birth and Women's Health Center in Tucson, Arizona. Even before I had thought about having children, I knew when the time came, I didn't want to give birth in a hospital. So, naturally when I found out I was pregnant, I started looking for a midwife. I had seriously wanted to have a homebirth, but with my husband and I in our last year of college and my HMO medical insurance, I knew we couldn't afford it. The alternative was an out of hospital birth center, which ended up to be just perfect. (And ended up taking a lot of fussing with the insurance company, as they insisted I use one of their OB/GYN's) Nada..... it wouldn't be their bottoms that were sliced up with scissors...they just didn't understand. But, eventually I was able to manipulate the system and get what I wanted. After all, I AM the paying customer, right?? I was in summer session, taking second semester Calculus with two weeks to go. I figured if I could make it through the next week, I'd be home free. My instructor, who looked not much older than I, seemed very nervous to have such an obviously pregnant woman in his class. It was now the end of July.... HOT in Arizona. I had had a wonderful pregnancy and was anxiously awaiting the grand finale. I was also tired of people at work saying, "you still haven't had that baby", even though I hadn't reached my due date. I was bound and determined that I would not return to work on Monday, but as I went to bed Sunday night at 11:00, I knew I'd have to listen to it all over again the next day for all those people who had bet me I wouldn't make it through the weekend. And then.... I started to have mild cramps about every five minutes. Ya Hoo. I timed them for about a half an hour and then got my husband up for a middle of the night stroll. We walked the three blocks up the street to the University of Arizona campus and strolled around the mall for about two hours. The contractions were consistant, but not painful. We headed home and I decided that baby or no baby, it was now 2:30 am and I would not be going to work in the morning. I sent e mail to my co workers to tell them I would not be in and would let them know at the first hint of any babies. I also recall stating that if this was a false alarm, I was not looking forward to the real thing. I tried to watch TV, but couldn't concentrate. The contractions were getting much stronger and closer together. I decided to I'd lay in the tub for a while to relax. My husband was playing solitaire on the computer and making me mad.... I mean, he was supposed to be helping me. :) After about an hour in the tub, I decided to get out and when I sat up, my water broke....just kind of swished out of me. I thought for sure now we should call the midwife. It was also at this point, that with every contraction, I was having some serious bowel cleansing and didn't want to leave the toilet once I got on it. Billy called the Birth Center and they paged the midwife. She called back and talked to me through a few contractions. I remember them telling me that if you could talk through the contractions, they weren't doing a whole lot yet. I wasn't sure if this influenced me or not. I sure wanted to be doing a whole lot. The midwife said that since my water had broken, she wanted to meet us at the hospital to run a fetal monitor strip. This was something that had never been discussed and I was quite annoyed at the prospect of having to go to the hospital. We agreed to meet there in around 6:00 a.m. I layed down on our bed, moaning and wimpering. I felt like I could curl up in a ball and stay there forever. My husband was getting very nervous, thinking the midwife didn't really know how far along I was and ahhhh!!! We should leave NOW. I drank a large glass of OJ, per instruction of the midwife. After about an hour and a half, my husband convinced me to get up and head for the car. I could have been perfectly happy to stay in our bed and have the baby there.... with no help from anyone.

I'm not sure how to explain the car ride. I just wanted to stand, bend over and hold onto my knees. Hard to do when you are riding in a car. And, I had forgotten my Carmex and wanted my husband to go back to the house and get it. Every bump felt like dipping into the Grand Canyon and I was hurting.

When we got to the hospital, we went through the usual. Insurance card.... it should be on file. Its not... well to bad. The nurses were less than friendly. Apparently the midwife had called ahead to let them know someone from "the birth center" was coming in for a fetal strip, and she should be paged when we got there. The nurse showed up to a room and gave me a hospital gown. I immediately headed for the toilet and also began vomiting up OJ in the garbage can while continuing to cleanse those bowels. My most glamourous moment!!

The nurse yelled something about them not being able to monitor me if I was on the toilet.... but the contractions hurt worse if I was trying to hold anything in. I finally managed to get into the hospital gown and lay down on the bed. My husband was so great about holding the bed pan thing while I threw up in it. :) The fetal monitor belt was so tight, I'm glad I only had to wear it for about three minutes. Everything checked out fine. The baby's heartbeat was strong, even through the contractions. The midwife checked me and ......I was only 3 cm. Oh my god!! I was so disappointed. I thought there was no way I would ever make it through this without drugs, 3 cm, after all this???? The midwife was contemplating sending us home rather than heading over to the birth center. This was around 6:30 a.m. She decided since I looked so uncomfortable during the contractions, we might as well go the the birth center. We made it over there within 20 minutes and headed inside. We were the only people there and got our pick of the rooms. We chose the biggest one...with a huge king size bed and southwest decor. It was so nice, cozy, and dark. The midwfie ran a bath for me and got me into it. She was ready to go off shift, so she called their student nurse midwife, Kathy, (who I saw during most of my prenatals and liked a lot), an RN, and the regular CNM to take her place. I stayed in the tub for nearly two hours, dozing on and off between contractions and trying not to breathe out so much. It seems I had compromised my oxygen levels and had severe cramping in the arms and fingers. No matter what I did, I could not relax my hands and arms. My husband had a paper bag I was trying to breathe into to get some CO2 back into my body. He just sat beside me.. telling me how great I was and was just patient. I think I knew and he knew there was nothing he could do for me, so he was just there. Very nice. At around 9 am, I got out of the tub to use the bathroom and decided to go lay down on the bed. The contractions were one on top of the other and I had decided I had had enough. There was absolutely no way I could take any more. The midwife offered to check me and after waiting through what seemed like 15 minutes of continuous contractions, she declared me at 10 cm. I had no urge to push, but wanted a rest.... that refreshing lull I had heard about between dilating contractions and pushing contractions. It never came. I started pushing on my side initially, but didn't feel very productive. The midwife set some pillows up for me and I was able to sit up and pull my legs back to push. This felt much better to me and I pushed with each contraction. It was so nice to be able to follow what my body was telling me to do, rather than have someone yelling at me to push for 10 seconds, or not to, or whatever. After abour 45 minutes of pushing, I was feeling so much pressure, it was scary. I asked the midwife how many more pushes I would have before the baby was born. She said not many, but I could tell she really didn't know what to say. I was scared to push because I thought it would hurt, but at the same time, I thought it hurt already, so I pushed hard ... down and out. The regular midwife was snapping pictures as the baby's head was crowning....and then I was holding, just breathing....waiting for a new roll of film to be loaded into the camera. My husband sat quietly next to me holding onto my arm and watching worridly. Each time the baby's head would show, Kathy, the student nurse midwife smeared K-Y on it and over my perenium. Worked like a charm as Sa'ti came slowing sliding out into the world after about an hour of pushing. She looked so beautiful and I was absolutely amazed that this was the little creature that had been living in my body. She cried, but not to much and then she turned the pinkest pink I have ever seen. My husband got so teary eyed and I just laughed. (The same type of exhilarating laughter I felt after jumping out of an airplane on my first parachute jump). I just felt thrilled. I had just accomplished something I had always wanted to do and I did it. Billy cut the cord after it had stopped pulsating and Sa'ti layed on my chest and just looked at us. I'm not sure when we realized she was a girl. No one said anything like you always see in the movies when she was born such as "Its a girl!". But, we figured it out :) We called everyone we knew to tell them the good news.

Sa'ti stayed in bed with us the rest of the day. The midwifes and RN's came in to take our tempertaure and blood pressure every 30 minutes. My husband got Subway for lunch and we pigged out and then slept. The pediatrician came to make sure Sa'ti was happy and healthy and then we were on our way home. We stayed at the birth center for a total of 12 hours and I felt like I had just won a marathon. I was so happy to have done it the way I did. No drugs, no episiotomy, no IV, no stirrups. Just my husband, the midwives, and me on a king size bed in a dark, quiet room. It was the most perfect experience I could have asked for and I wouldn't change a thing for next time. Sometimes I get preachy about natural childbirth, but, I just wish every woman could feel and experience what I did. It truly was the most empowering experience of my life. I breastfed Sa'ti for eight months. That continued the bonding I had developed with her at her birth. She is still amazing to me everyday.

By the way, we did take Bradley classes and I felt like I already knew most of what was discussed in the class, but I think it was so helpful in educating my husband. It helped him realize why a natural childbirth was so important to me and to our baby.

The end.

Tara Termes
William Key II