I first started working with pregnant women and midwives in 1996 as a public health volunteer in The Gambia, West Africa. There I served two-and-a-half years in the Peace Corps, living in a Mandinka village on the Gambia River called Sara Kunda. My adopted father, Baba, gave me the name Sutay which means "to recognize." The first birth I ever attended was that of my adopted sister, Fatou's first child. She, her mother, and I traveled to a clinic in a donkey cart under the moon, the howl of hyenas all around us. The clinic, it turned out, was dark and deserted, but it was time for Fatou's baby girl to arrive—by candle light on a concrete slab.
Inspired by my work with Gambian women, upon returning to the United States, I earned my Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. I then worked as a Registered Nurse in Johns Hopkins Hospital, specializing in Labor & Delivery, Antepartum, Postpartum and Nursery. During this time, I obtained a teacher certification in Integrated Yoga Therapy and met my husband.
Josh and I departed on a year-and-a-half volunteer honeymoon, an incredible trip during which I worked with women on malnutrition issues in North Bengal, India; taught reproductive health in Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka; and assisted in a Planned Parenthood clinic in Accra, Ghana. I also studied yoga and meditation in India and Thai massage and reflexology in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
I returned to Africa with Josh — ten years since I first traveled there. After our assignment in Accra, we traveled to Sara Kunda, where I was reunited with Baba, Fatou, and her eldest daughter, little Sutay (now ten years old!).
We returned to my native Colorado in 2006, where I took a job as a Labor & Delivery Nurse at Boulder Community Hospital and completed a Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training with Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa in Los Angeles. Then, just as the Bengali palm reader had predicted I would, I got pregnant. Nine (very nauseous) months later, Shanti Ayla Berman was born on a crisp October day in my home in Boulder — after 37 hours of labor and 3 hours of pushing in a birthing tub; with Josh right behind me and my midwives, mother, and sister Siobain by my side. Shanti means peace in Sanskrit and Ayla is Turkish for circle of cristalic light around the sun or moon (and Hebrew for oak tree). 
In addition to dancing around my living room with Shanti, I teach childbirth and yoga classes at Boulder Community Hospital and offer private instruction and support to pregnant women and new moms. We live in Nomad Cohousing, an intentional community in North Boulder.
Email: sutay7 AT gmail DOT com
