Twenty-Five Years Ago, at 5:20AM Exactly
“Roberta Devers is an extraordinary, talented, experienced, and wise midwife. I gave birth to both of my children at home, and feel so lucky that Roberta was my guide and partner in both. They were safe, and beautiful experiences. I am forever grateful, and cannot recommend her more highly.”
— Denise Spatafora, Author of Better Birth Book
A few minutes after a baby girl was born in the water, Roberta turned and spoke to her: someday, you’ll watch this. That was twenty-five years ago. The baby is grown now. The video is still here, and so is Roberta.
It is a home video from another era, dark and grainy in the way home videos were. So don’t watch it. Listen to it. Nearly everything that matters in it is something Roberta says out loud.
What follows is that birth, in the order it happened, mostly in the words that were spoken in the room.
This is a real birth, with real birth sounds.
“Today is the day the baby might come out”
Before anything happens, someone asks the midwife what she’s looking at.
The video opens on that sentence, said like a weather report. Then a question from off to the side:
“So what are you checking for?”
And Roberta simply answers it.
“Well, you check a couple things. You check that as fluid leaks out, that cord is not going to get caught anywhere. That baby’s tolerating labor well.”
It’s a small moment and easy to skip. She is asked what she’s doing, and she says. The rest of the video works the same way.
Just for one push
She’s close. Roberta wants one thing to change, and she asks for it.
“Can I ask you something? If you can draw your legs back. I know you don’t like to lean into Eddie, but can you try it? Watch me. Eddie can do it, and then I’ll hold you like this. I know it might not feel great, but just try this for one push.”
The question that comes back is the right one:
“What will this do?”
“It’ll really open your pelvis and let this baby come. You’re doing great. Sometimes you want to do something a little different.”
Count what’s in that exchange: a question, a demonstration, a reason, and a way out. One push. If it doesn’t help, they go back.
“It’s the burning, like you said”
She was told what it would feel like before she felt it.
“You’re going to feel a lot of burning.”
A few pushes later, the reassurance is steady and unhurried:
“Okay. I’m with you. You just go ahead and do whatever you can.”
And then, between breaths, the line that gives this chapter its name:
“It’s the burning, like you said.”
By the time it arrived, it already had a name. That is most of what she needed in that moment: to recognize it.
“Wow. That’s a person.”
Roberta calls it one contraction ahead.
“Now, if you’re not having a contraction, you just take a breath in. And wait for the next contraction. Your baby’s head will be born with this contraction.”
It is. Then, quickly: “No more pushing. Okay. Your baby’s head is out.”
And from somewhere in the room, the only honest response to seeing a face that wasn’t there a moment ago:
“Wow. That’s a person.”
“They don’t breathe till they hit the air”
The longest minute in the video is the one where nothing happens.
The head is out and under the water. The contraction has passed. Everyone waits, and somebody asks what anyone watching is thinking.
“Is it okay under here?”
“It’s fine, it’s fine. They don’t breathe till they hit the air.”
Roberta keeps talking through the quiet. “I’m going to turn this baby gently.” “Anything yet? Feel anything like a contraction?” Not yet. Then something shifts.
“What was that?”
“It’s the baby’s head. He’s turning. He has to turn to the side to come out.”
Nobody knows yet that “he” is a she. What they do know, second by second, is what is happening and why.
“Five twenty. Exactly.”
Two shoulders, three “oh my goodness”es, and a time of birth.
“Real nice push. One shoulder, an arm around. Okay, here comes the other shoulder.”
Then the room comes happily apart. In the middle of it, Roberta is still working: “Michelle, with the hat and the towels, right now. Quickly.” “Let me see if we can keep the baby mainly in the water.” And, out loud, so nobody has to remember it later:
“It’s five twenty. Exactly.”
Boy or girl? It takes a moment. It’s a girl. “My little fish. You did so good. You got good lungs.”
What Roberta called for
A water birth at home still runs on the same short list of tools, kept close the whole time. A bag, ready to open without a search. A Doppler, so “tolerating labor well” is a measurement, not a guess. And paper, so the exact minute gets written down before anyone has the chance to forget it.
Birth bag
Packed and within reach the whole night
Doppler
Checking heart tones between contractions
Charting notes
Timing every contraction, so "5:20AM, exactly" could be said with certainty
“You were swimming before you were breathing”
Ten minutes old, and already being told her own story.
With everyone settled, Roberta turns to the one person in the room who can’t answer yet.
“Savannah, you can look at this later, and then you’re going to say, wow, that was ten minutes after I was born. You came out underwater in the hot tub. You were swimming before you were breathing. You did great.”
“You were swimming before you were breathing.”
— Roberta Devers, Certified Professional Midwife (CPM), to a baby ten minutes old
Later is now
Twenty-five years on.
Savannah can look at it now. She’s about twenty-five.
In the years since that day in the tub, Roberta has attended 1,500+ births over 30+ years. The video has not aged well. The voice in it has. She says what she’s checking. She asks before she moves you. She tells you what’s coming one contraction ahead, and she keeps talking through the minute when nothing happens.
Denise had both of her children at home with Roberta, and went on to write a book about birth. Her words are at the top of this page.
Every birth has a stretch of hours underneath it where two people are paying very close attention, and most of what they do never gets seen.
If you’re thinking about your own birth and you’d like to ask us anything, the first conversation is free. One hour, no cost, no commitment.
One hour, no cost, no obligation.