On Friday 7.21.23 at 8:05 am Maida and I, mostly Maida, brought Florá Inés Juliette Branch Ortiz-Concha into this world and we couldn’t be more over the moon!
Generally I don’t hear birth stories from the masculine perspective. This is slightly that. Birth is probably the most potent expression of the feminine, yet like all things it is really about a balance of the two. While I wasn’t the one giving birth, I was there the whole time making sure Maida had anything and everything she needed, whatever that meant. Sometimes that meant solitude in the cave of our bedroom, and sometimes that meant holding her lower back telling her how great she was doing and that she could do it.
My parents had me while they were young, mom was seventeen and my dad was barely nineteen and growing up I always thought I would wait to have children, maybe twenty two or twenty three I thought. Now ten years later than I thought, it is finally a reality. When my mother ‘Juliette’ was my age, thirty two, I was already fifteen years old. There was a certain magic involved with growing up with my parents even though I’m sure it wasn’t easy for them. Julie at some point after her and my father, Johnny Sr, had split up, had three kids part time, was going to school part time and had a full time job. Anytime I hear anything about how hard life is going to become after having a child I think about Julie and how she loved us more then anything, and while things were hard it was never a compromise.
The truth is everything changes everything. Of course things are going to change, but I couldn’t be more ready or excited for it.
When we first got our milking cow we were told of all the things we were going to have to do and how our life was going to change. A few years later and I can’t imagine life without her. However this is in part because we disregarded everything we were told. I usually don’t like to talk in absolutes, but I’m pretty certain we disregarded EVERY SINGLE THING.
It’s been a philosophy of mine to build my own systems, ones that work for me and that are based around my ideals. I don’t want to milk a cow twice a day, once a day already is a 45min commitment, but it turns out milking once a day yields less milk, but yields more fat, which is what we are after anyway. If I would have become disheartened initially I may never have made the leap into having a dairy cow. Instead we got her, adapted her to our lifestyle and both of our lives are better for it.
This same mindset goes for birth also. Maida and I had decided we couldn’t imagine bringing a child into this plane any differently than how we expect our sheep, cows, dogs, et cetera to give birth. This type of birthing mindset is usually referred to as ‘free birth’ which really just means natural birth. The same way humans have been giving birth for centuries before the rise of western medicine and the destruction of our own trust in our own bodies and health. It is something I believe any expecting mother or couple could do, but only if they believe that themselves. We tend to look for a savior in hard situations, with free birth you are that person through and through. If you have one foot out the door, odds are you'll probably take it when things get hard.
I’m somewhat jealous and grateful that giving birth is something I will never experience in the same way that Maida did. The closest I can say I have ever got to that was a backcountry hunt in WA a couple years back. I had no idea exactly what to expect as I was with a guide who, unperceived by me, was taking me to get a ‘trophy’ Rosevelt bull. The hunt started at 5 am each morning where we would get to our destination and hike until dark until we found a bull worthy of taking home. It was December and it was cold and wet. We spent three days hiking for hours until we finally saw a bull heading up the hill to the north of us. It was mid day and we knew time was running out so we set into another gear and went around the hill from the back to where we imagined he was heading. We got to a zone and looked around but couldn’t see him and decided to go lower to where we thought he was going to be and half way there I realized my phone had fallen out of my pocket, so we turned around and went back up. Luckily the phone was right where I thought it would be so we picked it up and headed right back to where we were initially headed. A couple miles later we started to descend a steep rocky hillside where we saw a few cow elk and theorized the bull was sure to be around, so we sat down, trying to communicate but staying as quite and still as possible, and got ready for him to come after the cows. This was muzzleloader season so you would need to be within 50 feet, which you can imagine is pretty hard to do in the first place. A few moments later just like we had hoped for we saw the bull slowly approaching the cows directly in sight. We both raised our muzzle loaders and once he presented himself we both squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. Our gun powder had gotten wet from three days of treacherous hiking in the rain even though we had the open vulnerable points wrapped up. So we scrambled to load the guns with powder again, the whole time the bull remained, looking at us even. This process took minutes and I swore were had missed our chance, but he remained. The guide I was with even broke something on his gun and so I was going to have to shoot alone. I aimed, took a deep breath, and fired. I shot him straight through the heart and he passed from this plane almost instantly. At Taos Pueblo where I am from, it is an old belief that when hunting you ask permission ahead of time and when the time comes the animal will present themselves for you, and that is exactly what happened.
It was getting dark at this point so we hiked down to him and took out his guts where we would leave him over night and hiked back out to our truck getting back after dark. We came back the next morning, day 4, and hiked a couple hours in. Who knows how many miles we had hiked, but we hiked up and down old logging roads until we got to him. We were glad no bears had found him in the night before we got back. An hour or so later we had broken the animal down and packed in our first round into our packs, hung the parts we didn't pack and hiked back out. We did this four times over two days with 100+ pounds of flesh and bone on our backs. I only weigh 135 pounds so it was almost like I was carrying myself for hours through the wet cold up and down logging roads to the truck. I remember the last couple times needing to stop every 30 seconds or so because I felt like my hips were about to pop out of place or that my legs wouldn’t hold me up any longer, I remember praying to who or whatever that a random park ranger would drive by and offer us a ride, because I swore I couldn't do it anymore. This was by far the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, and likely the closest I will ever know to giving birth.
I find it interesting on how my closest experience to giving birth involves death, and I realize how closely connected the two actually are. We talk about it sometimes mindlessly as if it is some universal truth, but experiencing it so potently is a whole other thing all together. In truth, being present for the birth of Florá Inés felt exactly like being with my mother in her final days on this plane in her struggle with breast cancer. The way I was there for Maida was exactly the same as it was with my mother. Both of them so strong and graceful in their journeys despite the pain involved.
My experience of this birth I helped initiate and see through has taught me some things, but also solidified existing beliefs. Maida and I spent 5 days, the same as my hunt, in varying degrees of labor, where I saw Maida in what seemed like more pain then possible, that in an instance was alchemized into pure joy once Florá came spiraling out and on to the bathroom floor. There was a moment in the birth where Maida started to worry maybe something was wrong because it had taken so long, and at one point I remember her saying “I don’t think I can do this anymore” and I knew it was about to happen.
In truth I feel like we should welcome long births. It's like trying to force open a flower, it never works the same. Give it the proper environment and time and it will blossom all on it's own.
Wilderness hunting or free birth aren’t for the faint of heart, though I do believe any of us could do them if we set our minds on it. You have to believe in what you are doing and believe that you can do it whether someone or your own subconscious say otherwise. It is a reflection of your fears and comfortabilities that must be conquered. On my hunt if I had a cheat code where I could take the meat out by vehicle I would have taken it in a second, however it wouldn’t have been as meaningful to me now. I wonder about that with pain, whether in life or death. If we avoid the pain will the reward be worth the same?
When Florá was born the first person I wanted to tell was my mother. I don’t know what I think about the after life, but I know she is always with me, and that I am still learning from her. It's wild to be able to welcome death with my mother, and to welcome life with Maida, but despite it all I am better because of them. What a gift to be able to experience life from both ends. I've never experienced such magic as as being part of a 'free birth' with my favorite human.
Now it's time to revel in the reward our hard work and convictions which is, and will always be Florá. <3
↴ NOTE
If more interested in free birth, it's worth it whether just to learn about life or to learn more about having a free birth yourself :
↴ PHOTOS
