The Magic of Life Gave me a New Son, Falco. Story of a home birth.

I took a short break from writing…

I have been a dad for 27 years, a dad of three beautiful sons I love and I can never be more grateful to have them. I am now a dad of four sons.

Falco K’in Le Meur Sartori was born at 1h58 AM on November 29th 2022.

Home birth

Magdalena is very brave, a modern “warrior woman” as my indigenous friends say. She chose since the beginning to have a home birth with the help of midwives who have quit the traditional hospital system. Some of them are doctors, gynecologists, who spent years training for it, did a career in hospital and decided to now only help women give birth this way, at home.

No medication was given and no medical intervention was performed. They regularly checked the baby’s heart rate through Magdalena’s body and supported her in the process.

The doctors and nurses who now work at home told me they quit because they are convinced it was better this way for the baby and the mother.

“Imagine the shock of a baby coming to life exposed to a bright surgery room type light with both the baby and mother on drugs and pain killers.”

Maybe I will ask one of them to record a video, their words would be better than mine as it sounds so controversial, I know. The world is used to giving birth in hospitals without even thinking about the other way I witnessed, natural.

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Hospital birth is also very new, before the early 1900s all births were done by midwives.

By 1935, only 15% of babies were delivered by midwives.

“Over time, there developed a rivalry between doctors and midwives, ” she added. “Doctors would say ‘we know more about anatomy, we are better suited to do this.’ Midwives said ‘we are women, we have experience, we know how we do this.'”

For many decades, the tug of war over approaches broke down along the gender lines; all of the doctors were male, and all of the midwives were female.

The shift to hospital births started in the 20th century. “What happened in the beginning of the 20th century was anesthesia for delivering children, and they wanted to have pain-free childbirth.”

With some rational mind left I obviously asked about statistics before agreeing to the process. They said the number of women who actually end-up going to the emergency room after having chosen a home birth is extremely small (it was so small that I forgot the number and decided to trust). The car was there ready for me to drive us to the hospital in case but I never felt it was going to happen nor did I get scared to even think about that.

A birth ceremony

As you know I love writing but I find it incredibly hard to write or even talk about the experience. It was a very moving and incredible “ceremony”. It’s almost impossible to describe what happened. Magdalena was definitely “somewhere else” and me too, needless to say with nothing else than what our bodies generated in this magical moment.

One of the best part is when we started dancing in the bedroom to help the baby come down while she was in active labor. I will remember that dance all my life.

We setup a little “pool” in the bedroom and I slowly saw Falco’s head come out, in the “amniotic sac” which they told me was rare, the bag opened only when Falco’s whole body came out. I caught him in my two hands as he came out et voila.

After a short moment on my hands still in water (babies can stay under water as long as they are still connected to the placenta still they were already in water…) he was in Magdalena’s arms. Falco was very quiet and barely cried, more like a few sounds showing his surprise to discover (or rediscover?) this world.

Once the midwives said Falco had everything he needed from the placenta (and not immediately as they do in hospital) I cut the umbilical cord with some prayers for Falco.

Falco is still incredibly quiet today.

Where is Falco coming from? Why did he choose us?

Have we really made it happen or did it happen outside of the simulation of life?

Life and how a new soul, a new consciousness gets in a baby body is a mystery science cannot even start trying to understand. Once the pregnancy starts it really feels like the universe is “using” Magdalena as a vessel for this new being to come to life. Life creation just “happens” and we let Falco decide when he would come out. When he felt ready he signaled it to Magdalena and the process started.

Women are so beautiful and magical this way, they can create life. Men can just initiate the process and support.

The only two things we can be completely sure of are life and… death. Everything stops when they happen. Nothing else seems to matter anymore.

Story of the name “Falco K’in”

Falco reminds us of “Falcon”. Falcons can see 2.6 times further than the human eye and fly at 320 km/h making them the fastest moving creatures on Earth.

In ancient Egypt Horus was a Falcon with the right eye as the Sun and the left eye as the Moon.

Falco was conceived a few days after Magdalena completed her fourth Moondance and I completed my second Sundance. Our Moondance and Sundance happen at the same location. I do not know any other of these rituals with the same feminine/masculine in the same place even though there are many of these special “dances” around the world.

The name Falco came to Magdalena in a dream about our future son. Falco’s second name is “K’in”. Kinich “K’in” Auhau is “Sun” in Maya. There are many jaguars still living around our Moondance and Sundance circles. A few of them came at night while we were preparing the space or doing the Sundance.

K’in infix is the “Jaguar of the Underworld or the Night Sun”. K’in is a nocturnal sun associated with terrestrial fire.The name K’in was received by my Sundance Chief who also created both Moondance and Sundance spaces. Miguel Flores has always impressed me with his connection with the fire. The fires run night and day during both Moondance and Sundance.

My Yawanawà indigenous friends in the Amazon forest also constantly have fires running to protect the space during ceremonies. I am learning to work with the fire and “read” it. It often takes animal forms as you can see in the below photo.

I took care of a fire all night during the birth ceremony, it is a powerful protector.

Coming to the world as slowly as possible

Falco had no surgery light on his head or hospital environment to welcome him, just the comfort of our home and candle lights. The curtains have been mostly closed since he was born to get him very slowly used to the outside light. Very few people entered the room so far to protect him from outside energy and strengthen our connection with him.

I can relate to the soft coming out “back” to the world remembering how the indigenous taught me how to come back from my 3 months isolation in the forest. Anyone who has done a 10 day vipassana type meditation retreat knows how it feels to go from total silence back to the stimulation and agressive sounds of society. I was asked not to touch anyone or not to look at anyone’s eyes for a while as I left the jungle. Everything felt like a shock and weird. The food was carefully chosen and kept small and simple, cooked by only two women also in special dieta. Falco only eats for now from Magdalena’s perfect food.Why would we be the only being on the planet to feed our babies milk from another animal… and not very a very smart one… cows? Who says it’s better for our babies? I understand the convenience aspect of course or the difficulty to breast feed for women who must separate from their babies to go to work. If breast feeding became a luxury (!) then I am so grateful Magdalena is able to give that to Falco.

More soon. I could write so much about this incredible experience. I am very fortunate that I could live birth from beginning to the end.

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