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25 October 2008

Birthing Babies is Messy Business (a graphic post)








Every morning after breakfast we got to go on a hayride followed by farm chores. Our first morning was freezing – one of those days where the skies are crystal blue, but you find your lips are slowly turning blue as well. There was so much frost on the ground that the kids were playing “ice-skating” on the trampoline and showed up to the wagon wet. Jim brought out farm suits, blankets and more jackets then we all huddled together atop bales of hay. With 600 cows on the farm we were hoping to see some new calves.

Jim was giving us a farm tour and when we got to the cows, we saw a new baby and her mama right away. We’d just missed the delivery! There was bloody goo dripping from her rear that grossed us out and I said, “Well, birthing babies is messy business.”

We saw a lot of calves in separate cages and learned that they’re separated from their moms after only one day. They’re bottle fed from the get go, no nursing. We three moms were acutely bothered by this but didn’t say much. It was worse to hear that the males are shipped off at one day old and usually butchered a day or two after that -- veal. The females are kept, of course for milking and birthing. Ugh, right?

We passed another mom with her new calf and as we rounded the corner I said, “Wow, she’s delivering the afterbirth. Look at that gray bulge.” No one really paid much attention because we were driving away, but I noticed that the gray bulge wasn’t moving at all. I screamed up to Jim that I thought the cow was having another baby and he took us back around. He walked up to her and broke the sack, GUSH! Suddenly two wee hooves appeared!

Excitement filled the barn in no time! Since none of us was in a hurry, Jim said we could wait it out even though it might be awhile and we were all turning to ice. Hoorah! The cow moaned a few times and one of the women sounded alarmed, “Oh, she’s in pain! Listen to her! Is she having trouble?” This alarmed the kids and without knowing how the other two families felt about natural childbirth, I opted to take over from there.

I said to my own kids, "She’s just finding her ‘om’. It helps a mom a lot when she’s birthing a baby to hear her voice in a nice deep tone. Like this: ommmmm, ommmmm. That’s all she’s doing. It helps her manage her pain. It’s hard work having a baby and she needs to stay in control." The cow was lying down and she got up onto her front knees. The other mom said, "Oh look look! She's getting up!" I continued, “It’s important for a mom to be able to move around when she’s birthing. It’s hard to move with a big baby in your belly, but her body will tell her what’s comfortable.” Then the cow got all the way up and Jim found a farm hand. He came over a few minutes later and bottle fed the new calf on the ground without realizing this big gal was in the middle of having twins -- rare for a cow!

My natural childbirth lessons came to a halt when Farm Boy got involved. First of all he grabbed the new calf by the leg and literally dragged her out of the way. Then he wielded mama into a corner, chained the new hooves sticking out of her and cranked out the second calf. She slowly slipped right onto the ground.
PLOP!

Mama did look relieved but I was sad they made her rush anyway. In fact, my heart was racing and I was dying to get preachy about the evils of intervention, but I held my tongue. (Occasionally, I’m capable of that.) This really was a moment to be treasured and I was so grateful to Jim that he allowed us to experience it.

Peanut was so excited that she got to see the womb, “Mom, did you get a picture of the sack? Did you get a close up? Check and make sure it’s in focus!” One of the dads was particularly overcome and I casually asked if he’d been able to witness his 2 daughters’ births. Yes he had. Still, birthing is overwhelming and beautiful no matter how many times you see it. There was a celebration in the barn while we all shouted our congrats and oohed and aahed over how cute the new arrival was.

On the ride back each of my kids were full of questions like, “Was there that much blood when I was born? Why did the mom lick all that gross stuff off the calf? Did you lick me like that? Was I so cute like that? Did they use a chain to pull me out?” Doodle argued emphatically that the calf had come out of the mom's bum, "Right, mom?!" No, Doodle, it comes out of a mom’s…and I said the word again hearing Little Man in the background, “grooooosssss.”

3 comments:

  1. Enjoyed the birthing story. I teach a "Children at Birth" class for siblings who will be attending home births. It's great that they are exposed to normal birth, even for a cow! Well, normal until Farm Boy came and yanked the calf from its mama! Sad, also about no nursing. You'd think they'd just leave nature alone...

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  2. OH I am so thankful you were there to narrate the birth! I saw in the picture that they had something tied around the calves hooves. Poor Mamma! How sad that they separate them so early. Why slaughter the male calves so young? Veal?

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  3. Natural childbirth education is awesome any way you can give it! Way to educate/empower your family.

    looking forward to your return

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