The Business of Birth

by sophie. Posted on August 4, 2011

04 Aug

I pulled my first calf this morning. That makes me a farmer for sure. I learned how to do it by reading James Herriott’s books – it just goes to show how useful reading is in later life!

We have been waiting and waiting for Daisy to give birth. Every morning asking Ben ‘do you think Daisy will have had her calf this morning?’ and then going off for a drive to find her still pregnant, udder full to bursting, waddling on the pasture, unconcerned. This morning still no calf but as I walked back from the gate where I had been chatting to the fencing man who came to do a quote, I saw that she had started labouring. All our little herd were around her giving quiet support and protection as she engaged in every animal’s most primal act.

I watched in the sun as she pushed and rested. Backing up as she pushed, tail held high and then snatching at grass in between times. After a while I realised she didn’t seem to be making much progress and when she lay down walked over slowly to check. Two feet still in the sack protruding and no sign of the nose so I grasped the forelegs, broke the bag and tried to pull. Nothing happened so I put both hands in to feel for the head. It seemed to be quite a way in and I could feel the tongue lolling out of the mouth and so I pulled with left hand fingers hooked in the jaw and right on one of the forelegs and urged Daisy to push. One huge heave and the head was out but no signs of life. Another and the baby was out and on the ground but inert and very dead looking. I reikied it and stroked it hard and talked to it and exhorted it to live. Paddy came over and licked it while Daisy rested for a few minutes. Finally it breathed and the heart started. It was probably only 2 minutes but it felt like a long time . . . I briefly considered picking it up and shaking it or whirling it around me head but it was pretty heavy so lucky it started breathing without my having to resort to such extremes!

Daisy got up and busied herself with cleaning the ground of the detritus of birth before she attended in any way to her baby. The calf flopped and wriggled, wet and fish like on the ground, in its first attempts to ‘find its feet’. Finally Daisy turned her attentions to her child, licking and nudging her to stand and then when she did, cleaning her up as she shivered in the sun and sneezed all the amniotic fluid out of lungs and head. Daisy was in true primal mode. Normally she is so placid and relaxed but this was high drama and urgency – cleaning up so as not to attract predators, getting that calf on its feet and moving so it could run away from any attack. All the other cows were there as a shield, watching with interest, not getting involved, but lending support just by being there.

Daisy expelled the placenta and promptly ate it, scrubbing the grass clean with her tongue. Still the baby hadn’t had a drink and it was clear that there was a time for everything.

I left them to go for my run and came back to find a girl calf with a full belly happily sucking on her Mother and Dais licking me as if to say ‘thank you’.

But then I wondered – did I need to intervene or was it all unfolding perfectly? Was I right to get in and help or was I unable, like so many doctors, to just sit and wait and watch and allow and TRUST?

We don’t do trust, us human beings, do we? We don’t trust nature or ourselves or our children, friends or family. We don’t trust each other, we don’t trust that there is a force far greater and more powerful than us which rules the heavens, has natural laws and knows far more than we do. Or is it just that we are so scared – of death, of standing by, of the rawness and urgency of life at its most primal, that we feel we have to DO something, we can’t just sit and wait and be present in the moment and conscious in the flow of life’s great mysteries.

It was a beautiful thing to watch and be part of. It was a beautiful day. And now I have more empathy and sympathy for those medicos who insist on pulling and grabbing and cutting and sucking babies out. It’s fear and awe. I need to learn to wait and watch and so do they. I’ll never know whether Daisy needed my intervention this morning or whether she was just fine on her own. Neither will they. We all need to trust the Mother, trust the baby, trust the process, trust the forces far greater than us and just enjoy being witness to a miracle.

Control freak, moi?

by sophie. Posted on December 24, 2007

24 Dec

I left Ged and the plumber ripping out the bathroom the other day. After I had bossed them both around and got in the way I decided I had better not ask any more questions when I saw Colin drilling a hole in a strange spot in the floor. I figured they both knew what they were doing and just had my bath outside under the jacaranda tree, revelling in nature while they toiled. Then I made them scrambled eggs on toast and iced coffee and left them to it. When I came home I was thrilled to see the shower base in and to get a sense of how good my shower will be. Then I walked into the rest of the room. ‘Why is the toilet there” I asked. ‘That’s where you wanted it, honey’ Ged replied. Oh God, that is NOT where I wanted it . . . you can imagine the rest!

The upshot was that since Colin went away for the Christmas break early the next morning, Ged was given all the instructions and had to spend Saturday moving the loo . . . less than six inches to the left!! Control freak? Moi??

I went to Sydney and found a dress so you will be pleased to hear that I will not be fronting up at the hitching rail in my Birthday Suit on 15th March! It’s going to be made by a fabulous gay Aussie designer called Adam Dixon who I found through a strange set of coincidences and it is exactly what I had in my head so we won’t worry about the dollars!! Well, I got my wedding shoes at Target for $20.00 so that should offset some of the cost!! It was good to see Shirley and Marcel and be inspired by their lovely home and it is testimony to how tired I am that I slept through all the cars and trains which create the Sydney soundscape. I put myself through DFO (Direct Factory Outlets) which is rather like being in a huge fluoro lit maze and first it seems exciting when you come across a dead end and then you become more and more frustrated and fearful as you can’t find you way out, every way you turn is the wrong way, until you finally stumble back the way you came and stagger into the sunshine, heaving deep breaths of relief and vowing never, ever again . . . .

I went to Ikea to look at the kitchens and have found one so we will go back into the breach once more in January to find Ged a suit for the big day and bring home my country kitchen from the big smoke.

I got one of my Christmas presents early . . . I have wanted a Jersey cow ever since I read and fell in love with Colleen McCulloch’s gorgeous ‘Ladies of Missalonghi’ many years ago. And she arrived on Friday! She was immediately christened Daisy and when I was out trying to befriend her on Friday night I must have not fully locked in the yard gate bolt. When Ged got up to make the tea on Saturday morning he found Daisy was long gone! So we went hunting and eventually Ged and Phee found her hiding on the other side of the river and tried to tempt her with honey sandwiches to no avail. So I went and played Parelli games with her for three hours until she would follow me home. We only had one bad moment when I decided to rope her to get her to cross the river with me and she showed me her strength by hauling me head first and bouncing on my ass through a briar patch . . . so i gave that up as a bad idea! Bloodied and battered I persuaded to forgive me for such rudeness and love me again and she followed me home across the river, up the bank, all the way down the flat and back into the yard – good girl!! She kisses on command and she definitely thinks I’m a cow! She tried to mount me three times that afternoon and played head butting games with me so I had to slap her down a bit. On Sunday we let her out again and she went off at a leisurely pace to the same spot but when I went to retrieve her a few hours later I just had to call and she came wading across the river to me and followed me home again. We might be two mad cows together but we are very happy!

This Mad Cow is signing off for 2007. It’s been a crazy year. Who would have thought that my single-minded pursuit of my dream farm would bring me my best friend, my life partner and a love I’ve longed for all my life? Who would have thought I could have found this much happiness someone who understands me and loves me anyway!!

We are in a mad push to get the house done over the holidays so Ged can start building the office and I can plan a wedding and orchestrate all the different things that have to happen at Avalon before she is on show in March. I hope we also get some time off to enjoy each other and this land which holds and nurtures us and is our much-loved home.

Here’s love to all of you at this time of togetherness, hope and promise. Let’s see what 2008 will bring us all . . . .

DAISY!