New Life: a birth story

Admittedly, I’ve been wallowing.

Lately, life has shown it’s beauty and God’s gracious gifts alongside so many emotional and mental mazes that I’ve found self pity in. On a day like any other, filled with chores and abundant lists that I knew all too well would only be partially completed, I walked the gravel path to find a moment I’d be suspended in.

She lay there, on her side in quite a calm manner for a first-time mother with a baby midway out in the world. I approached slowly with a calm and comforting voice to witness this moment that always seems to make you feel so small in the grand spectrum of life. That seems to lend all of the understanding to the complicated happenings of our lives and creates the feeling that they are intrinsic, if even for reasons we cannot yet comprehend. The new kid part way into this world seemed to be gasping, trying with some difficulty to take in it’s first breaths. A firmly believe that nature, much like us, must struggle to accomplish or we may never stand on our own two feet (or in this case four), but after several minutes and with only the back haunches still inside her mother, I reached in and gently removed London’s first born kid and our first doeling born to us.

I was able to remove some fluids from her throat, get her onto a clean towel and get her breathing appropriately. While I was cleaning off our little Lady, extraordinarily the next kid was being pushed out so quickly after the first. To my complete and utter amazement, this kid was being born completely en caul (still within the amniotic sack).

I watched as a small, new life was still swimming completely unaware of its transition into the world. I have never experienced an en caul birth before, and being relatively new to goats and their births I was in unknown territory. I do however have principals to fall back on and so, I watched and waited until I was sure she or the kid needed my assistance. After a bit of time, I could see the kid inside beginning to thrash about a bit and open it’s mouth, almost as if it were trying to breath. Making an executive decision, I poked my finger through the sack and pulled it away from the babes face - again removing clumps from the throat.

All along the way, I felt so honored that my doe was so peaceful, so trusting of my nature and ability that she never once uttered a bleat. Her eyes seemed calm and understanding - and the moment that our en caul boy was born and being dried, a look of joy, I swear it was a look of joy washed over this does face. She came to her fresh babies and began to clean them off. I knew at this point, of her standing and going about her motherly duties that two was all there was. So I sat there, with my six year old and just watched in amazement and shared in the joy that seemed to be swirling around the shed.

Often times we as humans have a way of taking for granted the things that seem in abundance of it. It is only when it is new and shiny or perhaps lost and then regained that we swell with the proper appreciation that we should have been spilling over with from the beginning. It is my daily prayer that my son being raised with the absolute blessing to witness an ancient story such as birth of a new life, marvels on its wonder all the days of his life. That though it may occur over and over and over, that it may never be common or valued as anything less that spectacular and soul awakening.