A different kind of midwife, and The David Mayfield Parade

It's so, so good to be back home. Last week I got to be a part of a different kind of birth than I am use to. My roommate Betsy is a large animal vet who gets called out to farms in the area for all kinds of "large animal emergencies." I told her that I would love to help her out with anything birth related.I'm such a city-girl that I've never actually seen an animal be born.
Well I got my wish this week when she was called out to help a mama goat who had been in labor but wasn't progressing.
Betsy is no stranger to birthing a baby in a difficult position. You may remember Betsy from a post I did last year where I was her doula at her 70 hour (yes, I said 70 hour) labor. Her baby Emmaus was military ascynclitic, and birthing him was no small feat. She is still my hero. I had confidence she could help this goat.
We drove out to the farm prepared to possibly do a c-section on this poor goat. Or possibly pull a dead baby goat. I was really hoping I wouldn't have to.
We walked into the barn and found a BIG pregnant goat laying in the hay and moaning.

Dr. Betsy sprung into action with the scared farmer woman looking on. The poor woman was on the verge of tears. So during the goat mama's I.E, Betsy found that a goat was lying stuck in a transverse position blocking the other babies. She couldn't feel movement and wasn't sure if the babies were alive. Transverse position in a human baby means immediate c-section of course, but this goat mama was so HUGE and roomy that Betsy was able to manipulate the goats around into a hoof-first position. She told me to get a towel ready, and one by one pulled out 3 live, adorable, baby goats!
I don't have the actual action-shot birth pics cause I was too busy doing what Betsy was instructing me to do: vigorously rubbing the little goat bodies, picking them up by their hind legs and swinging them back and forth!!!..and taking a piece of hay and tickling their nostrils to stimulate breathing and sneezing to clear their airway.

Emergency goat birth is definitely different than human birth...although the irony was not lost on me. I guess in the 1950's it was normal practice for docs to pick babies up by their legs when they were born too.Yikes.

Anyway, The mama goat started licking her babies, the farmer woman and her 3 daughters were overjoyed. We were overjoyed. It was great.

The mama goat passed the bag of waters after the babies were out. That was interesting.

Baby goats are the CUTEST!!
So now I am a goat midwife as well.
When we got home Betsy's pager went off and we got a call to go help a poor sheep who had a prolapsed uterus! I was SUPER stoked to go do this, but last minute the farmer called and canceled. I guess he thought the placenta was the uterus. Betsy assured me that I will be able to see cow or sheep prolapsed uterus at some point. Yes!
Okay, I know. I'm weird.

In other news, every woman in my church is constantly pregnant, so I've been really happy to be bale to knit again. It was WAY to hot and crazy-busy in the Phils to knit. Here's some booties I made for my friend Sara's baby, Abe. I have the privilege of being her doula next month.

And this weekend I got to see the David Mayfeild Parade for free at Mcmenamins. We saw him twice. His band is THAT good. It was probably one of the best shows I've been to. Those Nashville guitarists really know how to work it. He is a CRAZY guitarist.Then at the end they had us all gather around as they sang a song acapella.Seriously, check 'em out if you haven't heard of them. They are going to be HUGE soon.

I'm off to the Midwifery Today Conference tomorrow. YAY! It's gonna be amazing.