The term “her water broke” took on a WHOLE new meaning. (Side Story: My water broke with my first baby while getting a massage, on my lunch break, at work.  True story.  It was like the Nile River.)  A cow is 5 times the size of an average human and this cows water was 5 times more than the Nile River.

(Here is a little video of exactly how much water)

I literally had the camera up and running to catch this moment as I could just envision myself holding a nice wet baby calf in the end. However, about a minute into it I turned off the camera because things got chaotic real quick.  Between the vet, my handy farm hand and my mother in law…they had it covered.  Probably good, because I was semi terrified for Mabel.  With so many hands in the pot, it was best that I be used for running to the truck and back with supplies.  Not to mention it was blistering hot outside and I was keeping my mind focused in hopes of not fainting.  (Yes, put a little heat spell + trauma on this girl and it doesn’t take much!)

So let’s just say I was the ‘foreman’.

Mind you Mabel was now on the ground, tied to a post…getting her guts ripped out.  Actually, the baby was being pulled out, but the baby wasn’t coming out and so we might as well have been yanking on her guts.  It turns out that this little calf was gigantic.  Its head was flipped backward and with all of the tugging and pulling, it died in the process.  Thankfully, my ever so smart Vet had already asked me what my end goal was.  My goals were to 1) Keep Mabel ALIVE and 2) Keep her reproductive parts intact so she can have healthy pregnancies in the future.  A c-section really wasn’t an option as it can cost a fortune and she most likely would die of infection.  Remember, we are on dirt in a horse corral.  A c-section does not come with a guarantee that they will ever successfully carry a baby full term again.  All of that considered,  I had already verbally requested to avoid it at all cost as I would rather the calf be cut out in pieces (because I knew this was possible) in order to get it out and keep Mabel alive.  Afterall, I just spent months working with her, falling in love with her, and I didn’t need to lose EVERYTHING.  Not sure I could have handled that.

Back to the delivery.

It got ugly real quick.  Everyone was dripping in sweat, standing in wet slop (aka Nile River) and arms deep in Mabel’s back end.  The vet felt it was best to cut the front legs of the calf off (remember the calf is already dead) in order to get the body turned in a way to pull the head forward and be able to pull it out correctly without ripping Mabel’s insides to shreds.

So that is what she did.

It then took my handy dandy farm hand to reach his extremely long arm in to be able to flip the head around and grab it’s jaw and pull it forward.  Let’s not forget that all of this is done at the end of a very narrow birth canal with only finger accessibility and no sight.

And yes, there I stood helpless, like a 5 year old watching a horror film. The only good news is I tend to go into emergency mode and show no emotion in times of chaos.  My poor mother in law is the opposite and had to leave the scene to go watch my Littles who were just now getting home and didn’t need to see the war zone.

It was probably now 5 pm and with one last tug, they got the calf out.  Worst part?  It was a little heifer (girl).  She was gigantic.  Let me say it again, SHE WAS GIGANTIC.  Her body stretched the entire length of one of our panels on our cow pen.  I think at that point we all just got mad.  The pregnancy should have probably been aborted early on to not put this cow through it.  However, the old farmer we bought her from obviously felt she had a chance.  We just witnessed the worst case scenario and within that range, probably had the best case scenario considering the outcome.

Back to the patient.

Mabel was down for the count.

The vet thankfully noticed we were taxing her with this pain in the heat and she needed an epidural…and she got one.  She never got to see the baby thanks to my husband and my handy dandy farm hand who hauled it off before we had a chance to feel sad.  While they did that, my adopted Granny came over to offer support.  She hosed down Mabel while the vet instructed me to milk her out.  Granny and I looked a bit bewildered.

Say what?….Milk her out?….She is on the floor?!

But hey, we were up for the challenge…and so I quick grabbed my goat milker and rigged something to milk her out while she was still sprawled out.  Granny thought it may be a good idea since she was half out of it and this would be her first introduction to milking (half sedated).  Sounded good to me!

Actually I just lied.

I had no clue what ‘MILKING OUT’ meant and after about 4 gallons of colostrum later…I just stopped and called it good.  (Best to freeze and save this stuff for next year in case we need it!)

But guess what?  You can’t do that.  Google said so.  After googling what ‘MILKING OUT’ looked like, I found plenty of information on how complications can arise if you don’t actually milk them out.  But hey, we made it this far surviving on a wing and a prayer, so what’s one more prayer!

As nightfall approached, Mabel began to come around and started trying to get up. Unfortunately her legs weren’t awake yet so again we had a new emergency.  I quickly got my husband (its amazing what you can do with adrenaline) and we literally dragged her by her feet and moved her to a wider place where she could be propped up on a hay bale.  Yes, we moved a cow.  I must be really strong.

Once she was all comfy she was thrilled with the offer of warm molasses water. Black strap molasses offers all sorts of benefits from trace minerals to a quick source of energy.  She drank a few gallons and I’m pretty sure she smiled when I handed her a flake of hay.  We sat there for awhile and made sure we were still okay and then I headed in for the night.  After all, we were about to have a whole new emergency in the morning on how to actually milk her out.

Clearly, I would have to take the day off of work.