The Spirituality of...Goat Birth...

While I no longer have my goats, I thought I'd share this throwback story from 2010 when my first goat was about to have her first baby.  Hope you enjoy...

God just blows my mind!

May 24, 2010 at 7:04pm

Yesterday morning I noticed "Tinker" might be showing signs of labor...

Tinker's in labor...

So, I went in to do my devotions after letting the goats out, milking them and feeding them and the chickens. I asked God in my prayer journal (I write out my prayers cuz I'm blonde and easily get lost) if He would let Caleb and I get to see Tinker have her baby. I threw in at the last minute, "and it'd be great if it was during Ben's nap!" with a smiley face after.

I checked on Tinker every couple of hours and went about my business, determined to play with the 2 youngest ones (sons) while the two oldest ones were golfing with dad and the middle one was with friends at a birthday party. I was also very tempted to go to a fundraiser where there were pedicures occurring with many of my favorite friends, but wasn't sure what to do with the little guys.

After playing Where's Waldo with Caleb and watching two episodes of The Pond with Ben and Caleb, I was really getting sleepy. I looked at the clock and noticed it was nap time. I fed Ben some pizza and got him down for a nap and went to check on Tinker.

Are you sure you don't wanna go in the big goat house that I can walk in where I've already laid down towels for you? Are you sure? Well...okay...

Although I really wanted a nap I decided to stay out with her (after I grabbed some towels and my camera-oh, and Caleb!)

 Oh, I felt for her! She was really hurting!

She started letting out some loud bleats so I knew she was getting near her time of delivery...

I was secretly wondering if we should crawl inside the little enclosure with her so we could see the baby come out...

Every time she would bleat (or Ma-a-ah, as Caleb calls it), Caleb would cover his ears cuz she was loud (by the way, I think the word-people should cave and put "cuz" in the dictionary "cuz" no one wants to spell out "because"-just a side note...:)

I was a little bummed that we weren't facing the right direction to see when the baby came out but figured making sure Tinker and the baby were okay was more important. Just then, she got up, turned around and faced the other direction giving us a perfect vantage point!

Caleb and I were really praying for her cuz I didn't know how to help her if the baby wasn't facing the right direction or something that shouldn't present itself first (feed, bottom)...did.

She started really grunting and pushing and a black thing bulged out...Caleb and I couldn't even begin to tell what it was...

A foot I could recognize and a nose was what I wanted to see but this...was...unrecognizable!

After a few more pushes it became clearer to me that this was her bag of waters.

It burst and a little nose was protruding slightly! We were so relieved that in this instance at least, we wouldn't hafta intervene! (I also think we should give up on "have to" and make it a smoother flowing "hafta"...sorry, another bunny trail...)

I just kept thinking of the scene from "City Slickers" where the guy has to help deliver the baby cow, reaches inside and then proclaims that he's lost his watch!...anyway...

A couple more pushes and a whole, living, tiny goat came out and we were elated! Both Caleb and I teared up! I was surprised cuz I thought only girls did that but teared up again when I realized how excited my 7-year-old was to have witnessed a miracle. He said "Man, my eyes are watering!"...I asked if it made him cry a little and he said "yeah..." (oh melter of hearts!)

My tears only lasted a second cuz I noticed Tinker wasn't getting up right away to clear the baby's nose and mouth so it could breath so I jumped in to do at least that much...

I went to call my goat guru, Karen, and while I was on the phone with her, another one plopped out after Tinker stood up and bellowed again. Both Caleb and I jumped! Neither one of us was expecting that! This was technically her first pregnancy but they can sometimes have twins anyway. 

I think Tinker was surprised too, cuz she jumped and then stepped on the baby accidentally. It bleated and she moved and started cleaning the first one. The second one had even more energy than the first and was not hardly cleaned off but was trying to get up and get mom's attention!

Caleb intently watching the whole thing go down...

Here's the little girl...

The babies kept coming to us and we had to redirect them to their mommy...

She's kissing him and he's kissing his sister...

Caleb helping wipe off the little girl...Tinker's wondering what he's doing..

Tim wants to see the babies...

Well, it was glorious! 

After the boys got home and saw them and we ate dinner (Bryan wisely foresaw ahead and brought home pizza), we weighed them. They weigh about 5 lbs ea.

Trev helps keep 'em warm while I weigh them...

Ben is fully delighted with the babies!

Bryan scopes out these two little creatures about the size of tennis shoes...

All done, I'm worn out from no nap and all the excitement!

I looked back on the day and realized God answered my prayers exactly! Ben was totally asleep thru the whole thing and Caleb and I got to watch her have her babies!

...sigh...

It's Not the Place, it's the Grace!

I was tempted to entitle this "I Figured it Out" but that was pretty misleading...

I didn't want people to think that I ...well,...had it all figured out...or at least thought I did!

That's a lot to live up to, after all...

But I came to one small conclusion yesterday...

"It's Not the Place, it's the Grace!"

I was trying to figure out why we're so blessed in our new home in Ohio.  I know that it's not that Ohio is magical because if it were, millions would be flocking here.  And I must confess that I wasn't thrilled with Ohio when we underwent our first tornado watch 3 days into living here!  I was ready to move back to Arizona!  We actually prayed that night as we slept upstairs all bold and in-your-face believing that nothing was going to happen that God didn't want to (well, Bryan believed that, I was a tad scared...to death!  Trying not to be, but kinda was.) that if it was His will that we moved here, that nothing would happen to the house that night.

We were concerned that we had just earlier that day put up a brand new trampoline for the kids which in no way had we secured before heading to bed.  It resides next to a sunroom of all windows.  We thought for sure that if nothing else, it was gonna go through the windows and cause a lot of expensive damage.

It did not.

God keeps confirming that we're supposed to be here.  And that blesses our souls.

We gave up a lot to come here.  We felt led by God to be part of Alistair Begg's church.

We seriously reconsidered the day we left when the entire family, aside from Trevor (who was at school), was bawling their eyes out in leaving Tim behind.  Trevor was already settled in college in California and we'd had more time to detach from him in healthy ways but Tim...Tim had just graduated and it felt like we were abandoning him.

So fast forward to my revelation yesterday.  "It's Not the Place, it's the Grace!"...Sometimes I worry that in all my postings on Facebook, I'm trying to validate something...like we're happier than we are, I'm a better mom than I am or something.  So, I'm posting all these new pics in Ohio: the trampoline, the treehouse, the swing set, the dogs and kids running wild and free...

It's not because of Ohio.

It's because we were led to take a chance, take the spiritual "Nestea Plunge" and trust God by moving here and His Grace is what keeps blessing us over and over!

My cup is truly running over!

No, Bryan doesn't have a job yet.

Yes, we're way behind in homeschool.

No, we're not over abandoning Tim yet.

Yes, we miss Trevor like crazy too.  We didn't see him that often but every 6 weeks is better than once or twice a year.

But there's a huge blessing taking place in our hearts and spirits as we've obeyed the calling we've felt He's placed in our lives.

So, once again: "It's Not the Place, it's the Grace!" of God...

Have a nice Friday...
:)