dead alpaca baby (dont read if you're squeamish)

Last night I stayed at the house in Longmont.

7am we went out to feed the animals together and discovered Maya was in labor over a month early. The amniotic sack was out, but hadn't ruptured. In a panick, I called the vet and our neighbor, Lynley. She said to rip open the sack and go in to try to deliver the baby...to try to save the baby.

I opened that fluid sack and went in up to my elbow. I could feel body parts and wasn't really sure what the hell I was touching. I could make out a knee and what I thought was the neck, but I couldn't get far enough in her to find the head. The baby wasn't moving. It was so warm inside her womb, but that baby didn't move at all. I was afraid. I was so afraid of hurting the baby, of hurting maya, of doing something to make the whole situation worse and afraid to do nothing and to make the whole situation worse. Our vet called back and said not to do anything more. Our neighbor called and said go back in there and see what you can feel...is the baby moving? No, the baby hadn't moved. I knew that baby wasn't alive. The part that I thought was a neck was long and curved and went back so far. It was so warm in there. So comforting and so frightening. What if I do the wrong thing and tear her uterus and then she bleeds to death. We'd lose Maya and the baby.

Lynley came over and checked maya too. She thought it was a breech birth. If it is a breech, she said, the baby could be fine. Michael and Lynley kept walking Maya around talking to her, telling her not to push. I stayed with her 6 year old daughter, Sierra, answering questions about what a placenta is, what a breech birth means, and why it is bad. Telling Sierra, that the baby might already be dead. How alpaca births and human births are not very different.

Our vet finally arrived. We walked Maya out of the corral and into the grassy back yard...it would be cleaner on the grass if he needed to do a c-section. He went in and felt the baby. It wasn't a breech. He described feeling the knee and the neck, just as I had felt it. He manipulated the baby for what felt like a long time and finally brought the head out. He checked to see if it was alive. It was not. He delivered the baby, and maya's vagina tore a little as the baby came out. Once the baby was out we checked. It was a boy. The umbilical cord had ruptured in utero. He was beautiful and he was dead. He was premature, but not so premature that he couldn't have survived if only he had been born alive.

We let Maya sniff her baby for a few minutes while Sierra and I hugged each other and cried. Eventually, our vet gave maya some anitbiotics and some oxytocin to stimulate the release of the placenta. I took Sierra over to the gate to look at the animals while the others bagged up the baby's body. at 8am, Lynley and Sierra left to get ready for school.

We talked to our vet for a little bit. His best guess was that somehow the umbilical cord got severed, probably happened when the baby was shifting into position. The umbilical cord severed, the baby died, and that triggered Maya to go into labor.

I'm usually so happy to see our vet. I usually call him our "hunky vet"...not many men look that good in overalls. But today I'm just sad. Sad to have had to call him, sad to see him, sad for maya, sad for michael, sad for sierra, sad for the dead baby, and sad for myself.

After our vet left, Michael went to the farm store to get a bottle of penicillin. I stayed outside to watch Maya and wait for the placenta to drop. At 10:00, she was still trying to get it out, so we gave her another shot of oxytocin. The placenta dropped at 10:15, and we burried it out in the north pasture. One more hole, one more burrial, one more ending.

We're walking around like zombies. We're awake and asleep. Trying to function and not doing it very well. We took the two almost 1-year old babies to another ranch after we were sure Maya was ok. Those two babies are going to an alpaca show in Denver this weekend, and the people at the other ranch are taking them down there for us. We told them we're leaving this business, and that if anyone is interested in either of our animals to make sure to say that they're for sale. You can't have a livestock business when you get so attached, I said. You need to have a level of detachment to think of the alpacas as "just livestock" not to love them and mourn them. You can't run a business when you sell off animals like they don't have feelings and they don't care. They clearly have feelings. They do care. They show their emotions and can be sad and worried and scared and happy and joyful. They play, they fight, they love each other and they hate each other. How can you buy and sell beings who aren't so different from you?

I'm a zombie and I don't know what to do. I need to go to work, but I don't know what I'll do there. I don't know what I'll do if I stay here either. Writing the story helps me. I'm not sure I want to talk about this just yet. I am pretty numb right now, but writing this has helped.