The unwilling midwife

I did nothing but felt everything

Remember how I told you the sheep were not my idea? How, when my husband got them, I asked to be kept in the dark? What I didn’t write about is how I specifically did not want to be part of lambing season. No dead baby lambs for me, thanks.

But, then, last week my father-in-law passed away.

My husband, who is Australian, had to go home for the service. I told him I could handle it (well, that we could handle it—my dad rushed up from South Carolina to back me up), but what I really meant was I’d have to handle it, in the way that you can and will handle anything for the people you love. I meant it, but I was scared.

On Saturday morning at 6:30am, while Oli was somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, I noticed one of the ewes lying a little apart from the others. I walked quietly down to the fence line—the other three rushed toward me, but this ewe stayed put, unmoving, her ears turned back as if intently listening to someone behind her.

I felt a rush of excitement that I quickly rebranded. It couldn’t have been excitement. I was definitively, intellectually, dreading this happening. I reminded myself of all the things that could go wrong. Steel yourself, I thought.

I sent my dad and kids off to the Saturday morning tee-ball game, packed a canvas bag with items I thought I might need, and headed out to the field, afraid that if I didn’t watch the whole thing, I’d miss something critical. I was operating off of the crash course from the day before, where my dad and I had watched a 20-minute sheep birthing video on YouTube while my husband simultaneously ran us through his extensive Google doc titled, upsettingly, “Funeral/Lambing Manual.”

He was heartbroken to be leaving—he’d been preparing for this moment for so long. He’d traveled many hours to go to sheep school in Vermont each Saturday, had spent time and money carefully assembling every last supply item he might need, had set up perfect pens with cozy bedding and fresh hay—there was even a printed, laminated (by him) illustrated guide showing the different ways a lamb could pass through the birth canal tacked to the barn wall. He was feeling terrible for putting me into this position, and terrible for having to miss it.

I was determined not to fuck it up.

My aspirational watching-a-sheep-in-labor set up

The ewe was by herself, in a hollow, so I walked just close enough that I had a clear line of sight, then settled down with my binoculars. The feeling I’d dismissed earlier was impossible to deny now—it was excitement. And fascination.

I’ve never watched an animal give birth before. I’ve been pregnant four times and given birth twice and neither time went to plan. With my first son, I labored, unmedicated, for 36 hours. As I sat, watching this ewe’s contractions, I felt—what did I feel?—like I was in there with her. Like I’d do anything to help her. I felt the ghosts of my own contractions from 6 years ago—the way they took over my mind. There were no crests and valleys—just unwavering pain so monumental I was certain I’d drown beneath it.

I felt the trauma resurfacing, but I also felt calm. I murmured a steady stream of encouragement to the ewe, who couldn’t hear me and didn’t seem to notice me. She would, while lying on her side, often point her nose straight up to the sky and close her eyes. Other times she’d open her mouth and let out a shapeless cry that I felt in every part of my body.

The labor went on longer than is typical (she was a first-time mother, and the lamb, a single, was very large). At one point, the ewe stood up to change position and the black hooves and little black nose I’d been watching slowly emerge for 45 minutes had completely receded. “Failure to progress” rang through my head—the words that ended my own first labor in a c-section that I was grateful to have, but that had broken my heart. I walked a few paces away to send a text to our neighbor/farmer/friend, Garth, to please come and help.

When I looked up from my phone, there was a lamb on the ground.

Would you believe me if I told you the rush I felt was just as powerful as if I had birthed that lamb myself? I threw my hands in the air, spun in a circle, opened my mouth in a whisper-scream. I had done nothing but I had felt everything.

When my husband landed in Sydney I texted him with the news. “How was it?” he asked. “Are you OK?”

I didn’t—and still don’t—know how to reply.

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