The following post is an archive of our GoFundMe campaign which began in 2020.
Hello everyone,
I hope you all had a good start into the summer and that it will be a fun and relaxing time for all of us.
The farm has been just buzzing and hopefully this buzz will just keep going the entire summer: lots of visitors – locals and tourists of any age groups and background, new volunteers and new staff – lots of learning and teaching and our daily spiel through all the animal care and always doing our absolute best for them.
This story I’m going to tell you today is a little different than most of the others because it still has an open end. We don’t know yet where it’s going to lead and I can only keep going on and fill this uncertainty with hope. Never give up hope!
On the evening of June 30th our momma goat Goldilocks was in labour and with a lot of difficulties and, as we know now injury to herself, she gave birth to one big healthy boy “Bear”. After Bear was delivered Goldilocks’ labour just didn’t progress as it should: she continued to have strong painful contractions, then delivered a placenta but the contractions and her distress continued. During normal labour after delivering the babies, the placenta is usually delivered without much pushing and then there shouldn’t be any more contractions. So this night in Goldie’s case we really feared that there was another baby that our internal examination hadn’t discovered. With our knowledge exhausted we were just feeling heartbroken, very helpless and worried, so we reached out to our vet. We are so grateful that he was able to come into town and see Goldie and her little Bear in the middle of the night.
After examining her his diagnosis almost made my heart stop as it unfortunately was what we had feared the most: during the delivery of Bear Goldilocks had torn her uterus. I can only tell you how I felt in this moment (but I’m sure Lynda who was there with Goldie and me all the time had a very similar reaction). My worst fears had suddenly stepped out from the shadows and it seemed as if destiny had decided to let it happen all over again. Many of you already know this as you follow us and our lives with the animals for a longer time: this is how our little orphan goat Rosie lost her mum Alexis – the same diagnosis, the middle of the night, the same vet and for me the same feeling of responsibility, helplessness and doom. I really think for a brief moment my mind went somewhere else, while we were all still functioning and talking- my memory took me back 2 years to a very dark night. While Rosie is certainly the light of my life now, I truly wish she would have grown up with her real goat mum and would have been saved from all the heartbreak and health issues. And that’s all I wished for Goldie and her baby – I just wanted them to live, grow, nurture and love together!!!
Our vet explained the severity of the injury and that he might have to euthanize Goldilocks, and I don’t know what he saw in our faces – maybe the desperation and pure wish for better news in our eyes as well as the love and determination in Goldie’s face to care for the baby she delivered under so much pain. He then continued to expound on a treatment option of antibiotics, pain meds, anti inflammatory meds, an injection to make her uterus contract, and stitching up Goldie’s backend a little to prevent a prolapse. When he had finished explaining our only question was: What are her chances? And with his answer of 50:50 we didn’t hesitate for long. If there was a realistic chance of Goldie surviving this and raising her baby, we would go for it. All in!!!
Four injections, one little field surgery in the barn and lots of aftercare and follow up instructions and the vet was on his way home again. It’s 3:30 am, goats and humans were exhausted, but Goldilocks was fully medicated including some good pain meds, she was active, very caring to her baby – Bear was really strong and nursed well – and she just adored him. We were heading home ourselves to grab a couple of hours of sleep. We had another big day ahead of us (after all it was the long weekend with on top of it all the shearing of our two alpacas) and Goldie would need all our care and love to help her keep going.
In hindsight the days really blend together now, but I remember that the first few days were very tense. Goldie received all her antibiotics and pain meds regularly (and she is a really great patient), we closely monitored her body temperature and other body functions, tried to motivate her with treats and our vet was kept in the loop with updates several times per day. We all knew that the first 72-96 hours were the most critical – it was possible that Goldie’s injury was so traumatic that her body would fail very quickly but the longer she went with stable body functions, enough energy to get up and a little appetite the better her prognosis would be. And so far Goldie really surprised us: She is strong, reacts well to the medications, adores her baby and cares well for him. After 72 hours her visible injuries started to go down and with her situation remaining quite stable we slowly allowed ourselves to have some hope – a carefully guarded little ray of hope. After the first 96 hours had passed our vet then said that he now feels “cautiously optimistic” that she will make it but that the next 3-4 weeks will remain critical where still a lot could happen with another more critical phase at the end of this timeline when we will start to take her off the medication.
So, here we are now all being “cautiously optimistic” with a surprisingly strong Goldilocks who has decided to overcome the odds for now and just live on for her amazing, bouncy, playful,adventurous and brave little Bear. And every day that Goldie is strong and active is a good day and our hope for a happy ending grows a little bit. It’s been 20 days now and just a few days ago Goldilocks finally started to have more interest in her food and we could now increase her grain and hay amounts a little bit. While we are taking this journey with Goldilocks step by step and watching her very closely, we do everything for her that we can. We just carry the wish in our hearts that it will be enough, that Goldie will fully heal and will get strong enough to continue living. That’s all we hope for. And when I see how she is looking at her little Bear I dare to believe that she can make it.
For this summer we have one more momma goat who is expecting babies at any time now – our little (at the moment really big!) sweet girl Diamond. We are watching her very closely to not miss anything and we are wishing for a smooth and relatively easy delivery with healthy mum and babies. And hopefully soon as she is as big as a whale!
Enjoy the summer and have a “goat” time,
Claudia