Introducing, Tina Fey Turner, a doe born on our micro farm Thursday. The children and I watched her mother, Vanilla, labor all day. We were ready for this baby. We knew she was on the way. And when her mother started pushing, my son and I were there from the first push waiting with clean towels and a camera. My daughter, deeply conflicted, had gone off to the local homeschooling park day. She's seen a few births and perfect park days aren't all that common. Hoping Vanilla might hold off till evening, my daughter decided to risk some time with her friends. Which turned out all for the best.

The first bubble of amniotic sac was pushed out and it looked off color to me--slightly greenish. Perhaps that's normal? I don't have enough experience to say. But the fluid was cloudy and that bothered me. I asked my son, who is 13, what body part he thought was presenting first. He said a nose. Which I silently denied because he's younger than me and I wanted to hope he was wrong. I said nothing. Then he said, "Yeah, a nose, I saw it twitch."  Dangitall--time to pop that sac and find out what else was presenting with a nose.  Turns out, nothing else was presenting.

I went in looking for little hooves to align and pull out beside the little head now born, but I found nothing. I'm not completely inexperienced. I've seen this presentation and pulled little hooves before. But this time was different. I moved all the way around the baby's head in as far as my hand and could find nothing to pull. I consulted with a vet on the phone. My son who was remarkably calm, clear thinking, and level through all this, helped me load Vanilla in the car--which was not easy with heads pointing both ways and the mother unwilling. He decided to stay home and mind the phone in case his sister called.

The vet managed to pull Tina but it was rather violent. The only other option would have been emergency c-section. I've seen many births of humans and animals. Birth is intense. This birth was very intense. (I'll just leave it at that.) The clinic was very busy and no one had much time for us. Including a 20 minute drive each way, we were only gone from home an hour. So very quickly I had Tina and Vanilla home in their own pasture. I don't mean to disparage the vet. She did a great job getting us all safely out of a very tight spot in a hurry and I'm grateful. But not her, me, the vet techs, nor another vet ever noticed what my son saw about 90 seconds after we got back home.

This little doe has curled up, I would say tendon bound, front legs. In this next picture you can see I'm putting gentle pressure on them to straighten. This is as far as they can go. She mostly walks on her knees. By the second day, she was walking some on her fetlocks as well, an improvement yet troubling. I've worked with a child who has cerebral palsy. Tina's legs feel very much like that, almost wooden. This is why she didn't present with a normal birth position.

My daughter is holding her off the ground here, this is as far as her legs can reach. She's cute though.

Her prognosis is excellent. I've treated her for White Muscle Disease which, if I understand all this correctly, is the same thing as or caused by some combination of selenium and vitamin E deficiency. My neighbor (who is AWESOME) had selenium/vitamin E gel for goats and some homeopathic remedies she gave us. She also let us fall in a puddle of concern on her kitchen floor and demonstrated how to give a newborn kid a shot. The vet suggested a one time overdose of tetracycline to relax these tendons as another treatment option. Vanilla was bred too young and its possible her uterous was simply too tight to encourage a normal birth presentation. Or it could all be due to bad luck. But according to my other AWESOME goat goddess friend, Tina should be walking normally in a few days. We are watching her closely and offering encouragement, love, massage, and physical therapy several times a day.