Cow, Interrupted

We were on our way to the milk farm, driving through Puritan land: Salemville Rd, Church Dr, Golden Rule Dr. We could just start to smell autumn. The windows were open. We were cruising along, dusk settling in, Joni Mitchell riding shotgun with us. We were midway through a good ole rant against Western Medicine and the Patriarchal control of birthing women, and that is when we saw her.

Her name was Dream, according to the tag on her ear. She was gorgeous, of course, reclined in the pasture near the side of the road. S. spotted her right away and we geared down and slowly stopped to watch her. She was majestic. We could already see sweet little calf hooves appearing along with her membranes. We watched this mama as she rested in between her rushes. With every rush we could see more and more of the calf's hooves. That intangible, palpable birth energy was there, hanging stiff and thick in that farm air. We settled in and whispered to each other as we watched this mama.


I briefly ruined it for a moment. I wanted to get a bit closer. I crept out of the car and inched closer and closer to the mama. Suddenly the air changed and she bolted upright, stared at me, sucked her baby back inside, and walked further away from us. I was immediately sorry for my intrusion. I know better than this, I thought. I preach to women about this exact thing on a nearly daily basis--they need to create a sacred birthing space and any unwanted and unexpected intrusions will cause their bodies to shut down. This is the same phenomenon that happens in typical hospital births: the mother leaves for the hospital with contractions 3 minutes apart, and lo and behold when she gets to the hospital they space out to 5, 6, 7 minutes a part. Her body is deemed ineffective; her uterus is labeled as weak or inefficient. She is given drugs to speed up the process: IV's, narcotics injected into her spine, a cesarean. How could any woman do the most primal and private of all human acts in a space that tells her subconscious she is sick? Where multiple people force their way into her private room? She becomes a circus act--a sideshow freak. She is poked and prodded and injected and disinfected, all while an audience of strangers sits at her vagina. It is violation. But, I digress...


I felt bad for the poor mama cow. I realized what I had done and crept back to the car. We waited for a bit to see if she would settle. She did. Shortly thereafter, but a good 10 mins or so later, she began contracting again. She would walk around in between and graze. She would eat and eat and eat. Imagine that women might also need energy from real, live food while they labor. Ice chips and an IV might not actually be enough for the hardest work of their lives. Huh.


It was as much of an honor to watch this mammoth animal mama birth her baby as it is to watch my human animal sisters. She finally decided to settle down on the ground. Hooves began to appear again. She was calm and grounded. She made deep groaning sounds with each push. In between she would get up and eat some more and then settle back in for the next rush. We could see the calf wiggling to help herself out. That sharp and tangy energy that comes before full crowning was there. We were energized just watching her. And then it all changed...

The farmer came riding up on his tractor, three little girls following him. He greeted us. She startled. We exchanged niceties.
S.: My friend is a midwife and we were curious about the cow's birth.
He seemed disinterested
Farmer: she could go on like that for another hour or two if nature had her way.
Me: that is amazing, at this late stage it can still be that much longer?
Farmer: If Nature had her way it could. I'm gonna get this over with though. Gonna take her to the barn and help her out.

And with that he led her away. There you have it-- a perfect metaphor for American Birth: A woman's Dream led away by the Patriarchy. A man's attempt to liberate her from her own body. The Patriarchy's lack of patience for the feminine. Control. There she was, nearly about to birth her baby in the serenity and calmness and solitude of an autumnal pasture. Instead, she was led to the barn for assembly line birthing where her calf was going to be pulled out of her with chains and a tractor.

I tried to catch her eye as we pulled away. I said a silent prayer for her. I wanted to rage at that farmer. I wanted to pull his little girls aside and tell them that wasn't how birth needed to be. I wanted to grab them up, take them with me to a birth, show them the truth of strong, primal, serene, powerful birthing warrior women. They should know the ancient secrets too. They should have that knowledge. Too few of us still have it. I have been blessed to have met many a wise woman who has let me in on these secrets. I wanted those little girls to know the secrets too.

Instead, we pulled away, dumbfounded, defeated. We pulled up to the milk farm and I couldn't look those lady cows in the eye. I always thank them for my milk, but I felt as if I was robbing them of something that day. I always feel a twinge of guilt when I see how the calves are separated from their mamas, but this was something more. This farm is fairly progressive, but I still couldn't help but to wonder how many of them had the McBirthing experience--calves ripped from their wombs by impatient farmers.

We drove back past the pasture when we were done filing our containers. The grass was bent with the memory of her in the spot she claimed to birth. There was some fluid and membranes on that spot. A cloud of prayerful energy resonated from it. We drove quietly past, leaving the wheat, the sycamore, and the field to silently meditate on that holy and pitiable Dream of a cow, interrupted.