Minstrel's Leap Year Babies

It was February 29th when Minstrel started to go into labour. I was home enjoying a day off work, so the timing was perfect. I kept an eye on her all day as her labour progressed, first with her tailbone ligaments softening and her udder filling up to nearly bursting. She had some contractions sporadically, did a lot of stretching and staring off into space and moving around trying to get comfortable. Finally at about 9:00 at night, she started into active labour. She had strong contractions for about 10 minutes before the first baby appeared, front feet and head first, which is what you want to see. After a couple of good pushes, out came a tiny doeling. Minstrel started licking the fluids off of her right away, which was a good sign.

Within a minute or two, she was pushing again, but this time it wasn't going as smoothly. When the sac of amniotic fluid appeared, I noticed that the baby was coming out head first with front legs back, creating squared shoulders that would be hard to move through the birth canal. I had to reach inside to see if I could reposition the baby and find its arms, but they were really far back. I had to pull as Minstrel pushed, and the poor girl was really struggling for a bit, and I was really in a bit of a panic. But with one final hard push on Minstrel's part and a forceful pull on my part, out came a big brown buckling. Very soon after, a second buckling popped out with no difficulties.

I spent the next couple of hours helping clean the kids off and dry them. It was a cold night and I was worried they'd get hypothermia. I couldn't leave until I'd seen that all three of the kids had managed to stand themselves up and have a good feed of colostrum, which eventually happened with no real difficulty.

Good job Minstrel! You're an excellent mama!