Incompetence that Matters

This has been a hard day.  Both the calf and Christina haven't done well and our incompetence makes it hard to handle. 

This morning we went out to give Christina the calcium gel, which it turns out she doesn't like at all.  My husband and I got on each side of her to block her head until we could sneak it into her mouth.  A good portion of it got spilled, but we got some into her.  The vet said that if she's up and eating and drinking normally, then she's okay.  She was getting up some, but as the day went on, she spent more and more time down.  Then we realized that she has stopped eating and drinking.  We offered her the molasses grain that we call her candy, and she even rejected that. 

Meanwhile, we toweled the calf off and figured it would take to nursing on its own.  We milked Christina this morning, like we thought we should.  The colostrum was thick and yellow like egg nog, but we figured she had lots of it.  By early afternoon, we noticed that we had not seen the calf nurse.  The shed is situated where we can't see the cows, so it could have, but every time we went out, it was curled up sleeping.  The vet seemed more concerned about the calf not nursing than about Christina.  So we went out to help the calf nurse. 

Holding it between my legs I pushed its head into Christina's teet and got it nursing.  It would nurse for a while and then let go and start searching around between her front legs.  We went out to help this little calf nurse every hour or two.

At 5pm we talked to the vet again.  He said to give Christina another calcium gel and to get a calf bottle to give the calf the colostrum we milked out this morning.  So while I drove through rush hour traffic, my husband gave Christina another calcium.  On the way, I talked to the lady at the dairy where we bought Christina.  She recommended that we take Christina's temperature.  A low temperature would be milk fever and high temperature would be infection.  My poor husband headed out to the shed with a thermometer to get into her back end.  Two phones calls of, "she is not going for this." and he finally got the job done.  Her temperature was normal.

I arrived home with the calf bottle and filled it with the colostrum.  We took it out to the calf.  After a dozen tries, we gave up.  The calf wouldn't open his mouth, and when he did, he wouldn't suck.   Christina seems wobbly and I'm afraid she's going to fall on me.

I feel totally overwhelmed and incompetent.  I am emotionally drained from a day of worry, even to the point of losing my ability to cope.  I'm stressed, my stomach is in knots, and I can't remember if I've eaten today. This is a horrible feeling. Is Christina in real trouble and I'm not reacting fast enough?  Or are things abnormal but okay and I am overreacting because I just don't know better?  Is the calf really in trouble or is it nursing when we're not around and it's fine?

We decided not to milk this evening, but we still need to give her one more gel.  It's dark and I don't want to go out there, but my husband has gotten good with the gels and I only have to watch.  I'm so grateful.

Thank God for the lady from the dairy and our friend with a cow.  They've helped us through this.  The vet came come tomorrow afternoon if things don't look up.

It's a terrible feeling not really knowing what to do but being responsible for life.  I've decided that since Christina will live until the vet arrives, I need to just quit worrying because it won't help.  If the calf doesn't make it, well, we did our best.  Tomorrow is another day, the sun will come up, and I'm going to try to think about something besides cows.  But I dread tomorrow.  I wish I could call in sick.