Hindel Kidz 11: Triple Tragedy
Hindel Kidz 11
Triple Tragedy
Jack was not sure when Pearl was going to have her baby.
“We will just have to keep an eye on her,” he said.
He had thought she might be three weeks behind Porsche. If that were true then Pearl would have her baby the week of Valentine’s Day. Grace hoped she would have the baby on the fourteenth because then Grace would have named a girl, Sweetie and if it was a boy, Dark Chocolate. She also thought it would be neat if Pearl had her baby on the thirteenth of February since that was Pearl’s birthday and she would be three years old. Valentine’s Day came and went and Pearl was showing no signs. Now Grace hoped the baby would be born on St. Patrick’s Day and wanted to name it Emerald to keep with the theme. Emerald and Pearl are both gemstones. She had thought about naming a boy, Obsidian, no matter what day he was born.
On March 14th, Sven woke her up at 10:30am and said, “Dad thinks Pearl is beginning to show signs.”
That was all Grace needed to hear. She was up, dressed and heading out the door in just a matter of seconds. When they got up there, Grace went out to the building and saw Pearl in the corner pen. She had already started to make a little nest. Grace sat with her for about three hours before she and Sven came home to eat lunch.
They went back up to Jack’s around 3:30pm. So far Pearl hadn’t shown any more signs.
“I am not sure if Pearl is having her baby or not,“ Grace replied. Pearl would get up, walk around, paw at the ground and lie down again.
“She is acting to restless for it to be a false alarm,” Jack said.
Luckily, it was a nice day, about 67 degrees so Grace could sit out in the building for as long as she wanted. She sat out there all day except when they went into eat supper. Jack and Charlotte always got a kick out of her playing midwife.
By 9:00pm, nothing had happened. Grace thought Pearl was pushing a little, but she couldn’t be certain. She just wanted some confirmation. According to the book, Pearl was showing all the signs for the first stage of labor. The book said if she was sort of staring off into space it meant she was having tiny contractions and that was what Pearl was doing.
Grace had started thinking; “I might have to come up with other names since Pearl might have her baby before March 17th.”
It had been raining, thundering and lightning that evening so Grace was going to name the baby, Stormi-with-an-i, for a girl and Stormy-with-a-y-, for a boy. Or Thunder. Around 11:00pm, everything was the same as it had been. Jack had already gone to bed so Sven and Grace went home.
March 15th turned out to be very cold and windy.
“Boy, Pearl, you sure have good timing,” Grace thought.
She couldn’t have her baby when it was nice and warm out. Now if Grace wanted to sit in the building she was going to have to wear carharts, a heavy coat and gloves. They went up to check on Pearl around 9:30am. Still nothing.
“If she starts showing any more signs your dad will probably call down,” Grace said. She didn’t want to sit in the building and freeze if Pearl wasn’t showing any definite signs.
Sven was going to head back up to Jack’s around 2:00pm. Grace said she would walk up later even though it had started snowing. Around 2:20pm Sven came back home and said. “Pearl is definitely having her baby and is showing other signs the book has indicated.”
She seemed to be going by the book, unlike Porsche. Porsche just had them whenever she felt like it.
Pearl was in the bigger pen with Porsche and the triplets. Jack literally had to shove Pearl back into the corner pen.
Grace could basically tell Pearl was pushing now. She sat inside the pen with Pearl for a couple of minutes. Pearl put her head against Grace’s legs and started pushing them aside. She also wouldn’t lie down while Grace was in there. When it was feeding time, she fed Pearl molasses and bread, but Pearl didn’t touch it. All she did was drink a little water. It was another sign.
Each time Pearl would push, she would roll her head around and sometimes cry a little. Grace sat on a folding chair since her bottom was sore from sitting on the wooden crate. Whenever she could tell Pearl was pushing real hard she would say, “Come on, Pearl. Push, push, push, push, push.”
Sometimes Pearl was pushing so hard, she was rolling onto her side. The triplets, however, thought Grace was just another item for them to jump on. They would hop up on the dog food container and then onto her legs.
Pearl’s water finally broke around 9:30pm.
“How long until she has them?” Grace asked.
“It could possibly take another eight hours,” Jack said.
Grace really didn’t want to be there all night, but she wasn’t about to leave either since something had finally happened. Pearl really didn’t show any intense signs after that. She also wasn’t pushing very hard anymore. Jerry said something about the baby not surviving since she had been pushing for so long. The longer it went, the more unlikely it was the baby would be okay.
At 10:00pm, Sven told Grace to go in the house and warm up since both her feet were numb and so were her fingers. He came in about ten minutes later and said they were heading home and would be back to check on Pearl in the middle of the night. He set the alarm for 3:15am.
When the alarm went off, Grace just shut it off and tried to go back to sleep. She wasn’t sleeping to well to begin with. Sven must have gotten up and left around 5:00am. The next thing she knew, he was climbing back in bed.
“Well?”
“They didn’t make it.”
“She had twins?”
“No.”
“Then she had a single.” Grace was still half asleep.
“No.”
“But you said they and you said she didn’t have twins.”
“Yeah.”
“If she didn’t have twins….she had triplets?!”
“Yeah.”
Grace didn’t think Pearl looked big enough to have triplets.
“When I pulled the first one out, it was larger and its front feet had been buckled under it. The last two had been way small. Only one or two pounds,” Jack said.
The first two were boys and he didn’t even check the third. They had probably been dead for a while. It was sad and upsetting. Even though Grace probably would have been more upset if Lucki hadn’t made it. She had seen her being born and had gotten to know her. She didn’t get a chance to know Pearl’s.
Pearl had them on March 16th. It was really sad when Grace thought, “We could have had six baby goats running around.”
Pearl’s would have been registered.
