And then the light went out

I started writing this piece while sitting at a hightop in the middle of a bustling Bubba Gump Shrimp airport outlet in Cancun, Mexico, on Monday morning. It's not exactly the setting you would expect for someone to be hammering away on their laptop about urban farming and goats.

The internet makes online work almost always accessible but then also impossible to escape.

As I was writing - because the internet is the great connector - I was also watching my beloved goat, Lucia, via webcam start to labor in Colorado, almost 2500 miles away. I whispered, "Just breathe, Girl," to my phone while people sitting at tables all around me laughed and guzzled their margaritas. It was like something out of a movie.

Every time the waiter would come by to bring me another shrimp-based appetizer, he would ask, "Tienes chivitos?" "None yet," I replied, munching while watching Lucia get up, paw at the ground, and lay back down again in a different country.

I had Lucia on the calendar to give birth around Easter. The two other does, June and Alta, who were bred when she was, kidded on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, respectively. By last week I realized that my math must have been off; Lucia must have missed a cycle and was on her own schedule.

Lucia kept holding on, getting fatter and fatter, continuing her lifetime trend of defying expectations.

As the daughter of my favorite doe, Bella, Lucia came into the world as a "grade" goat. Her parentage wasn't prestigious or documented enough to give her the fancy papers of some of her pasture-mates. She never seemed to notice and went on to win the Grand Champion prize at her first show last year.

Lucia was the one who realized that while all the other girls fought for my lap space, there was only one lap she really wanted to occupy: my husband Mark's. It's as if she instinctively knew that currying his favor was the real secret to goatie success at our house, and she was right. It was a goat strategy at its finest - and she earned a special place in the herd because of it.

As I closed my laptop in Cancun to board the plane back home, I fully expected to land to a glowing Lucia surrounded by bouncing babies.

Mark received this Mexico trip from his work as a bonus for performance - he's been doing really well at his company. When it was booked I was sure we would be finished with kidding for the season. Lucia decided that would not be the case.

Luckily, we have a great young woman, Olivia, who I trust to take care of all the animals and anything else that arises when we leave. It's easy to get away because she does such a great job.

We also have a neighborhood full of friends and animal people who are always there when we need them. So, although Lucia still hadn't kidded, I wasn't worried about leaving for a quick trip down to Cancun.

By the time the plane got over Texas, the wifi came on, and I could once again log onto my goat-stalker webcam. I could also text Olivia and my neighbor, Pam, who came over every hour with treats to check on Lucia. I watched from the sky as Pam stroked Lucia's back, reassuring her.

I made it through customs in record time and hopped an uber home (Mark stayed behind for a longer trip, but I had to come back for human Momming duties). As I pulled up, I saw Pam's car in front of the outbuilding where our kidding stalls are and didn't even take my luggage inside before running out to check on Lucia.

After hours of watching her, I could see that she was just exhausted. Her back was loose; she was straining but got no further. She was tired, and it shone through her eyes. She was obviously happy to see me, though, and nuzzled her nose into my hand. I kissed her face. "Just keep going," I whispered.

We decided to let her rest for a few more hours to see her progress. Pam went home, and I went into the house and made the kids dinner and put them to bed before going back out to check on Lucia - no change. But now she was more tired, and it was time to act.

As I came in to get gloves and wash up, my sons snuck out from their beds and tiptoed down to the barn to check out the commotion.

Lucia's first kid was stuck and backward. He was so stuck it quickly became a terrifying life-and-death situation. I had both feet up on Lucia, bracing myself and pulling with all my strength to dislodge him.

"I'm scared, Mom," the four-year-old cried to me. "Me too, Buddy. Just look away if you're scared," I replied. He didn't look away.

When the little boy goat finally emerged and took his first breath, I cried. "MOM, YOU PULLED A BABY OUT OF HER BUTT!" my son cheered.

I called the vet, who congratulated me and told me to let her rest for a while and check for more. The boy was STUNNING. I was thrilled as we already had a reservation from a buyer for a boy out this breeding. It was perfect.

She took a break and licked her boy for a while, but it was clear she had no more pushing left in her after a day of laboring. I went back in and pulled out a little girl. She looked up at me with her mother's eyes. Lucia gave us a tiny clone. Perfection.

Once again I went in to see if there were any more babies but didn't feel any more. We all basked together on the floor of the kidding pen in the pine shavings until I finally got up and ushed my human children back to bed.

Over the course of the night, I went out to check on Lucia and the new babies; they ate and perked up more with every gulp. She drank the warm water with molasses I made to help her regain her strength. I also gave her a round of antibiotics to prevent infection since I had to pull the kids.

The mother and kids curled up under a heat lamp and snuggled peacefully. It was crazy to think that morning I had woken up in a hotel in Cancun and was ending the evening smiling at a new goat family. Lucia defied expectations again.

The next day, Tuesday, I regularly checked on the little crew. The kids were eating, and Lucia was getting up to feed them. She was sleeping more than I had observed with others, but I chalked that up to a particularly ferocious delivery. I gave Lucia some vitamins, another antibiotic, and some cookies that she devoured without chewing.

I took my son to buy some Preparation H to help her with the swelling resulting from the pulling. Of course, we ran into one of our preschool teachers as I was pulling the tube off the shelf. Awkward. I didn't know if I should explain that I was actually buying hemorrhoid cream for my goat with a swollen backside or just let her think it was for me. I can buy a million salad kits at the store and never see a single person I know, but the first time I'm buying Preparation H for my goat . . . bam.

By that night, I started to think something was really wrong. Lucia was spending too much time sleeping. She would wake up to feed her kids, drink molasses water, and accept my love but would go right back down. I texted the vet at 10:30pm and said something was off; I didn't know he was already at another emergency call and didn't see the text.

By four o'clock Wednesday morning, I had spent a sleepless night slipping out to the outbuilding and holding Lucia's head in my lap while I stroked her. She would get up and feed her kids, but that was about it; by then, she no longer wanted cookies.

Promptly at 7am, I called the vet and learned he'd been out until 3:30 that morning on the other emergency call. I called the large animal emergency veterinary hospital up at Colorado State University - the last resort when things really get hairy. They told me to bring her up immediately.

I dropped our younger son off at preschool and rushed back with the older one to load Lucia and her kids into the truck. We lined the back seat with blankets and pillows to make the ride as comfortable as possible. When I tried to get her up to get in the truck, I knew - this was likely a fruitless journey. She was basically dead weight save her picking her head up for scratches and love. "Hang on, Girl," I begged.

Just as we pulled out of the driveway - a clearly dying goat, two tiny baby goats, a four-year-old little boy, and me all sardined into the truck - it started to rain.

I rubbed Lucia's head that rested on the console during our drive through the pouring rain. I told her how loved she was, how proud I was of her for constantly defying expectations, and how beautiful her babies were. She started to call softly about halfway there, and her babies called back from the four-year-old's lap.

We veered off the freeway and sped through the puddles to the hospital. She kept calling.

I pulled up to the back entrance of the hospital and walked around the truck to open the door. I lifted Lucia out and held her on the pavement, waiting for the doctors to come.

The cold raindrops mixed with my tears as I doubled over her, my face buried in her neck, watching her take her last breath while she lay in my lap. I kissed her and told her how much I loved her. For the second time in three days, it was like a movie. She made it all the way to the hospital to die in the parking lot.

The doctors came and took her away as I cried like a child. The rain beat down, but I couldn't even feel it on my skin.

As my son and I drove the new babies home from the hospital, we talked about life and death.

We got home, and I defrosted some of the colostrum that I keep frozen for situations like these. The babies both hungrily guzzled. The fancy little boy curled up to nap, but the little girl looked up at me with her mother's eyes. She whimpered a little, and my son said, "She's sad, and she wants her Mom."

That afternoon my son napped in the pen with the baby goats. He took his blanket and pillow and curled up with them. As he snuggled them up in his blankie, I heard him whisper, "Shhhhhh, I know you're sad. Lay your head down. I'll take care of you."

When I told Olivia about Lucia's death, I knew she took it hard. She cares for the goats when we're away, she was there when Lucia won at the show, and she and Pam were ready to birth babies themselves if I didn't make it back in time. Olivia came over to the house to meet the babies and remarked that Lucia's little girl looked exactly like her. "What should we name her?" I asked.

Lucia is an Italian name meaning "light." Olivia's idea for her daughter? Lucecita, our "little light."

I have spent the last 24 hours going over and over in my head what I did wrong. Should I have insisted the vet come the first time? Did I wait too long to just load her up and take her to the hospital? Was there a third kid in there that I missed? Did I pull too early? Too late? Did I perforate something? I made hundreds of small decisions, and I will second guess every one. I ordered a necropsy to learn definitively what happened.

Pam came by for tea this afternoon and to hold a baby goat. She reminded me that this is part of it. Farming, even the small-time urban farming that I do, must be done wholesale. We don't get to carve off just the victories or the easy times. We get the births, but we also have to accept the deaths.

There's a precarious moment where birth meets death, and it all hangs in the balance.

For the 36 hours that she was a Mom, Lucia was the best Mom. It's apt that she's kissing her boy in the last picture I have of her. I was trying to get a shot of him to send to the woman who had a reservation, and she photobombed in for a smooch.

This week we lost a little goat. She lived up to her name in every way - she was a light in this world. She was a champion who loved, was loved, and defied every expectation.

A light went out this week, but I type this while sitting a few feet away from another little light, and the pain is mixed with the beauty the same way my tears mixed with the rain.