Sad day on the farm

It has been a long couple days since the surprise birth of the baby goat, and at 4AM last night, after a very long night of tending to him, he passed away. Not only was I crushed, but the thought of telling the children and seeing their faces was just heartbreaking. I still don't know how to say it, but I feel like I let everyone down. I didn't do enough, or try hard enough, or did the wrong things. I did everything I knew to do, I don't know what else could have been done. But the feelings are still there. How do we deal with grief, and maybe the major component of the grief is guilt?

Steve just read me a news blog about an artist in Great Britain (forgive me if I get the details wrong) who committed suicide after aborting her eight week old twins. Her note indicated that she died when her babies died, that she didn't want to do it, and that her babies needed her and no one else did. I cannot imagine first of all, why she went through with the abortion, but second of all the extreme guilt when it really comes home to her what she has done. I may have failed the goat, but I didn't actively kill him. I didn't seek to take his life, didn't willingly take life. I may not have done the correct things to save him, but I did not want him gone. And the guilt I feel is over an animal, not children. If I feel like this, then how devastated was this woman?

Once again, there are several victims of abortion - the babies, the mother, and the father. What will it take to make us realize it? Maybe the victims don't always realize it right away, or ever, but they are carrying that weight. That guilt. At this point, I am praying and hoping for another chance at a pregnancy, what a different place to be from that mother. I am constantly watching my body to determine if I may have conceived. Careful about what I am eating, taking all the right vitamins, avoiding whatever I can that might be harmful or questionable for a baby. And I very likely am not pregnant. So right now I have to view it as a gift to myself of better health. And if I do discover that God has blessed us again, then I know that I have done whatever I know how to do.

I look back to the days I considered myself "pro-choice". Though I always said that I would not choose it, I thought that it should be a choice. What a fool I was. Before I even conceived my eldest, my mind had started to change, maybe God once again working on my stubborn heart. And as soon as I saw the double pink lines, my heart was forever changed. That was a baby, my baby and it deserved life more than I did. I had made my choices, the baby had not. It had not made mistakes, willingly done bad things. The baby was the one to be protected in that relationship. How do you go and make that life the villain in the situation? Where in any kind of logic is it the baby's fault? Is it the baby's fault that this pregnancy is an "inconvenience" or "problem"? Or that it will cost more to raise a child or whatever the argument is? Where does that logic fit? If you choose to have sex, protected or unprotected, within or without a relationship, pregnancy is a very likely outcome. Sex creates babies. That is the fact. It might not every time, or most times, but that is the biological purpose of sex. So, if you don't want a baby, don't have sex. Period. Whether or not you use "protection" or not, whether or not you think it is your fertile period or not. That is it. So, if you don't want to be pregnant or for your significant (or not so significant) other to be pregnant, for parenthood, or for choosing to give the baby to another family through adoption, then don't have sex. That is it.

What a strange way to end a blog. Fits with the day. Time to head out to feed chicks and watch for the hay delivery, and to continue to ponder.