[Solo] First Time Mommas

[Caoin]

Date: Fall, Day 72, 511 AV

Caoin was having a rather nice dream about riding across the Sea with Liath when the sound of whining broke through the fog of the dream. A cold, wet nose pushed against her neck before she felt a slimy, warm tongue against her flesh. “No Sealgaire, let me sleep,” she muttered as she tried to roll over. She didn’t get very far before a strong set of jaws tugged at her shirt, pulling her back. Caoin reached out to push gently at the dog and he whined louder. Reluctantly, Caoin’s eyes fluttered open and she stared at Sealgaire. “What are you wanting? I don’t smell breakfast, it’s too early for you to be wanting food,” Caoin groaned at the dog as she finally drug herself up to a sitting position. She frowned slightly, before she suddenly realized that Sealgaire’s whining wasn’t the only thing she’d been hearing and that there was a reason that he had been trying to wake her up.

“Caoin! Caoin,” she heard her father’s gentle voice calling to her from a distance, “It’s time, they’re coming.” Caoin’s eyes widened in shock and she suddenly found that she was wide awake as a million thoughts raced through her head. The puppies, he was talking about the puppies of course. Shasta must have gone into labor after her father had relieved her so that she could get some sleep. The family had split up the duty of watching her as her belly had gotten bigger and the time for labor appeared to be nearing, this way they could all be sure to get enough sleep. The current shift was being pulled by Toiseach, Caoin’s father; he had relieved her earlier in the evening so that she could enough sleep for work the following day. As she bounded to her feet, she reached for her pants and started towards the entrance of her family’s tent, knowing she was going to be showing up late to work since she would have to help with the birthing and taking care of the puppies once Shasta had delivered them all. What a way to start the day, she could only hope that Rothos would understand when she finally did show up.

Her pants in her hand, Caoin tried to slip them on as she ran towards the exit of her family’s tent so that she could get to where Shasta was being kept. The woman hopped awkwardly towards the tent flap as she tried to pull the pants on. Her efforts failed miserably and she only managed to trip herself, her body falling forward as she face-planted into the ground with a soft thud. She thought she would just barely able to keep her face from smashing into the dirt and potentially breaking her nose by catching herself with one arm, but that wasn’t going to happen either. Caoin’s face slammed into the ground and the bone in her nose shifted, there was a sharp pain and her vision blurred for a moment as she tried to see through the pain. Not that there was much to see other than the dirt floor that was soaking up the blood coming from her nose. The woman let out a string of nasally curses as she scrambled to her feet, her pants abandoned and one hand pinching her nose while she tilted her head forward. It was not a good way to start the day at all, if you asked her.

Caoin’s nose was broken and she was leaking blood down the front of her clothing. She was running across her family’s camp in her underwear and a shirt, in the chilly morning air, needless to say she was cold. With bare feet, she ran through the group of tents, stepping on every rock that could possibly exist between the family tent and the tent in which all of the birthing took place. “Gods, please have mercy on me,” she hissed through clenched teeth each time she picked up a foot and put it back down. Was everything going to go wrong? Because it was not a good day for that. She had a litter of puppies on the way, and if the gods had deemed that nothing was to go well for her that day, she didn’t not want that to have an effect on Shasta’s litter. She would be devastated if anything were to happen to the litter, especially if she was to blame for it. She prayed to Caiyha, begging the goddess to protect the akinva and to bless her with a safe delivery and a healthy litter of puppies. She begged the goddess to allow the birth to go smoothly, promising that she would do anything the goddess asked of her in return. And she meant it.

Caoin burst through the entrance to the birthing tent, huffing and holding her broken nose; her wild eyes frantically searched for her father and finally came to rest on him as he called her name. “What did you do,” he asked her as he stared at her bloodied shirt and face with surprise clearly written across his own features. Caoin shook her head and waved her father’s concern off before asking him what he needed her to do. “Get warm water and some cloths and blankets,” he directed her, motioning to where they were kept, despite that she knew that information already. Caoin did as she was told, collecting the cloth and blankets that he’d asked for and handing them off to Toiseach before going to warm some water over the fire in the center of the tent. She knew that he father was hoping to do as little work as possible during the birth, because the family preferred that their animals gave birth with as little human interference as possible, it helped the mothers adjust to motherhood more easily and they gained a good deal more experience if they went through the process with minimal interference. In the end, the more she and her father stayed out of it, the more that they allowed to happen naturally, the better it would be for Shasta and her puppies.

MizNo Word Count1025

[Caoin]

Caoin gathered some water in a small kettle and put it over the fire to warm; she knew what her father was going to ask her to do. The cloth and towels were all clean, but the scissors and their hands would need to be sterilized if they were to help or use the scissors. She’d have to get some thread or twine as well, in case they need to cut an umbilical cord. Blankets and an area for Shasta to whelp had already been prepared and she had been resting comfortably there since labor had begun. She had already started to push and Caoin couldn’t help but feel rushed to prepare the water and get her hands and the scissors sterilized. She knew her father wanted her to be the one to help the dog along if help was needed, it was a process she was familiar with, but she had never been the one to help the dog before. This would be her first time to do more than just watch, and it was because it was her own dog that was whelping. It was finally time for her to get some hands on experience, especially since this would become a regular part of her life if she wished to raise her own dogs.

She left the water and marched over to where their whelping and foaling supplies were kept, picking out a roll of string and taking it over to where her father was keeping an eye on the laboring akniva deerstalker. He had already spread out one towel for her to place equipment on, and she put the roll of string on this towel before returning to the water she had left hanging over the fire pit in the middle of the tent. The water was just beginning to boil over the small fire and Caoin dipped the scissors into the water, using a bit of soap and warm water to wash them off before using a small tin cup to rinse them off and another clean towel to dry them. Caoin used the cup to pull out some more water to cool it off enough for her to wash her hands. She was in a such a hurry though, she didn’t have time to wait. Caoin hissed and clenched her teeth as she used the water to wet her hands and arms for the soap. It was still too hot, her skin turned bright pink and he shook her hands lightly against the pain. Ignoring the light scalding, she used the water to wash and rinse her hands and her arms up to her elbows, the sleeves of her shirt already having been rolled up. With everything, including herself, cleaned and sterilized, she made her way over to where her father was knelt next to Shasta and settled down beside him.

Just as Caoin dropped to her knees, the head of the first of the puppies crowned and Shasta pushed the tiny pup out into the world. Caoin was speechless as she looked at the puppy, wet and sealed away in the amniotic sac, until Shasta wriggled her way around to lick at the thin membrane, removing it and then the umbilical cord. She would also lick and eat the afterbirth in order to regain her strength from the hard work of the delivery. The Drykas woman sat back and watched her dog go through the birthing process, knowing that it was something she needed to do herself. The dog was doing fine so far, cleaning the first pup as the second made its journey into the world, and when she was done with one and another came out, she would turn her attention to it and repeat the process. Shasta did this with a few of her pups, all of them responding favorably as Caoin could not see any signs that the puppies were struggling to breathe. It wasn’t long before Shasta became distracted though, and her attention was diverted from one of the pups before she could get around to cleaning it. Caoin looked at her father anxiously and he nodded to her, motioning for her to help the pup out herself.

Caoin gently picked up the puppy, using her bare hands to rub away the membrane that surrounded it, and wiping away the fluid around its mouth and nose. She picked up one of the clean towels and began to vigorously rub and clean the puppy. She listened closely to make sure that the puppy was breathing as she rubbed it, and could hear no coughing or anything to indicate that it wasn’t perfectly healthy. Caoin also made sure to tie off the umbilical cord near the pup’s belly button, and cut the excess away with the scissors she’d prepared. When she was finished, she placed the puppy near its mother, and started to move the rest of the puppies close to their sibling, shifting them so that they were out of their mother’s way as she wriggled around in her efforts to deliver the rest of the litter. Caoin needed to keep the puppies that had already been whelped out of the mother’s way so that they weren’t injured as their mother moved. Her father kept an eye on her as she worked, and also checked the wriggling puppies that were already cleaned, to make sure she didn’t miss anything. Though most of his experience was with horses and other larger animals, the process was similar enough for dogs that he could assist his daughter if she ran into any major problems or was too overwhelmed.

The Drykas woman watched the process, trying her best to keep calm. She could not help but mutter a prayer to Caiyha under her breath repeatedly, “Please, Caiyha, let your child and her children come through this alright. Please let this whelping go smoothly. Please let them all be ok,” she prayed to the goddess of nature as she kept a close eye on Shasta and the next puppy to be whelped. Shasta resumed her motherly duties with this one, cleaning the pup and so on.

MizNo Word Count1021

[Caoin]

Caoin watched as Shasta whelped the sixth puppy, a puppy which came out fine and healthy. She watched Shasta clean the pup and do everything that a mother was supposed to do. The Drykas woman watched her dog do the same with the seventh as he came out. She was filled with such pride in her dog, she was doing so well. And then that pride was overshadowed as Caoin’s heart sank and she felt panic creeping in. The seventh pup was coughing; he was choking on fluid still inside him. “Caiyha please… what do I do,” she begged, she panicked, her mind went blank. What was she supposed to do in this situation? How was she supposed to clear the fluid from the pup’s airways? How was she supposed to keep life in this little creature? No time. There was no time. Her body and mind went numb, there was no time for that, not when she needed to help the puppy, but it happened none the less. Caoin’s vision tunneled on the dying puppy, she could hear it coughing, she could see its life steadily fading as the rising and falling of its chest slowed. She could hear Shasta whining and her father’s voice in the background, though she couldn’t make out his words.

‘Suck it out,’ she thought to herself, ‘suck out the liquid.’ No wait, that wasn’t just her thoughts, it was also what her father was trying to shout at her. Caoin wasn’t sure how much time had passed, she wasn’t sure how much time the puppy had left, but she picked him up. Her body moving without much thought. She could hardly think at all, only do. She brought the puppy’s face to hers as she tried to revive it, to clear its airways. She sucked at its mouth, its nose, trying desperately to move the fluid that remained from the amniotic sac. It was useless. The puppy’s breathing stopped. His heart stopped. The warmth of life left his tiny body. Yet Caoin did not stop trying, at least not for awhile. Not until she felt Toiseach’s hand on her shoulder, heard his voice, gentle and soothing, a tone of voice she’d often heard as a child. Caoin looked up at her father, her eyes and face wet with tears. It was one thing to experience death from a distance. It was another to feel a life leave while it was in your hands, to lose a life because you panicked. Caoin could not help but feel that it was her fault. It was like she had blood on her hands again.

She looked at her father, her eyes pleading with him. He nodded to her as he helped her to her feet. “Go,” he spoke to her in that same gentle voice, the voice reserved for a hurt child, “I can get someone to help me finish with this. Do what needs to be done and return to celebrate the rest of your girl’s beautiful pups.” Caoin nodded to Toiseach before turning to exit the whelping tent, the dead pup still in her hands. She would bury him, deep enough that no creature could dig him up. His body would degrade over time, what wasn’t eaten by the insects would return to the earth and his death would help life to flourish. She would stand over his grave and recite a prayer to Caiyha, both for the dead pup and for his surviving siblings and mother. When she was done, she would return to help finish taking care of the puppies and making sure that Shasta had everything that she needed. She would not lose another from the litter if she could help it.

MizNo Word Count621