Finally!

Sunday, September 9, 2018  Well well, after 1 year, one month and 3 days of pregnancy we finally have Ciara’s baby on the ground!  Almost exactly 20 hours after I gave her the inducing injection, she started labor and by 9:20 am we had a baby. He’s a big strapping boy, 21.8 pounds, the biggest baby for this year. I feel pretty confident that he did not need to be “cooked” any longer. I have no idea why she needed to be induced, but I believe we made the right decision. Interesting but sad note: I got a message from another alpaca breeder who let 2 females go over 400 days and lost both moms and their babies. So sometimes waiting it out can be the wrong choice. 🙁  But we are celebrating the arrival of this healthy boy and having great fun choosing his name. 🙂 (truth is I had expected we’d lose the cria and was only hoping to save Ciara, so glad I was wrong). I do want to thank my support group for hanging in with me and helping me to visualize this outcome, and thanks to my vet, Tracy Wright, who was checking on us during the past few days and to a dear friend and alpaca owner Carol Frazer who was ready to be here in a minute to assist if needed. She has more years experience than I do so this was a reassuring backup plan as well. Thank you all, let’s celebrate! 

Ciara’s baby has been named Rowdy.  We wanted it to start with R like his dad Romulus, and when I looked up the definition of Rowdy – “having caused disturbance”, I knew it was the one. This pregnancy caused more disturbance for me than any in the 20 years I’ve been breeding alpacas. lol. 

Photos of the day: Hi Mom, Sorry I’m late.So big at 1 hour oldDefinitely a Romulus baby, those curls are a clueFirst napHow did he fit inside her? And he did kind of glow last night. 🙂