Heather’s Story in her own words:<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n![\"Cow's](\"https:\/\/mackinsondairy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/cows-dont-care-if-you-cry.png?w=300\")
<\/a><\/p>\n“Heather, honey… there’s no heartbeat.”<\/h4>\n
I don’t know if I’ll ever forget those words. Dr. Kramer held my arm, and I began to cry. It was May 8, 2015, and what was supposed to have been a routine 20 week anatomy scan had just turned into a nightmare. A month earlier, I had been in the very same ultrasound room, listening to a heartbeat, watching a baby that Dr. Kramer described as “perfect” wiggle around on the screen. I remember grinning with anticipation as the ultrasound technician handed me an envelope that would later tell my husband and I that we were adding a third boy to our farm family. Having spent the last six months completely immersed in farming and our two little boys, I wasn’t sure on my dates. The ultrasound was ordered to confirm a September arrival.<\/p>\n
Sitting alone in an empty exam room, I called my husband who was at home. “How’d it go?” he asked – the same question he always asked after every appointment. “There was no heartbeat,” I choked out. Through our shock, we made plans for our boys, as well as a list of everyone we knew that might be able to milk my 30 dairy cows.<\/p>\n
Dairy farming runs in my veins, and every beat of my heart pounds with love for farming.<\/h4>\n
I have a collage in my office that I made in my high school English class which lists my life goals:<\/p>\n
\n- Go to college<\/li>\n
- Have a family<\/li>\n
- Own a dairy farm<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I met my husband at UW-Platteville, in a class about managing beef cattle (required for me, enjoyed by him). When we discussed getting married and my move from dairy country in Wisconsin to beef country in Iowa, a dairy farm was always included in the conversation. In 2014, my dream came true, and we started our own dairy. My husband works off the farm and manages 850 head of feeder cattle so milking falls entirely to me.<\/p>\n
I love every minute of it.<\/h4>\n
I know the cows, their moods, who their friends are in the herd, and their habits. Who’s going to be waiting at the barn door, and I know who I’ll have to pry away from the feed bunk.<\/p>\n
In the hospital room, I cried when my brother-in-law answered his phone. He agreed to milk without asking for details. I could feel myself relax. My father-in-law had my boys, and my brother-in-law had my girls. My husband arrived and the nurse started the procedure to induce labor. Even though I had two inductions under my belt, this one was agonizing. Eight hours later, at 11:45 pm, our third son was born. We named him after two of the very first dairy farmers in my life, my grandfathers. Brandon and I welcomed and said goodbye to our third son, Orvin Lloyd, within the same moment.<\/p>\n
I was released from the hospital 21 hours after the ultrasound. Brandon had gone home hours before to do his chores and to check on a cow that had just calved. The sun was shining, and I had a fleeting thought of all the chores waiting for me. But those thoughts were pushed to the back of my mind.<\/p>\n
What am I going to do now? <\/em><\/h4>\nHow could this have happened? <\/em><\/h4>\nWas it something that I did?<\/em><\/h4>\nI wracked my brain, trying to come up with a reason to blame myself. Was I exposed to a new chemical? No, we use very few chemicals on our farm, and the ones I had been exposed to (cleaning chemicals) had been in use since before the pregnancy. Had I gotten kicked or pushed? No, none of my cows were kickers. No one had pushed me. Had I fallen? No, impossible. As hard as I tried, I could not come up with a single way to blame myself.<\/em><\/p>\nOnce home, I went looking for the new calf. I found him, curled in the straw of our baby calf pen. Snowy white, he laid serenely while I marveled at him.<\/p>\n
This is the beauty of a farm, <\/em>I thought, even when my heart is breaking, there is still good in the world. Life goes on.<\/em><\/h4>\nChore time at Moore Moos is 4:00 p.m. but I apprehensively headed to the barn, still in pain, stabbing physical and emotional pain. Brandon offered to find someone to milk for me, but I declined. That first milking, Brandon stood by in anticipation, washing cows, moving milkers, talking. The next milking was Sunday morning; Mother’s Day. I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Brandon, ready to try this on my own. Needing to be alone with my thoughts, alone with my feelings; I needed to decide how to proceed and what emotions were in my head and in my heart.<\/p>\n
The barn is where I center myself, the place where I deal with my emotions, the place where I hang my hopes and dreams, the place where I come to after a long day of working in town. The barn is where I solve all (or most) of my problems. The roar of the vacuum pump and the consistent rhythm of the milking machine ease my mind and spark my creativity. Once I walked into the barn, I started to cry. It was there that I had thought about the baby and what he would become. It was there where I imagined a little boy in a stroller, waiting in the alley while I milked, listening to my stories and laughing at my songs. I imagined him running in and out of the barn with his brothers, building cities in the sand, treasure hunting, laughing and playing and fighting\u2026.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n“Heather, honey… there’s no heartbeat.”<\/h4>\n
I don’t know if I’ll ever forget those words. Dr. Kramer held my arm, and I began to cry. It was May 8, 2015, and what was supposed to have been a routine 20 week anatomy scan had just turned into a nightmare. A month earlier, I had been in the very same ultrasound room, listening to a heartbeat, watching a baby that Dr. Kramer described as “perfect” wiggle around on the screen. I remember grinning with anticipation as the ultrasound technician handed me an envelope that would later tell my husband and I that we were adding a third boy to our farm family. Having spent the last six months completely immersed in farming and our two little boys, I wasn’t sure on my dates. The ultrasound was ordered to confirm a September arrival.<\/p>\n
Sitting alone in an empty exam room, I called my husband who was at home. “How’d it go?” he asked – the same question he always asked after every appointment. “There was no heartbeat,” I choked out. Through our shock, we made plans for our boys, as well as a list of everyone we knew that might be able to milk my 30 dairy cows.<\/p>\n
Dairy farming runs in my veins, and every beat of my heart pounds with love for farming.<\/h4>\n
I have a collage in my office that I made in my high school English class which lists my life goals:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Go to college<\/li>\n
- Have a family<\/li>\n
- Own a dairy farm<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
I met my husband at UW-Platteville, in a class about managing beef cattle (required for me, enjoyed by him). When we discussed getting married and my move from dairy country in Wisconsin to beef country in Iowa, a dairy farm was always included in the conversation. In 2014, my dream came true, and we started our own dairy. My husband works off the farm and manages 850 head of feeder cattle so milking falls entirely to me.<\/p>\n
I love every minute of it.<\/h4>\n
I know the cows, their moods, who their friends are in the herd, and their habits. Who’s going to be waiting at the barn door, and I know who I’ll have to pry away from the feed bunk.<\/p>\n
In the hospital room, I cried when my brother-in-law answered his phone. He agreed to milk without asking for details. I could feel myself relax. My father-in-law had my boys, and my brother-in-law had my girls. My husband arrived and the nurse started the procedure to induce labor. Even though I had two inductions under my belt, this one was agonizing. Eight hours later, at 11:45 pm, our third son was born. We named him after two of the very first dairy farmers in my life, my grandfathers. Brandon and I welcomed and said goodbye to our third son, Orvin Lloyd, within the same moment.<\/p>\n
I was released from the hospital 21 hours after the ultrasound. Brandon had gone home hours before to do his chores and to check on a cow that had just calved. The sun was shining, and I had a fleeting thought of all the chores waiting for me. But those thoughts were pushed to the back of my mind.<\/p>\n
What am I going to do now? <\/em><\/h4>\n
How could this have happened? <\/em><\/h4>\n
Was it something that I did?<\/em><\/h4>\n
I wracked my brain, trying to come up with a reason to blame myself. Was I exposed to a new chemical? No, we use very few chemicals on our farm, and the ones I had been exposed to (cleaning chemicals) had been in use since before the pregnancy. Had I gotten kicked or pushed? No, none of my cows were kickers. No one had pushed me. Had I fallen? No, impossible. As hard as I tried, I could not come up with a single way to blame myself.<\/em><\/p>\n
Once home, I went looking for the new calf. I found him, curled in the straw of our baby calf pen. Snowy white, he laid serenely while I marveled at him.<\/p>\n
This is the beauty of a farm, <\/em>I thought, even when my heart is breaking, there is still good in the world. Life goes on.<\/em><\/h4>\n
Chore time at Moore Moos is 4:00 p.m. but I apprehensively headed to the barn, still in pain, stabbing physical and emotional pain. Brandon offered to find someone to milk for me, but I declined. That first milking, Brandon stood by in anticipation, washing cows, moving milkers, talking. The next milking was Sunday morning; Mother’s Day. I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Brandon, ready to try this on my own. Needing to be alone with my thoughts, alone with my feelings; I needed to decide how to proceed and what emotions were in my head and in my heart.<\/p>\n
The barn is where I center myself, the place where I deal with my emotions, the place where I hang my hopes and dreams, the place where I come to after a long day of working in town. The barn is where I solve all (or most) of my problems. The roar of the vacuum pump and the consistent rhythm of the milking machine ease my mind and spark my creativity. Once I walked into the barn, I started to cry. It was there that I had thought about the baby and what he would become. It was there where I imagined a little boy in a stroller, waiting in the alley while I milked, listening to my stories and laughing at my songs. I imagined him running in and out of the barn with his brothers, building cities in the sand, treasure hunting, laughing and playing and fighting\u2026.<\/p>\n
![\"FB_IMG_1431702519027\"](\"https:\/\/mackinsondairy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/fb_img_1431702519027.jpg?w=300\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"PicsArt_1432157756929\"](\"https:\/\/mackinsondairy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/picsart_1432157756929.jpg?w=300\")
<\/a><\/p>\n