I DELIVERED A CALF... on my wedding day!
Jessa and Ben’s celebrations ended in a very unusual way
With a cow called Drama due to give birth around the time of Jessa and Ben Laws’ wedding, the couple should have known they would have a big day to remember.
“When we first booked the wedding date for April 24, I thought Drama would’ve already calved,” Portland dairy farmer Jessa tells Woman’s Day.
“But as we got closer and she still hadn’t, I had visions of it happening on the day. It’s Murphy’s Law, isn’t it?”
But as Ben, 38, milked Drama on the morning of the wedding and she didn’t show any signs of being ready to give birth, they thought they’d got away with it.
Jessa, 33, readied her hair and makeup, and slipped into her dress, feeling optimistic.
“We’d already had to cancel our wedding once because of COVID,” she says.
The wedding, at their scenic property in Gorae, country Victoria, started without a hitch. The 90 guests, including her children Cohan, 10, and Quinn, nine, watched as Jessa and Ben tearfully said their vows.
There was dancing and speeches, but then around 6.30pm Drama began to calve.
At first the couple’s friends – also dairy farmers – had the delivery under control but four hours later Jessa was told Drama needed help.
“Usually I’d be there with her,” she says.
“The births are my thing. I’m like a bovine midwife! I knew I had to go to her and I didn’t even think about changing.”
Still wearing her $1200 wedding dress, Jessa put on her cowboy boots and squelched through the wet paddock and into the muddy stall.
‘The births are my thing. I’m like a bovine midwife!’
She was there just in time for the calf to be pulled out and was immediately on hand to check it was breathing.
“She was covered in yellow meconium, the sign of a difficult labour and there was a lot of mud and fluids,” says Jessa.
“My city friends were wide-eyed when I got back to the party. The dress was stained and ripped, pretty ruined, and I left this muddy wet trail wherever I went!”
Soon the calf stole the spotlight with guests disappearing to visit the new arrival.
“Ben and I had a good laugh about it all the next day,” Jessa says, explaining Destiny was named after one of her greatgrandmothers, who was a famous show cow.
With mum Drama recovered from the birth, the newlyweds are finally heading off to their dairy-free honeymoon in Queensland.
“There will be sun and no cows!” laughs Jessa.