So yes, my mare is pregnant and no we don't have as much time as we thought we would...the more I think about this the more I realize how rare it is that we have the time we thought we were going to have in order to get something done or prepare for something. I spend so much of my time trying my hardest to live in the moment and enjoy the blessings that I have so that life does NOT pass me by but somehow it continues to escape me. Moments pass too quickly and those moments somehow elapse into hours, days, weeks, months and years and I am left wondering, "where did the time go?"
It's funny how all this has come about. Last June, I was standing outside our trainer's tack room talking to her and here comes Noah down the barn isle way after talking to Shiloh for a little while. Noah stops at the tack room and says, "Mom, what if Shiloh had a baby?" I said, "Ummmm, no! Shiloh's not going to have a baby." Our trainer and I laughed about the notion and I didn't think any more about it until Shiloh colicked in October and during a rectal exam we discovered that yes, she was pregnant. Then last night, Noah was sitting in the car drawing in a notebook while Catie was having a riding lesson. Noah, who doesn't ever talk about the horses and really doesn't even pay them much attention when we are at the barn, is drawing Catie with a baby horse. At first, Amy thought maybe he was drawing one of the horses there at the barn or something, so she asked him who he was drawing and he said, "Shiloh's baby." Amy asked him if he thought the baby was going to be black because he was coloring the baby black. He answered matter-of-factly, "No. I just don't have any other colors. The baby will look like Shiloh." So Amy asked him if he thought the baby was a boy or a girl. He says without a doubt in his mind, "I think the baby will be a girl." Sometimes I really think Noah has a sixth sense about these things...we'll just have to wait and see if what Noah thinks is what happens...somehow I think it will.
Cate and I went out this afternoon to check on our diva Shiloh, who is heavy with foal, and wash her tail well. We were doing this thinking that we had at least 2 weeks before this baby would be here. On Sunday, when Amy had been out with her her vulva was tight and closed, looking much like a raisin and her udders were as flat as always showing no sign at all that there was a baby that was soon to be here. Today however, I began, while Cate was grooming Shiloh, by running my hand over her backside and feeling the tissue above her tail. Tissue that was hard one week ago at the base of her tail was definitely softening. This prompted me to immediately move her tail to the side and look at her vulva. Shit...it was soft and elongated.
Which then prompted me to look at her udder and quickly. Double shit...swollen udder filling with colostrum and milk. I figure we have less than a week before we have a baby on the ground.
If I was feeling panicky about the birth of this foal before, now I'm feeling like I might have a nervous breakdown. Funny, I wasn't this nerve racked with the impending deliveries of my own children...maybe because I felt some kind of control over the situation since it was my body. I feel like I have absolutely NO control over this at all...and I don't like feeling like I'm not in control. I feel like Noah has more control over all of this than I do, interesting enough...maybe control isn't the right word here...maybe just knowing that it's all going to be ok. I think Noah knows it's all going to be ok.
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