Ugh...My First Cold

I have my first pregnancy cold. And I'm miserable. To make matters worse, my brother is visiting from Chicago and I feel so awful. And can I take any real drugs? Of course not! So, I'm muddling along with my Afrin and my Tylenol. Ugh...I went to the doctor yesterday in the hope of getting an anti-viral but the doctor (not my usual dr.) said I'd have to wait it out.

In the meantime, my nausea is slowly getting much better and I'm starting to have an appetite again. I'm pretty much always hungry, much to my husband's amusement and my brother's amazement. I eat every hour and a half to two hours; although I'm not eating as much at a time as I usually do. I keep forgetting this fact however and ending up with a ton of food left on my plate. I'm managing much better with my bosom at night and it only tries to strangle me every other night or so. I'm showing already. I'm only 12 weeks pregnant (on this coming Tuesday)! I'm a bit nervous about how large I'm going to end up.

I packed up all of my horse stuff and stored it away in the garage. I found some mold on my good saddle which was frustrating. I've cleaned and conditioned it and will check it periodically. I plan to bring it into the house when the winter rainy season really kicks in to try and avoid and further mold damage. I've also had my last day as an official Little Bit Therapeutic Riding Center class volunteer for awhile. All of this has combined to leave me a bit down. My husband keeps reminding me that we will, eventually, buy another horse and that I will ride again. I hope so because I miss it.

Thanks and Pregnancy Woes

Thanks for all of the support you guys. I really appreciate it.

My pregnancy continues...my magnificent bosom continues to try to strangle me with unsettling frequency...I'm nauseous all the time as my GI tract has slowed down so much it hardly seems to be functioning at all...And my throat often feels like it is three sizes too small. But hey, I'm growing a person which is pretty cool. Although the hormone swings I could do without. I struggle with anxiety disorder and depression in my daily life so having this extra amount of oomph to deal with is difficult. I'm having to work almost twice as hard as usual to keep myself centered, and even then I'm less successful than I'd like to be. I'm planning to call and make an appointment with my psychiatrist to see if there is some room to adjust my meds for awhile to help me through this. But for now I'm coping. Unfortunately for my friends, this means that I'm spending more time alone, meditating and resting. I've struggled for years with guilt over this but most of my friends are used to it. I do try to give them a heads up when I feel it coming on and I make an effort to at least try to text or email-even when communicating is a heck of an effort.

Ashamed of Myself

Oh Internet, I am eating crow right this very minute and I have to say it does not taste good.

I talked to Wanda's Current Owner and the longer we talked the more I realized that I allowed Previous Owner to get me worked up and flip things all out of proportion. On the bright side I'm feeling really good again about the home I sold her into and it's wonderful to stand by that decision.

But I'm so ashamed of msyelf for listening to Previous Owner's version of events and making decisions and even blog posts without talking to Current Owner. I was so ready to believe the bad things that P.O. was saying even though I know that P.O. tends to see everything in the worst possible light. I can only say that I'm an idiot and apologize publicly to C.O. for being willing to believe the things I heard.

The horse industry is so full of gossip and usually I'm the first one to take everything I hear with a grain of salt, or even a shaker full. And yet one phone call from P.O. and I threw all of my common sense out the window and did not wait to learn the whole story. C.O. is a wonderful owner for Wanda and is providing her the best home she can. Which is a pretty damn good one. I'm not going to beat myself up forever about this debacle but I am feeling very small today.

I did have a long talk with C.O. this morning and it sounds like if she decides to sell Wanda she'll keep me in mind as a possibility which is lovely. In the meantime I can rest easy in the certain knowledge that, although there are as many sides to a story as there are people in it, we all want what is best for the horse (even if we disagree sometimes about what that might be)!

Orrrr Not

Her current owner would like to keep her for awhile longer and I think that'll be okay. I asked her to keep me in mind in the future if she decided to sell the mare.

She forwarded me the messages from Wanda's previous owner and all I can say is "ouch". I knew it ended not well but evidently it started not well either in her world.

Phew.

I've got to go clean some bile off of me now.

Another Suitcase, Another Hall

When I woke up this morning there was a text on my cell phone saying my offer on Wanda had been accepted after all and when did I want to come and get her.

So after I made a few calls: first to my husband to see if he was still serious about us doing this, second to my friend to see if I really was crazy, and third to see if the offer of a place to put her still held; I called back and said OK.

And thus the day of WTF was born.

What am I doing? Exactly how crazy do I have to be? I mean, I'm paying twice as much as I got for her to bring her back into my care where she won't be ridden. I'm spending perfectly good money for a broodmare I can't afford to breed.

But folks, I couldn't leave her there. Not when I could do otherwise. So, as of Saturday evening, I will be Wanda's official owner again. My husband suggested I look at it as though we'd just boarded her somewhere else for ninety days. Yes, good point Jon. We sent her to the anti-trainer where they taught her to rear and flip over and get into fights! It's all the rage this year, aren't you doing it? I'm not sure what I'll be brining home. From the sound of things she could very well be in tremendous pain. And it sounds like any ground manners she ever had have gone out the window.

So, you know how much I like planning and the current one looks like this:
Saturday evening-go get Wanda and bring her home to the farm where she was born. The folks there kindly offered to take her in and I've accepted. She can live outside with some other mares for a month or two while I evaluate her and figure out what I'm going to do. The nice folks also volunteered to help me find her a home.

Next week-get a vet out to look at her. Her previous owners want her checked over by their vet and I'd like someone to take a look at what's going on now-especially palpating her back. I asked her current owner to gather back up her vet records (which I gave her when I sold her) and any new records for me and I'll look over them with my vet. I'm not planning to do any more diagnostic work at this time. There's nothing that can be done ulitmately for the arthritis so we'll have to evaluate her pain level and see where that takes us.

Then I imagine we'll need some rehab. At the very least I plan to work on ground manners and perhaps do some longeing to work on obedience and respect.

Before the winter rains come I need to find her somewhere I can leave her out with a run-in. I've bought a couple of months of breathing room but the farm doesn't have turnout in the winter so we need to be moving along. I have a friend in Illinois who breeds paints and I think I may find out if she could board one in retirement long-term. I could probably afford the board there more easily and if she wanted to breed her or use her for a nursemaid she could.

In the meantime, I've bought a couple of months of breathing room to try and get things figured out. I'm so grateful to her previous owners for allowing me someplace to bring her home to. And I wouldn't feel comfortable taking her anywhere else at this point. I don't know what she's like or how she's likely to react and until I figure that out I cannot in all good conscience board her anywhere else. Only the fact that they've known her all of her life lets me feel good about imposing upon them, even for a little while.

Looks like I'm back in the horse business doesn't it?

The Heartache and The Joy

First of all The Joy: We had our first ultrasound yesterday at eight weeks. It was early for a first one, but I've had a miscarriage before and I experienced some bleeding last week, so we wanted to be sure that everything was OK. And it turns out, I'm growing a person. With a spine, and a heartbeat, and a tiny little umbilical cord! YAY! So that was exciting and I'm feeling a bit better about the baby thing. Of course, I still get incredibly nauseous several times a day where I feel like my throat is suddenly three sizes too small and a small hairy hand is trying to crawl up it. Yes, it's as uncomfortable as it sounds. I've found a few things that help but I think it's just sort of my life at the moment. Also, the constipation continues. Oy, does it continue. Enough said. My heartbeat is different too which has been weird to adjust to. And my new bosom? That beautiful new bosom that I've been looking forward to my whole life? It tries to strangle me at least once a night. I'm a stomach-sleeper and at least once per night I wake up with my new bosom crushing my jugular veins. Apparently people with generous bosoms are either not stomach-sleepers or they know something I don't.

Now, The Heartache:

I was reading craigslist and came across an ad for Wanda. Yup, her new owner has her up for sale. And I'm disappointed of course because I really thought I'd found her a longer term home than this. But I'm mostly pissed as hell at the way they're selling her. She's NOT being marketed as a broodmare only. She and her daughter have been riding her-only a few times so far but it makes me concerned. She's advertised as being not spooky and good on roads. Internet, it took me two months to be able to ride her down the driveway at the new barn. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad she's not spooking for them or throwing this little girl off, but "good on roads" says a very different thing than I think her seller realizes. Also, they listed the price I originally bought her for which is no one's business but mine. AND they say she'll require chiropractic care to keep sound. Internet, she's not going to get any better. We can manage the pain of arthritis but we cannot heal it at this time. The seller also listed the prices of her two previous foals. I have no idea where she got those numbers. I do remember telling her the listed price at the time of one of her foals, which I thought was fine since anyone doing basic research could find that info; but I didn't have these numbers to give her. Oh yeah, and they had her age wrong.

Wanda's original breeder contacted me to see if I knew this was going on. I'd seen the ad this weekend and was trying to think of how to word an email regarding the misinformation in the ad. My first reaction upon reading the ad was to find someone with a trailer and go get my baby. But I knew that wasn't the best option for me. However, after I talked to Wanda's breeder I called the owner right away. The breeder told me and her owner confirmed that since they have owned her she's broken several halters pulling back (yes, the owner admits that even though I TOLD them explicitly "THIS MARE PULLS BACK WHEN TIED AND NEEDS SUPERVISION, ESPECIALLY WHEN NOT IN CROSS TIES", they've been tying her in a single tie to trees and trailers and stuff), she's flipped over backwards TWICE as they tried to load her in trailers (now, she doesn't particularly like trailers but if you put a chain on her halter and let her look it over she loads-I've never had her go over backwards doing this), she's colicked (which to be fair isn't their fault-a neighbor threw cut grass over the fence), and she's been in a fight and required stitches. While I was talking to the owner she told me that when they're taking her for turn-out she's good one day and the next she rears and the following day she's fine again. Her breeder told me the new owner was saying that the mare's ground manners are terrible. They've never been great, but it sounds like they've gotten worse. When I was talking to her current owner she shared that they sent the mare to be live bred pretty much as soon as the bought her and she wouldn't stand still for it. Well, she'd just finished heat about a week before they bought her (which I told them) so I have to wonder if she was in heat when they were trying to breed her. She's always very regularly and very obviously come into heat so I'm not sure why they're having problems. They tried artificial insemination twice and it didn't take so the woman is frustrated. Also, even though the daugher is riding her the woman doesn't feel she's safe on the ground with Wanda and they don't have the time to work with her. Sounds to me like someone who's ready to sell a horse back, yes?

No. She's so sweet and she's the first to come when called and she's just so lovely under saddle. Yes, I'm sure she is right now-she's out of shape and not in terrible pain yet.

I called and said that I was sorry it wasn't working out and I'd be happy to take her back at her original sale price. Her new owner declined saying she needs to recoup the money she's invested in vet bills and breeding fees. Now, I totally understand this idea but I don't think it's reasonable and I'm undertandably concerned about what the hell is happening to this mare. I did reiterate that her back problem is arthritis in the withers and will never be "healed". I also re-clarified that the vets said with a year off she might be sound for some light riding. She said she hadn't realized this. I did my best to explain this at the time of sale and I really thought I'd done a good job. I told them all about her quirks and her medical status. Sigh. Sadly, I cannot afford to buy her back at the new price. I told her that if she changed her mind to let me know. And that if anyone had any questions about her medical treatments to call me.

Internet, I feel so badly for my mare and I'm so afraid she's going to be sold without them telling anyone about her back. And the worst of it is that I can't fix it. I can't change what they tell or don't tell people. It's hard. I really thought I'd found her this tremendous home and I feel really let down.