Oh Baby... Part 2

I promised the rest of the story, and so here we go! For those of you that receive my blog via email, I apologize if you did not receive Part 1. I had put a stop on the email feed while I adjusted some settings on my postings, and forgot to restart the emails! If you'd like to read Part 1, simply click on my blog address and check 'er out :)

My body had had enough yesterday morning at around 5:00 a.m., so I left Marin asleep in the barn and ventured into the house to rouse Kevin from his sleep. "Could you take over for a couple of hours?" I asked, and of course, he was more than willing. He felt bad that I was the one carrying the burden of the night shift, but I really needed him in the house helping the kids get to bed and getting his own rest, knowing I'd need someone rested to take over for me the next day! We swapped places, and before I knew it, Kevin was standing at the foot of the bed with tears in his eyes. I glanced at the clock, which read 7:00, and said, "What happened? Did we lose him?" It's not often that we see our giant of a man brought to tears and I was alarmed. Kevin proceeded to tell me that although the baby was still alive, he was not sucking off of the bottle and was so limp and floppy when he was sleeping, that Kev was afraid we were, indeed, losing him. We called the vet.

Kevin put the trailer on the truck while I showered, and we set off with Bows in the trailer and the foal on my lap. It's not every day that you see a horse standing up on the seat of a truck bench, or asleep on it's owner's lap, for that matter! Poor little baby was so exhausted from lack of nutrition and the obvious stress of a night spent with a nervous mom and owner prodding him with bottles and bowls and all sorts of activity. By the time we reached the animal hospital, Bows was throwing a fit in the trailer... you would have thought we had a clydesdale in there, with all the racket, instead of a 30" miniature mare! One universal element, amongst all of God's creatures, is the passion of a mother's love for her newborn. We were hearing AND seeing (never thought a small mare like that could rock the trailer) that passion in it's full form!

Amidst the racket and impatience of Bows, quite the opposite could describe the INACTIVITY of the foal. I lifted him up off of my lap to stand him up and keep him alert, but he simply collapsed on my lap, as if dead. The peace I had been blessed with all night and morning, an assurance from Heavenly Father that everything was going to be okay, whether or not we had a live colt to raise and enjoy, was abruptly gone at the sight of his seemingly lifeless body. I whipped him up in my arms and bailed out of that truck in an instant, calling for Kevin to hurry and get me in the examination room, asap. The door to the horse exam room opened up and we hurried in. I gave the foal to Kevin and listened as the doctor gave us a grim prognosis. Because the baby was so comatose and unresponsive, the doc told us that there was pretty much a 95% to 100% chance he wouldn't make it, no matter what we did to preserve his life. I nodded my head, with tears in my eyes, looked over to Kevin and put my hand under the foal's chin. That's when it happened...

The foal jerked his head up, alert as a rooster at the crack of dawn, stretched his legs under him (he was still in Kevin's arms!) and seemed to be telling us, "Hold on a minute... I can hear you and I want to live!" The doctor was astonished, as were Kevin and I. Kev set him down on the cement floor of the exam room and the little colt proceeded to check out his surroundings, found his mother's teat and started nursing. Holy Shmoly! At this point, the doc went from ready to pull the plug, to a brand new prognosis of, "Maybe this colt isn't as bad off as I thought. If he's alert and healthy, and not sick, as I first thought, I think he'll make it." We gave the go-ahead for a plasma transfusion to ensure a full antibody count in his blood and left the little guy and his mother in a stall at the animal hospital. The plasma for the transfusion had to be of the equine variety, which is not easy to come by, but the vet found some in Ogden, and set off to get it. Before the doctor left, however, he wanted to make sure a transfusion was absolutely necessary, considering the cost. He did a blood test to check the antibody levels in the foal's blood, and we were all pleased to find that our efforts in milking the colostrum from Bows and bottle feeding it to the baby were not in vain. He had at least partial antibody protection in his blood stream from our efforts, but a 50% chance of living healthy just wasn't enough assurance for us. We wanted him to have the best start possible and okayed the transfusion. Kevin and I went home, crashed on the bed for a moment, and awaited a call from the doctor.

Five hours and five hundred dollars later, we brought the horses home. Mom and baby are doing fine and spent the night on their own! What a miracle... Miracle? Sounds like a good name for the newest member of our Funny Farm Family :)