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It was Easter week,
a time of rebirth, spring and hope. We were at my daughter, Wendy’s
boarding stable, excitedly awaiting the birth of our stallion’s grandson
or granddaughter out of a Morab mare we had leased.
The Morab mare had
waxed a few days earlier, and we had already spent several nights in the
barn. Concerned that she might be in trouble, we had called for Chris,
our vet. She carefully examined the mare, assured us that all was well
and said we could expect a foal very soon.
Then we took Chris
over to my farm to do some blood work for Coggins reports. When we
brought our new Arabian mare, Heller, into her stall, we discovered that
she had waxed and was dripping milk. Chris felt she was in the
beginning stages of labor. This was not a good thing, as the foal would
be premature by six to eight weeks. We immediately moved her to Wendy’s
barn and added her to our round-the-clock foal watch, figuring that
every extra day she kept the foal would be good.
Two days later, the
Morab mare had a beautiful, big grey colt in the image of his “daddy”
and “grand-daddy.” We were thrilled to see how perfectly he matched our
breeding goal, as we watched him proudly bucking and showing off in a
circle around his dam. It was always such a miracle when a foal was
born with no complications, ready to run before it was a day old.
But Heller, the
Arabian mare, still had not foaled and now she was discharging a rather
foul-smelling fluid. Once again we called Chris, who rushed over
immediately when we described the situation. After examining the mare,
Chris gravely informed us that the mare had become toxic, and the foal
would have to be pulled. All signs were that the foal was no longer
alive, and we would have to work quickly if we wanted to save the mare.
Wendy worked on
keeping the mare calm and in position; we added my son, Matt, and his
strength to the team working on the mare. Chris gave instructions to
Matt and Wendy, in a strained whisper, and we all were silent as Chris
worked swiftly to get the foal out and try to save the mare. I found
myself silently praying, tears streaming down my cheeks, as Chris, Wendy
and Matt labored to get the foal out with the least damage to the mare.
Poor Heller was sweating and straining in obvious pain and distress.
Suddenly, in a gush of blood and fluid, the foal fell out. As it hit
the ground, both Chris and I gasped together, “It’s alive!”
Finally, I could do
something; I rushed to dry the foal and massage its sides to get it
breathing, while the others continued to work on the mare. Chris said,
“We’re going to need some oxygen if we are going to try to save that
foal.” The foal was soggy and squished, but he still was obviously a
gorgeous colt. Oh, if only we could save him.
Tyler and a boarder
rushed off to find oxygen. They returned amazingly fast.When the fire
station couldn’t give them a cylinder, they had gone to a dentist, who
kindly gave them a small cylinder until we could rent a large tank and
setup. Meanwhile, several other caring friends were clearing out the
storage room so we could set up a foal neonatal unit to try to save this
beautiful Arabian colt we had named “Survivor.”Another friend brought a
blow-up air mattress; we covered it with an egg-crate mattress pad and
set up a heat lamp. As soon as we had things ready, we moved our
precious little guy to his special room.
In eleven years of
foaling, Wendy and I had never lost one of our “babies,” and we were
prepared to do everything we could to save this one, if it was at all
possible. The foal would need a human attendant 24 hours a day. Tyler
and I and two other volunteers were soon receiving instructions from
Chris. Poor Wendy had the thankless job of “milking” the mare every two
hours in order to keep her milk flowing and to have milk on hand if we
could get the foal to nurse.
The rest of us had
the task of staying with the foal and keeping his head and body upright,
because his lungs were not fully developed, and if he lay for a long
time on either side, his lungs would fill with fluid. After trying
several ways of lying next to Survivor, Tyler, came up with the idea of
crawling down toward him so he rested between our legs with his head on
our chest. This way we could shift him without using our hands. (He
didn’t have very thick hair on his body and was very ticklish.) He also
seemed quite soothed by such close contact. Our breathing and heartbeat
probably made him feel like he was back in the womb, which was really
what we were trying to create until he could develop more.
Next, we put a
lamb’s nipple on a plastic soda bottle, so it would be easy to help him
nurse, which was our most important goal. Meanwhile, he was on oxygen
and a glucose drip solution, and if love and care could do it, we would
pull him through.
As horse breeders,
we were always very aware of life and death, and had always rejoiced as
we made it through birth after birth safely. Yet, most of our breeder
friends had lost foals or mares, so we had always been aware of that
dark shadow, and couldn’t help thinking of it as we spent our
three-or-four hour shifts with Survivor.
He was truly
exquisite, a coppery red-chestnut, with the most perfect sculpted
Arabian head, a white star, and tiny tulip ears, and a teacup muzzle
with big, flaring nostrils. We loved him immediately and wanted so much
to help him make it.
The day after his
birth, he was sucking, but not very well. We all worked hard just to get
a few drops of milk into him. About midnight of the second night, he
seemed to rally and drank about one and a half ounces of milk. The
result was quite wonderful; he was much more alert, gave little nickers
to me, and those perfect miniature ears were like antennae as he
listened to me talking to him. He moved them gracefully to and fro.
(He had always responded somewhat with his ears when he heard my voice.
I think he thought I was his mom, since I was there when he was born. )
We wanted so much to believe that he would be nursing soon.
But instead of
getting stronger, he seemed to get less energy, and we couldn’t get him
to suck for very long. He also got diarrhea from the antibiotics, so we
were giving him yogurt and using disposable diapers under him to keep
him dry. Finally, Chris decided she would have to give him plasma. He
got about half of it, but then his temperature started to go up, so we
had to stop. He was slipping away, and there was nothing else we could
do.
It was Good Friday,
Tyler and I came back to the barn, because Judy had called us, her voice
full of tears. We called Chris after Tyler checked the tiny body’s
vital signs and found them to be very poor. We all went into the room
to let the little guy know we were all there and he was surrounded by
love if he had to leave us. We each sat with him briefly, and talked to
him. After all, he was our baby. And he responded to each of us before
he finally, very quietly, stopped breathing. As sad as we were,
Survivor was so beautiful and peaceful. Even Chris commented that he
looked like he was going to wake up any minute and be all right.
Now here is the
strange part. Although we were all sad to lose our boy, we also were
aware of a very deep, spiritual sharing, a sense of the universe and
every creature in it. To touch such loving, innocent beauty, even for a
short time, was quite awesome. We felt blessed, in a way. Buscaglia
says “…Death is a continuous, beautiful process of life…Death tells us
we don’t have forever and that to live is now…Death teaches us the joy
of the moment…It teaches us to let go, there’s nothing we can hang on
to.”
In his short life,
Survivor gave us perfect love and beauty, and he showed us we could be
better than ourselves; we could work together, do our very best, but
also that some lives are meant to be very short. No life is wasted or
meaningless. Most important, he showed us that Death could be beautiful
and right sometimes. As breeders, we become part of the drama of life
and death, and we must accept death in order to truly cherish the
miracle of each new life. Survivor helped us to see that. His life,
short as it was, was a very precious gift to all of us |
