lost my beautiful mare forever

To those of you following my hopes for my mare and foal:

I don’t want to blubber, really, but maybe someone can see some kind of
prevention for this kind of tragedy in the future.

Early this morning I lost my beautiful friend Galant Firefly. She was
delivering what was to be our future champion-to-be endurance horse, a
perfect chestnut foal. All seemed to be going well at first, the amnion and
then one foot; but then it went very bad. There was a rupture of the
uterine wall, probably from one of the foal’s feet. During the first half
hour of labor, Firefly had been getting up and down every 8-12 minutes, and
even gotten cast once from rolling over. We helped her to her feet in a few
minutes, but either that or one time going down roughly did the fatal
injury. Anyway, when I couldn’t feel the second foot, Jeff called the vet.
She came quickly, but by that time it simply wasn’t in time to save either
mare or foal. The vet had to tranq and anesthetize Firefly, take the baby,
and then euthanize Firefly while we continued to try to revive the beautiful
big foal. I was in shock. I numbly tried to pump life into it.

I held up emotionally until the local guy quickly came & took the bodies
away, then I fell completely apart. I was unable to hold up for a couple
friends and neighbors who came because my husband called them for me. They
hugged me and tried to say comforting words. They knew how much I loved her
and cared for her. I can hardly see for having cried for most of the day.
I took off work today, but how can I feel better tomorrow? They don’t
understand at work. Not even a couple of the rare horse owners there, who
thought that it was an obsessive thing to have a camera on her stall and a
TV monitor in the house.
They said "animal mammas know what they’re doing", to "let nature take its
course", etc. What a bunch of hogwash for such an emotional (and financial)
investment.

I keep blaming myself and thinking of how I should probably have tried to
keep her from rolling. I should have given her dipyrone. I should have put
a couple more bales of straw down to make it even more softer. I should
have had her halter on all the time and not had to bother her to put it on
quickly while she lay waiting for help or to make another effort to rise
from being cast. I should have called an experienced breeder to come and be
there when labor started, instead of describing over the ‘phone. I should
have not given her so much to eat last night. I should have felt for the
other foot immediately when the first appeared instead of waiting. I keep
finding more things I "should have done", regardless of how many people tell
me that I did everything I could do. The vet told me that the chances were
very slim that even if she had been sitting right there with us that she
could have prevented the fatality or even recognized the problem in time to
save the foal. I wondered if she was just saying that to try to make me
feel better.

It was going to be so wonderful, our first foal, and from our
apple-of-my-eye go-the-distance tough, brave buddy. I know it doesn’t
usually and not supposed to go like this. It’s so hard to not see her ever
again. Our hopes for the foal were that it was going to be the greatest
heavyweight endurance horse that was ever born. We had chosen the parents
carefully, the feed, the vet, the bedding, the vitamins, everything. I let
my dreams slip out once at work when an Indian colleague who had been
trained as a veterinarian in India was leaving our department, and wished me
well on the foaling. I told him to watch for us in the World Championship
Ride and in the Olympics, just give us 6 years or so.

For the years we had her, I have only a couple pictures and one or two
videos. She had not been handled like a friend when we bought her, but
just the other day I was marveling the way she had learned to follow us and
beg for attention, and to trust us for unknown situations. I miss her
terribly. My husband, Jeff, the "treat man" misses her too. She is
irreplaceable. I really don’t know what to do. We were pretty stressed out
over the last couple of weeks because of decisions at work, also, and
constantly waking for Firefly’s movements every night set us up to take this
physical particularly hard. I feel sick. I know how you folks that lost
your horses felt now. How did you make it through the grief!?

Lost.
Bridget