It's Official, Official

Here's Fae!!!

My gorgeous baby! So amazing

It's Official

It's official! The vet came out today and confirmed that Julie is in foal. My vet will come out again in 10 days and I'll get to see the heart beat!

Julie and I are definitely much more relaxed now that I know my money wasn't wasted and that my dream is coming true. She certainly knows she's pregnant. She's been acting differently and has been very careful around other horses. She also doesn't pee outside anymore but instead waits to pee until she is in her stall.

She's already moving differently and if she is anything like her dam, Julie is going to get "as big as a house" I'm just happy that Fae looks great (even though she is just a mass of cells right now).
This is certainly going to be an adventure. There was a lot of other things I wanted to include in this post but I'm too tired and relieved to expand on my thoughts.

I'll post the Ultrasound when I get it.

Stress in the Head

Who would have thought there was so much stress and worry when it comes to creating a life. I'd much rather plan for a foal than a human babe...

It seems that I  under planned and that I am out of the funds I thought would last me the year.

The vet is supposed to come out this week to check and see if Julie is pregnant but I don't know if I have the money to do that.

This past week was nice- no vet visits and no disruptions; both Julie and I were happy to be able to relax.

I can't stress her out, but how much stress is too much stress? What am I to do. She's peed in her stall a lot lately and every day I clean out her stall I always wonder if she expelled a microscopic ball of cells and if I tossed 3000 into the trash.

So much stress and I know she feels it. Why, oh why did I allow myself to be fooled into thinking I could afford this.

Dreams achieved and Dreams lost. Hopes found and Hopes destroyed.

Am I the only one who fears dreaming too much? Am I the only one who wonders if Hope disguises a more malevolent emotion....


Of course I wanted to write a cutesy post about Julie's progress and all that stuff but all I feel is fear and worry; did I do something stupid?

Most probably yes.

Two Weeks' Notice

The vet will come back in two weeks to check Julie to see if she is pregnant.
She can do everything she normally does but she shouldn't be stressed because if she is the pregnancy is the first thing to go.

Considering I haven't been in a good mood and I feel anger bubbling under my skin these next two weeks are not going to be good. At least I have three days off next week.

Yesterday the stallion at my work decided to test me and tried to bite me. He didn't succeed and in his overzealous backing up he somehow landed/stepped on my right foot and it's all swollen but nothing is broken.

Oh yea, check out Cosmo's shoulder

It's a running horse! How cool is that.

I hope Fae has color. I love bays but I want something more than just a bay with a star (although I love bays with stars).

The Start of a Life

Yesterday at around 5 PM Julie was inseminated with the first dose of semen. It's surreal. I can't believe that she will be having a foal. My dream is finally coming true. Of course there will be lots of stress and worries and "I can't believe I thought this was a good idea" moments but in 11 months Julie's baby will be a reality.

She was a superstar about being bred. She didn't need any kind of drugs and she was very good about everything. Afterwards I had to walk her around for a bit to prevent her peeing right away. She knows that something is up. I'm sure she's figured out that we are breeding her and the whole barn has been on edge these past few days. It's been kind of stressful having all of these horses grumpy and clamoring for my attention. I wonder if they all realize that Julie's going to have a baby.

So my friends want to throw me a baby shower and I'm excited about that. It's amazing to think that Julie is going to have a foal. I wonder who is going to be more protective; me or her. Hopefully she won't reject the foal and hopefully she'll be OK when she foals out. Hopefully I'll have the money I need to pay for everything.

Money is my biggest worry right now.

Here is a picture of Julie that I took while walking her in our round pen.

Here is the container the semen came in:

It's strange to think that two small cells can create a large 1200 lb horse. 

Here's the the beginning of a new journey. There is more to the story about the container getting to us. If I remember to write about it later I will.

The Next Step

The shot I gave Julie on Friday dissolved the CL on her left ovary. She is in a good heat and we will be breeding her this Thursday.
Fingers crossed that everything will go smoothly.

I already know the foal's name:
Fate's Juwel

I hope the foal is a filly.

Other good news it looks like she is only going to ovulate on her left ovary which means no twins and that is a very good thing.

Now that it's heading towards the next step I am starting to freak out about money. I'm crazy for doing this. I can afford one horse on my salary but not two and there is no way I'm selling either horse.

Ugh, well, I guess I better stop spending money and I should start saving it.

Fate is my vacations and my new cars and my new clothes and my free time. Fate is my opportunities to travel. All of the other things I want to do I have to give up.

Maybe the foal's barn name with be Faye.

Yea I think it'll be Faye or Fae or Fey or Fay. I'm not sure yet I don't like the "t" in Fate. It's a hard sound and I don't think it'd last as a barn name for 25+ years.

My horses' names were/are: Maggie, Mikey, Julie and I leased a horse named Katie but the 't' in Katie is softened by the 'i' which Fate doesn't have.

So scroll down on this page those pictures make me so excited for next July (if everything goes smoothly)

I hope I can pay for everything. I feel grey hairs growing.

Time for a Hormone change

Horses never seem to do what you want them to do. Julie has decided not to go into heat; when the vet came out on Wednesday to check her she still had a huge CL on her left ovary (which means she wasn't going into heat any time soon). He gave me a hormone to short cycle her- it's called estrumate and what it does is that it dissolves the CL and she goes into heat. He said that she'll probably go into a really strong heat by Sunday and that we will be breeding her next week. The down side to this drug is that she is more likely to have twins but since it is dangerous for horses to have twins he is going to have to pinch (abort) one of the zygotes to prevent her from aborting both of them around the 9th month of her pregnancy.

I don't want to have to chose a foal to abort. It's a loss of a life and although it'll only be a ball of cells when he pinches it I still get a sick feeling in my stomach thinking about it.

Now that the initial "yippeee! I get to breed my horse!" has worn off I'm starting to add up the numbers in my head and it's beginning to hit me that I am doubling (if not tripling) my horse expenses and the ball is rolling too fast now to stop it. 

Am I crazy? How on earth am I going to be able to do this. I want a foal from her so badly but I don't know if I can afford it and I can't dig myself into another financial hole.

My high school animal science teacher said that you only want to breed a mare if you want an exact replica of her. At least I'm breeding Julie for exactly that reason.