I’m really not a maternal-type person. When I see an infant or child, I have no desire to coo or cuddle. In fact, I’m the one fighting the urge to flee the other direction when a child enters the room. And I’m certainly guilty of ridiculing my friends who are expecting or have a new baby, for their constant need to call their OB or pediatrician every time the baby kicks, sneezes or has a slight cold.  That well-worn copy of the pregnancy book on my best friends nightstand- yeah, I inwardly cringe when I see it, because really, if you’ve been through it once, what could possibly change?

Unfortunately, it turns out that when my own mare is pregnant, I turn into that expectant mother I can’t stand. As I write this, I am currently waiting on my third (equine) bundle of joy to arrive… and I’m a nervous wreck.

The first time I bred my mare, a few years ago, I think I may have driven my veterinarian to adopt a better call screening protocol… or at least hire an answering service. It started as soon as the mare had her 14-day pregnancy check. That little “black hole” on the ultrasound made me swoon like no human child ever could. After being confirmed in foal at 60 days, my vet pronounced her safely in foal, with no further checks necessary…

Thus began the next 9 or so months of my bi-weekly phone calls to my vet, with questions like  “are you sure taking my mare for a trail ride won’t make her abort?” and “my mare had a tiny bit of discharge on her tail… can you PLEASE come check her and make sure she’s still in foal?” Thankfully, at 360 days (even my mare had a sense of humor about the situation, and dragged it on as long as possible!), a healthy baby colt was born…. And at 3am, despite a totally normal birth and no indication of any problems, I dragged my vet out of bed to come and check the new arrival “just to make sure.”

The next year, when I told my vet I wanted to re-breed the mare, she made me first promise that I would “chill out” about the process.  So for the next 11 months, I did my very best to relax, and not over think, over worry, or over-analyze. At least I didn’t do it to my vets face… I kept most of my major freak-outs confined to a internet message board, where like-minded horse-mommies-to-be talked about the pros and cons of vaccines, debate the merits of imprint training, and decide whether the milk of a mare ready to foal tastes more salty or sweet…

When the due-date came for the second baby, I was ready. I stayed up all night for two weeks, waiting for the magic moment to come. I charted the mares temperature, the size of her bag, and the relative relaxation of her croup muscles- even tasted her milk for the sweet-or-salty test. After a particularly long night of watching my mare NOT have her baby, I turned out in a small outside pen to stretch her legs, as I got ready for work. In the fifteen minutes I left her alone, the mare had the baby, got up and resumed eating her breakfast, a healthy filly nursing away at her side. At least this time I got to call my vet during the day!

Now that I’m eagerly awaiting baby number three, I’d like to