The Wait Continues

My vet happened to be in town yesterday and she offered to take a look at Valeria. I couldn’t pass up on the offer so I let her know she’d be streamed live on camera. Not that I thought it would be an issue but I also think it’s important to get consent. Besides, she promised to not beat my horses this time. 😉

Her belly just keeps getting bigger & lower.

Valeria’s tail head has softened, so we’re getting closer but she’s still content—well, not really content—to hold on to that baby for a while longer. My guess is the baby knows how damn cold we’ve been getting and wants to wait out the cold snap frost every morning. The foal appears really active in the mornings and if you’ve been able to watch at all you’ve seen that she’s gotten pretty comfortable with laying down to have her breakfast.

This picture doesn’t do justice. It split in half & sort of fell on the house. House is totally okay.

She has been spending a lot of time with her head hanging out of the right upper corner of the camera frame. Our huge pine tree fell down during the insane storm last week and it’s opened up a large view of our property that was blocked before. I’m sure the new view is what has her so interested. Although on occasions she finds the camera itself pretty unnerving.

Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?

Not sure how long she’s going to make us wait but every day she doesn’t produce milk (it’s been the transparent yellow sticky stuff so far, aka colostrum, so I’m wary to take any of that until it becomes cloudy) is another day my body gets to recover.

Not the best picture but she’s sleeping & looks adorable.

Physical therapy has been going great. It was a huge relief that first day because the therapist discovered the reason I wasn’t improving is because it wasn’t my back that was causing the problem and pain. My sacroiliac joint was all out of whack causing my entire pelvis to be under a lot of torque and pressure. Even though it’s been 5 weeks since I got hurt, I’ve only actually been fixed and on the road to recovery for the last 2 weeks. It’s actually a little strange it wasn’t caught sooner since I had x-rays taken and it should have shown how out of sync my pelvis was.

Imagine this joint offset by like, a whole inch.

Now I’m just counting the days until I am given the all clear to get back into the saddle so I can start posting about riding. And not just any riding but riding Aria! I’m so tempted to just ignore what the doctors say and give her a whirl. Nothing is more motivating to get better than the promise of a big reward but that big reward is also enticing me to move faster than maybe I’m really ready. I won’t because I don’t want to reinjure myself and end up at square one again but it’s so tempting.

She stole Ben’s feed tub & then spent all day hangry, kicking it around because it was empty.

Have you guys ever been laid up from an injury that made you consider not taking the doctor’s advice just to get your horseback riding kicks in? Do you push yourself to get back in the saddle before you’re really ready?

Also, anyone want to take bets on whether April the giraffe will have her baby before Valeria? Ha…