Newest Member to Borderlands

I’ve been trying to figure out for a few weeks now how to write this post (don’t worry, it’s nothing bad). So in my typical fashion, I’ll just blurt out everything.

I’ve mentioned for awhile now that my health has been an issue with caring for the horses at Borderlands. I ended up catching a little “bug” last year. I also said that we couldn’t bring anyone else in to the sanctuary. Well, I lied. We did bring one more member into the family this month.

Please meet my son, Garrett Eugene Border. He was born August 12, 2012 at 8:54pm 8lbs 1oz and measuring 19 3/4inches long. I am the proudest momma in the world. As the case is at Borderlands, nothing is easy. I guess we always need a challenge and Garrett gave us a challenge. After 15 hours of labor (with the final three being hard pushing), Garrett was born. Unfortunately, Garrett had to spend about four days in the Neonatal Intensive Care for low blood sugar. He was originally taken to NICU because I was running a fever of 104. My little boy was a trooper the entire time. He never really squawked when they poked his foot to test his blood (before every feeding). They put my son on my chest for about five minutes right after he was born and then they whisked him away to NICU. I didn’t get to see him for 12 hours. But then I spent the rest of my time with Garrett.

The hospital released me on Tuesday but didn’t realize Garrett until Thursday. Thank god for family and friends. They took care of the horses while Mike and I stayed at the hospital with Garrett. I cannot thank everyone enough for all they did while we were in the hospital.

But as every story goes, I hadn’t seen the last of the hospital. By Saturday I was sitting in the Emergency Room again. Once the ER doctors looked at me, I was raced around for an emergency surgery. When Garrett was born, I had to be stitched up (I’ll not go into details other than to say that I had 60 stitches total in a number of places). Somewhere along the line, all 60 of those stitches ripped out and I had to have an emergency operation to have the stitches replaced. I never did find out exactly how many the doctor put in but it was close to double from the original 60.

So I’m currently sitting on a donut with 120+ stitches currently in me. I’m restricted from lifting anything over 15 pounds, no housework, and I can’t drive. The doctors released me Sunday evening and I was the happiest girl in the world. I could finally enjoy my son for more than a day!

On Monday, J came out in the evening to help move the herd at the neighbor’s. The pasture had dried up while we were in the hospital. The pasture had lasted for almost two weeks but family had to throw hay while we were still in the hospital. I at least got to see them work on moving the fence while I stayed in the house and played with Garrett.

Mike spent all his time at home on the computer looking for hay. We were getting down to the wire to find hay. I only had half my winter supply. But Mike found hay and was able to get a couple of trailers and tractors lined up for this past weekend. He and J brought home 44 round bales. Buying that hay wiped me out. I just paid for last year’s hay and now I have to pay for half of this year’s hay (which cost the exact same amount). I still have to come up with the cash for the first 40 bales that were delivered a few weeks ago. With me being on maternity leave/short term disability, my paycheck is cut in half so making ends meet is going to be difficult. If anyone wants to help with some of the bales, I’d be eternally grateful. Every dollar counts. As it stands, I’m in the whole for the 40 round bales. I feel guilty for not being able to help but even now after this many days, I still can’t ride in a car for more than a few minutes/miles before I get worn out and am sore.

I’m supposed to go back to the doctors soon to get checked out. Apparently what happened to me is fairly unusual. Of the three doctors treating me, only one has seen something similar to what happened to me. Leave it to me to be the unusual one.

So you can maybe see why I havent’ done as much. I was dealing with morning sickness for the first three months, family issues still unfolding (even now), trying to get everything wrapped up with my paying job so that I could be out for a few weeks, and all the other unbelieveable happenings over the past nine months.

I expect it’ll be a few more weeks and possibly a month or two before I’m back on my feet 100% (even though I was chasing horses while nine months pregnant!) But I am hoping that life slows down a little so that I can enjoy the horses and my son a little bit more.

Unfortunately, we are faced with two impending euthanasia. I am heartbroken and even thinking about it brings me to tears. But with the heat and their age, Thor and Queen arent’ going to make it. I am devastated but I knew it was coming. I will be calling the vet on Tuesday to schedule an appointment for next week. It’s not fair to keep them going. They won’t make the winter but at least we gave them a few good years to live out their life without any stress.



But I’ll not think about that awful task until next week. For now, I’m going to enjoy my son. Even with everything that happened, he’s so worth it. I’m going to have a problem balancing the sanctuary and my personal life with Garrett but I’ll figure it out. If it doesn’t seem like I’m that active, it’s because I’m trying to stay focused more on family for a little while. Family is important and I couldn’t run this sanctuary without them, especially now. I hope that Garrett grows up learning what is right and wrong in the horse world and will do what’s right.