Ultrasound, Rinse, Repeat: Part 3

This appointment was slightly less stressful, but only slightly 🤣 lucky for me, Ruby's reproductive system continued to cooperate, and she had ovulated - two follicles actually! But as anticipated, she had retained some fluid, so she needed a uterine lavage. Optho had both of the stocks in use so the first ultrasound was just in a stall, so no good photos of that because the vet told me she trusted me to hold Ruby more than any of the students, so I couldn't see the screen lol. 

"Again? *Sigh*"

For the lavage they really did need her in stocks (with drugs haha) so luckily one opened up and we got that done fairly quickly. The fluid coming out was slightly cloudy, but again, as expected, so nothing alarming. Also more really aggressive flatulence, which all the young female vet students were so mortified about 🤣🤣

The vet sent me home with more drugs to encourage Ruby's uterus to contract and prescribed light exercise to keep her system moving, and we had a "can't miss" appointment two weeks later to check for a black dot - and hopefully only one, because the risk with a double ovulation is twins, which means one would need to be pinched off. 

I took the vet's instructions very seriously, so Ruby got ponied while I did a conditioning ride for Emmy hahaha. 

Considering I have no idea if either of them has ponied another horse/has been ponied, and I was riding alone in the woods in a bareback pad .... Things went well 🤣 I struggled to juggle everything, but that's a me problem, not a horse problem lol. 

So. Now you're up to date on what has been going on with Ruby! I really hesitated to even post anything before we got to the heartbeat phase, because there is so much risk in breeding. Ruby is older than is preferable for a maiden mare. The semen we got was literally the stallion's first official shipped collection - he had been phantom trained/had evaluations and test cools/etc, but had no pregnancies yet. Ruby had some really weird cycles we couldn't get a handle on in the beginning. So many things could go wrong. And if they do - that's okay. It's not the end of the world. I've done this before, and I know the risks. Even if this doesn't work out and I'm just out a shit ton of money, those are the breaks. I won't identify the stallion until things are more confirmed, because if it doesn't work out, it's not any fault on his end - he is managed by a very experienced breeder and on their end they worked with a great repro clinic. Basically I'm just taking it a day at a time right now, but I do think breeding is such a cool journey to chronicle and I know Amanda does a really cool job posting about it on a more commercial scale, I also like sharing my own little rinky dink AA experience 🤣 at any rate, we'll be checking for a black dot (and hopefully only one!) next week, so cross your fingers for us!