-Last Updated on August 25 2000-
Just about daylight. It begins...
You can see a hoof.
The muzzle is visible in the sac.
Shoulders are out, the sac is open and the worst is over.
Only the back legs to go now.
Still need to break the navel cord....
...and get those legs untangled.
Mother pride.
Taking a bit of a rest after the ordeal.
How do you use these long things?
Needing a little help.
Standing all by herself.
She now has a name. The sun starting peeking out right about now, so her name is Sunshine.
The above pictures were taken in the space of a little over half an hour. I have since learned that that is lightning fast, but it was normal for Fortune. Sunshine was the last of 9 foals Fortune had, but this is the only sequence of pictures I have taken of the actual birth, since the others were born during the night.
A few hours later. No problem using the legs now!
Getting bigger.
Almost 2 years old now.
10 years old.
This is one of the last pictures I have of Sunshine. She coliced a short time later and we couldn't save her. After more than 12 hours of getting progressively weaker I called the vet back out at 2AM to let her go.
I had lost Fortune and Sunshine's sister Lucky a couple of years before, and Sunshine's dad the previous Christmas. Sunshine was the last of Fortune's foals I had left.
I spent the last hours with her walking her, talking to her, singing her song to her.
"You are my Sunshine, my only Sunshine".
She was too young to leave me, but God needed her...
