Monthly Archives: July 2010

DragonMonkey’s Birth Story: Part 1

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I know I’m skipping ahead on my story, but eh. It’s my blog. I’ve been doing a lot of research on avoiding another c-section, and this story wouldn’t leave me alone, so I wrote it down.

I don’t know if I have any guys who read this blog, but I don’t want to alienate them. So here, you guys can watch this instead of reading today’s blog:

Okay, onto the story.

For someone so intent on having a natural birth, I was desperate to be induced. If Pitocin was an actual plant that grew somewhere, in October of 2008 cyou ould have found me squatting in a field, cramming half-chewed handfuls of leaves down my throat as fast as I could.

Technically, I was only a day shy of 2 weeks over due.

Realistically, I was more almost 3 weeks overdue. The date according to the due-date calendars was October 10th. On the other hand, at my first ultrasound (when I was supposed to measure at 9 weeks) I measured at 9 weeks, 6 days. They decided to keep my due date the same on the paperwork, and since I knew better than to worry about such a silly little thing as the official due date, I didn’t complain. Mentally I changed my due date, but the paperwork didn’t agree with me.

BIG MISTAKE.

Somewhere around 36 weeks I woke up one day, and I felt “done”. I don’t know how else to explain it— I just woke up and realized that the DragonMonkey felt like he was finished cooking. Besides, friends, family, and even random strangers on the street took one look at my gigantic planet-sized belly, and everyone agreed: There was no possible way I could make it to 40 weeks. I was definitely going to go early.

At 37 weeks, Matty dropped into position, and I developed PUPPP. PUPPP is an acronym for “Pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy”.

What this means, in layman’s terms is the following:

HOLY ****! MY SKIN HAS BURST INTO FLAMES, AND IF I STOP SCRATCHING FOR ONE NANOSECOND, THE FLAMES WILL CONSUME MY SOUL.

In other words, it’s itchy.

It can be classified as “itchy” in the same way flesh-eating bacteria and ethnic genocide can be classified as “not so good”.

I think my experience (and advice) with PUPPP deserves a chapter of its own, so let’s just leave it at that.

After 4 straight days of not sleeping more than 20 minutes at a stretch due to the itching, I managed to devise a routine: Ice-cold oatmeal bath followed by a generous slathering of three different anti-itch lotions, topped off by Sarna, and then I packed bags of ice on my stomach, legs, armpits and thighs.

I’d doze off for about an hour or two, until the ice had melted, and I’d repeat the process.

Somewhere around 3 or 4 in the morning I would give up and try to do something to pass the time. The Bean and I were living in a one bedroom duplex. Our only television was in our bedroom (I didn’t want to wake The Bean) and we didn’t have any internet at the time.

I baked cookies.

I re-re-re-re-re-re-read books I’d read a thousand times.

I refolded laundry.

I tried not to scratch, as I’d already broken through skin and was bleeding in several places.

I stared at the walls.

I moped about, occasionally shaking my fist at the heavens and threatening to empty rooms in a Scarlett-O’-Hara-like resolve to Never Be Pregnant Again!

I’ve never had to deal with insomnia before, but I have to say I have a new found respect for its sufferers.

38 Weeks.

Ice packs. The second I took them off, the burning fire of an itching returned immediately.

Ice packs. Sarna. Oatmeal baths. Ice packs.

The rash spread further, crawling its way up my stomach and down my legs like a parasite.

Ice cubes in the cold-water bath, in an attempt to make it better. Sarna.

I took to biting my knuckles, once even accidentally biting off a piece of flesh, because for that brief second that I caused myself the pain, I wasn’t itching.

Ice, ice, and more ice. We were going through about 3 bags of ice a day. The corner store must have wondered about our sudden ice fetish.

Days began to meld together, and I felt like I was losing my grip on sanity.

I began begging my Ob/Gyn for an induction, only to chicken out at the last second. I wanted so badly to have a completely natural birth. Surely I could make it a few more days. I was due any day… any second, really.

39 Weeks.

I saw the nurse practitioner at the doctor’s more than I ever saw the actual doctor, and she knew how important it was for me to try a natural birth. She started stringing me along with half-promises. “Come on in next Tuesday, and if we don’t see any progress, we’ll might induce.”

After the third time we called our families to tell them they had put the induction off for another few days, we quit calling telling them about the possible inductions.

40 weeks.

I started trying everything. I walked every night, waddling up hills and slowly through the city.

The DragonMonkey descended lower, making walking difficult. It’s a hard thing to explain, but I actually felt that kid’s skull in my nether regions. It felt like if I crossed my legs, I might actually do some damage.

I ate spicy foods.

I drank raspberry tea.

I was stuck at 2 centimeters dilated, and it seemed like I was going to be that way forever.

41 weeks.

I increased my walks to several times a day.

They stretched my cervix, and despite the fact that I stood in the shower and tried nipple stimulation (oh, the sexiness) for over an hour, I couldn’t get the contractions to become regular. As soon as I stopped, they would stop.

I walked some more.

I ate Indian food so spicy it made my eyes burn just to be near it.

I waddled to the nearby library and researched every method of inducing labor that I could. I’m pretty sure I tried almost all of them.

I even bought a bottle of syrup of ipecac, but couldn’t actually go through with it.

42 weeks.

Nightly, I turned to The Bean, heaving my grossly swollen body onto its side, tapped his shoulder, and said the world’s least romantic line: “Sweetie? I need you to deposit some more sperm near my cervix.”

To his credit, he never once complained.

To my credit, I told him he could shut his eyes and think about Anne Hathaway.

Inexplicably, miraculously, the PUPPP’s inflammation decreased. It wasn’t gone, but I could at least get 2-3 hours of sleep at a stretch. It felt like heaven.

Monday night, October 13th, I felt a change. I’d been in and out of the bathroom all day, with cramping and the runs (oh, the double sexiness.) Spicy food? Impending sign of labor? It was hard to say which it was. I’d had occasional Braxton Hicks contractions all day. My sister and I went down to screen a movie (Australia), and I warned her that there was a real possibility that we would have to leave before we were finished.

I made it through the movie with only 2 or 3 contractions. I was thoroughly disappointed.

I went home and slept restlessly, waking up several times with low, burning cramps.

Tuesday was awful. I had low, light contractions all day long. They weren’t terribly painful, but they were frustrating. I wanted the kid out, and I wanted him out NOW.

I walked some more, stopping occasionally to lean against a tree and sway.

Tuesday night was no better than Monday night. I was able to sleep some, but between the itching and the occasional contraction, it wasn’t the best.

By Wednesday, I was a mess. I began having visions of baby elephants and a 2-year-long gestation period. I kissed the Bean goodbye, and stayed in the house all day. I timed the contractions desperately. 45 minutes, 35, minutes, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 8 minutes, 8 minutes, 7 minutes……. And then they would reset. 45 minutes apart, 35 minutes, 18 minutes, 9 minutes, 8 minutes, 7 minutes… 50 minutes. And so on, and so on.

I didn’t have any real friends in the area, so there was no one to talk to. It was a very long day.

Finally, about four in the afternoon, when I was once again around the 7-8 minute mark, I called the hospital.

“I’m having contractions, and they’re about 7 minutes apart. Should I come in?”

“Don’t come in until you’re five minutes apart,” said the nurse in a bored tone. “Just drink some warm milk and go for a walk and call us back when you’re at five minutes.”

She hung up on me.

I stared at my cell phone and had visions of ramming a machete through her skull.

Warm milk? Seriously?

The Bean came home, and the sun set. Exhausted, I slept deeply between the contractions, which were about once every hour. When I could feel my stomach tightening, I would immediately scramble to my hands and knees, since that seemed to make it feel better. I didn’t realize it at the time, but The DragonMonkey was facing backwards, so I was actually enjoying the beauty of back labor.

Dawn finally came. I had an early morning doctor’s appointment. I went out onto our front porch, and sat in depressed exhaustion, leaning my forehead against the pillars. I was going to be pregnant forever.

My neighbor came out onto her porch, and looked at me in surprise. “You’re still pregnant? I thought you had that baby by now.”

I was too tired to be as snarky as I felt, so I just ignored her.

At the doctor’s I put my feet up in the stirrups, and I prayed. I didn’t know what I was going to do if she told me I was still only 2 centimeters dilated. Dig the baby out with a spoon? Jump off a bridge? They were all sounding like viable options by that point.

She took a little longer than normal before lowering my covering, then looked at me. “Becky, you’re at five and a half centimeters. You need to go to the hospital.”

I was so happy, I couldn’t help myself. I broke down crying.

After making all sorts of promises that we would head straight to the hospital, the Bean and I headed home. I wanted my bag, and The Bean was in DESPERATE need of a haircut, especially since we were about to be featured in about the 1,400 photographs my mom took of the event. Since I now knew that my contractions weren’t just wasted Braxton Hicks contractions, I didn’t care that they were coming so far apart. With a smile I waved The Bean out the door, and he dashed to the corner.

Humming happily, I began fussing about the house. I knew the next time I saw it I would have a baby. I washed some dishes, and had to resist the urge to start cleaning the bathroom.

About 30 minutes later, my phone rang.

“Is this Becky?” the voice on the other end sounded disgruntled.

“Yes. May I ask who is calling?”

“This is the hospital. We were told you were going to be here any minute. We paged the doctor, and you’re not here. Where ARE you?” She sounded for all the world like a grumpy mom chastising a toddler.

I was so happy I wasn’t going to be eternally pregnant that I chose to ignore her attitude.

“Oh, we’ll there in a moment. We just needed to stop by the house and pick up some items.”

“Well, you need to get here soon. Just get in the car and come here now.”

I raised an eyebrow, but ignored her surly tone.

“We’ll be there as soon as we can!”

She hung up on me.

The Bean came home, sporting the worst haircut I’ve ever seen. The Bean favors the short, crew cut that Marines often wear. Until I saw him, I wasn’t aware you could actually mess up that hairstyle. He looked like he’d been attacked by a pack of feral moths.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” he asked, grabbing my bag and helping me into the car.

“No, no,” I lied, eyeballing an actual tuft of hair that sprouted out of the side of his head like a weed. “It looks great.”

We pulled into the hospital and made our way over to labor and delivery.

“Uh, we’re here to check in, please.”

The nurse looked at us in confusion.

“Who referred you? What procedure?”

“Um, actually, we’re here to give birth. I’m in labor. About 5 ½ centimeters along?”

Here eyebrows hiked up. “Wow. You guys are really calm! Sorry, I didn’t realize it was you guys. We’ve been expecting you. You know, you were supposed to be here sooner. Your nurse just left to get her lunch. She’s been waiting to check you in,” she scolded.

I didn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry?”

She sighed. “It’s okay. I can page her.”

I changed and lay down on the bed, smiling over at the Bean. My nurse came in, a impressively solid woman with a permanently scowling face.

“Hi there,” I said.

“Lay down on the bed.”

“Oh, sorry. It just feels better to stand between contractions. Sure, no problem.”

She ignored me, and waited for me to settle in before strapping on the fetal monitors.

“Sorry about taking you away from your lunch. I’m doing pretty good right now. You don’t have to wait around on me.”

She glanced at me dourly. “I do. You need 10 minutes of fetal monitoring.”

She finished strapping me in and inserting my IV.

“Bend your legs.”

I stared at her in confusion, and crooked my leg slightly.

She sighed, heavily. “More.”

I bent the other one, still confused.

“MORE,” she said, in exasperation, and grabbing one leg to show me what she wanted.

“Oh. Sorr—“ I started to say, then yelped as she dove a hand in to check my dilation.

“You need to stay still for me to measure you,” she snapped.

“I didn’t realize that’s what you were going to do,” I snapped back, biting my tongue before saying anything further. I mean, seriously. Shouldn’t you at least share your first name before plunging wrist-deep in someone’s va-jay-jay?

“Six centimeters,” she hollered out to no one in particular, then said, “Roll over on your side.”

I was done taking her deceptively simple instructions. “Why?”

“I need to give you an enema.”

I glared at her. If I hadn’t of asked, would she even had told me what she was about to do? “Do I have to have one?”

Nurse EvilSpawn glared back at me. “The doctor prefers it. It prevents contamination on your baby and ensures the baby is born in a clean environment.”

I shrugged, motioned The Bean out of the room, and rolled over.

It SERIOUSLY hurt. Either they gave me an enema with one of these:

Or she did it wrong.

“Try to hold it for five minutes. Call me when you are done.” And with that, she left.

Ten or fifteen loud, embarrassing minutes later, I paged her back in the room. She reset the fetal monitors, and the Bean sat beside me, fascinated by the graphs and readouts.

I had two strong contractions, relatively close together. Not being able to sit up or rock on my hands and knees made them really hurt (yaay for back labor).

An unknown doctor came into the room, followed by two unfamiliar nurses. “Your baby’s heart rate keeps dropping during your contractions. We need you to lay on your side. We’re going to start a Pitocin drip to hurry things along. I think it’s best if we break your waters, too.”

I nodded, frustrated and a little worried.

The doctor pulled out an evil-looking hook and talked me through the process. For those of you who haven’t had a baby yet— yes. The rumors are true. It feels like you’ve just peed yourself.

Flat on my back, I reached out to The Bean, and grabbed his hand, only to push his hand away as another strong contraction came. What had felt moderately painful when I was standing suddenly hurt like the dickens now that I was lying down.

This time, I was horribly aware of the sound of the DragonMonkey’s decreasing heart rate throughout the contraction.

“BEEPBEEPBEEP-BEEP-BEEP—BEEEP—–BEEEP—-“ It was impossible to relax and let my body do its thing when I could hear the sound of the contractions apparently squeezing the life out of him.

Nurse Ratchet returned.

“You need to lay flat on your back with your knees bent through the contractions.”

So I did— and &#%#! that hurt. All I wanted was to be able to stand up to take some of the pressure off my back, but I couldn’t, especially not with the sound of the slowing heartbeat echoing in my ears.

“BEEPBEEPBEEP-BEEP-BEEP—BEEEP—–BEEEP———BEEEP——————–BEEEEP”

I started to get nervous. What if the baby died?

The doctor reentered. “We need to take a more accurate measurement of what’s happening to your baby through the contractions, so we’d like to do some internal fetal monitoring. Also, without the cushion of your waters, the baby doesn’t seem to tolerate the contractions as well. I’d like to thread a catheter up to provide some more fluid for him.

I didn’t want to say it, but come on. Fifteen minutes earlier they’d broken my waters, and now they were going to try and put more water back up in there? Whatever.

The doctor completed his tasks, and I shifted uncomfortably. I had an IV in my arm, two bands around my belly, two thin wires up my vajajay and screwed into my son’s head (they felt weird), another tube threaded up there and running fluid into my uterus (it felt even weirder) that constantly leaked out (that felt the weirdest) and I was now instructed to lay flat on my back for the rest of labor.

The next contraction hit with a vengeance. I twisted halfway onto my side, and tried to breathe through it. The Bean froze, unsure what to do. At the peak of the contraction he tried to hold my hand, and I slapped him away. I could feel myself wanting to make a low, grunting noise, but stopped, because I could feel Nurse EvilSpawn watching me and I felt embarrassed. The contraction was long—well over a minute, and it was well off the charts of intensity on the monitors. I could hear the nurses talking about me, but I was so caught up in the moment that I couldn’t speak.

“She needs to settle down. Look at her heart rate. She really needs to just calm down.”

“What she needs is an epidural, “ said Nurse EvilSpawn. “But she says she doesn’t want one.” I could hear her rolling her eyes.

“But look at her heartrate— that’s not good for the baby.”

“Yeah. I know.”

I wanted to throw something at them. What I *needed* was for them to shut the heck up and quit talking about me like I was a mindless cow. What I *needed* was for someone to actually tell me what was going on, and that it was going to be okay. The Bean was even more nervous than I was, and when he wasn’t sitting there silent and unsure, he was trying to point things out to me on the monitor, like the fact that my previous contraction was strong. Really? Wow. Without that monitor, I wouldn’t have been able to tell. (For the record he has been officially fired from his position as birth coach. We’re getting a doula this time.)

The doctor entered again, and sat at the edge of the bed. “We need to make a decision. Your baby is not tolerating labor well. If you were further along, like 8 or 9 centimeters, I might say that we give it a go. But you’re only at six, and you probably have a long road ahead.”

I glanced at The Bean, who looked just as lost and confused as I was.

“I don’t know. I guess… I guess I just want the baby to be safe. Should I get a C-section? Is that what the baby needs?”

“It’s up to you.”

“What happens if I don’t get one? I just want the baby to be safe.”

The doctor smiled softly, apologetically. “At this point, I can’t make that decision for you. It’s up to you. His heart rate is decreasing significantly with every contraction you have, I can tell you that.”

I sat there for a moment, angry at the way it was turning out. I weighed the odds, and decided that my personal wishes were not worth risking the DragonMonkey’s life.

“Let’s do the C-section.”

Raymond

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I loved to hate Raymond.

As a wrangler with a string of horses, it’s inevitable to have favorites. Let’s face it—like people, every horse has a different personality and a unique set of quirks, and it may not always mesh well with your personality. For instance, we had a sweet half-draft gelding named Drifter. Drifter was a fantastic all-around horse. Sturdy, solid, deep chestnut with 4 gleaming stockings, a wide blaze and a flaxen mane and tail, he was the kind of horse people dreamed of owning. His half-draft blood gave him feathered legs, an impressively deep chest and hindquarters, sturdy bones and a thick, deeply arched neck. His other half (seriously, what did they breed him with? A pony? How do you make a half-draft horse barely reach 15 hh?) gave him a cute little head, perky ears, and a startlingly nimble agility. For such a stocky horse he was incredibly quick, and if you drew him during one of the gymkhanas you were pretty much guaranteed a win. He knew his job and he performed it admirably. He was responsive and alert, and only needed a light touch on his snaffle bridle to show him where to go. Most of the wranglers would fight over who got to use him during the trail rides.

I hated riding Drifter. He had amazingly large, expressive eyes in a surprisingly petite face, and whenever I would slip on his bridle, they conveyed one emotion: depression. I’ve never met a more depressed horse. Most of the string horses hated their jobs. After all, it doesn’t get much worse for a horse. Day after day, ride after ride, they have beginning riders plopped on their backs— beginning riders who haul at their mouth and kick at their sides in an effort to “show them who’s boss”, shifting their uneven weight around in painfully interesting ways, throwing out an steady stream of unintentional mixed messages as they grip with their heels and haul at the bit in an attempt to ride. It’s not the rider’s fault—most of them were first-time riders. What more could you expect? Still, it’s a hard life for a horse, and most string horses burn out after a couple of years. They develop bucking problems, rearing tendencies, or nasty dispositions.

Drifter was too sweet of a horse to get even. Instead, he got depressed. The only enjoyment he seemed to get out of his rides was the chance to scratch his belly with the mesquite bushes that grew in the area. He would walk along in a steady, even stride the entire trail… right up until the end of the trail, where he would occasionally “drift” solemnly off the path and through a belly-high patch of brush, slowly rubbing back and forth as he went through before returning to his place in the string. It was hard for me to deny him his simple pleasure, mostly because of those big, sad, expressive eyes of him. Every couple of weeks, when he had hit his limit, he would give himself an extra day off. Most of the horses had 2 days off a week. Drifter gave himself a third by refusing to come in for breakfast. Catching the horses was simple—dinner was a light fare, so by the time breakfast rolled around, all we had to do was fill the row of feeders and the horses would come running. We’d close the gates at either end and voila. The horses were caught— except for Drifter. On the days when he needed a break, Drifter would stand up at the top of the hill and refuse to come down, staring down at the rest of the herd eating their breakfast. I figured if he was upset enough to miss a meal, then he probably needed the day off. Like I said, I hated riding Drifter. It felt wrong to force myself on him when he so obviously asked me not to. Who wants to do that?

That’s why I loved to hate Raymond. Raymond was the complete opposite of Drifter. Whereas Drifter was sweet, solemn, and a pleasure to ride, Raymond was troublesome, annoying, and an absolute terror when he felt like it. While Drifter the ranch-favorite was eye-catching and majestic, Raymond looked like a midget Irish cob. He was a beautiful dapple grey, with a slight roman nose and a compact, impressively strong body. He could haul a 200 lb man up and down the mountain for 3 rides in a row and never break a sweat. He had thick bones, and sturdy, straight, absurdly short legs that were capped off by hooves the size of dinner plates. Everything else was well-shaped and normal looking, except for his complete lack of cannon bones and shanks. By all rights he SHOULD have been about 15.1hh. Instead, he was a stubby little 13.3 hh. He was shaped like a wiener dog. I’m sure at 5’9” I looked absolutely ridiculous riding him, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. As the shortest horse in the herd, Raymond somehow managed to end up as second in command. I think that says something about his stubborn wiles. It was like God ran out of lego pieces when he was making Raymond, so when he skimped out on legs he made up for it with a double dose of intelligence.

Raymond was stubborn. Lord, he was stubborn. It wasn’t that he was mean, it was simply that if he didn’t feel like going where you pointed him, well, then you were out of luck. It didn’t matter what kind of bit we put on him— if Raymond felt like wandering off the trail and eating some of the green grass on the other side of the creek, well, then two of you were going to go to the other side of the creek until he felt like rejoining the group. If I as one of the wranglers was barely able to wrest control from the little bugger, then the poor fool who had never been on a horse certainly wasn’t going to be able to. On more than once occasion Raymond held the entire trail ride up as he dragged me to a patch of edible goodies. It didn’t matter that I was thumping the corner of my heels in his sides as hard as I could— although he grunted audibly with each shockingly hard impact, he would cheerfully ignore me, meandering forward despite the fact I’d cranked his chin so far sideways it was almost over his withers. Bit? What bit? Stop? Turn? Huh? Me no speakum English he’d seem to say, ripping the reins out of my hands as he bent down to nibble, laughing up at me beneath the thick fringe of white lashes as he watched me search around for a branch to smack him with. Raymond respected crops, and the second I had found a switch he’d immediately quit grazing and meander over to me, standing complacently by my side, expression still teasing. Huh? The stick? Why do you have a stick? I’m standing by your side, ever-obedient to your wishes, my Mistress. Red-faced and irritated, I’d ignore the teasing of the group I was leading (Isn’t the wrangler supposed to be able to control her horse?) and head back out, Raymond docile and obedient.

I’ve always been a sucker for a horse with a sense of humor.

The only time I ever let anybody else ride him was when one of the guests had irritated me. When people irritated me, I would secretly downgrade their ride. People who were nice got Drifter. People who were irritating got a hard-mouth, trail-sour horse. People who were so annoying they made my teeth hurt got to ride Raymond.

“Do your worst,” I’d whisper at him as I tightened his girth and slipped in the bit. I swear that horse understood me, too. The rest of group would enjoy a peaceful, idyllic ride through the Ponderosa pines. The idiot on top of Raymond would be sweating and frustrated, ping-ponging from delicious grass-patch to interesting tree branch, or whatever else Raymond felt like looking at. “Use your reins,” I’d call out gaily from the front of the trail. “Just tip his nose in the direction you want him to go. You need to be assertive.” Raymond and I would both snicker beneath our breath. Just the tip the nose. Sure.

Like I said, Raymond was short—sturdy, but short. He was actually short enough that I could put my leg up over his back and actually slide on him with only a little hop. Once I got past the embarrassing fact that my legs dangled almost to his knees, I found his size rather enjoyable. After hours I would sneak into the back horse pasture, lure him over with a neck scratch, and then slide on him. The first time I did this, Raymond stiffened and froze. String horses aren’t usually used to anything other than the daily grind of feed, saddle, walk the trails, unsaddle and freedom. It took Raymond a few tense moments for him to decide whether or not he was going to spook and bolt when I hopped up on him bareback. I wasn’t that worried. If he bolted, I’d just slide off. It wasn’t like it was very far to the ground. He paused for a few moments, then decided to meander. I grabbed a handful of coarse, salt and pepper mane and deliberately avoided steering him. I was curious what he would do. Raymond took a few short, choppy strides, then smoothed out into a quick little ground-eating pace. His walk had us drawing near to a spooky little bay named Chip who bounced away at our approach, and I felt Raymond pause. I swear I could hear the wheels turning in his head. He cocked his head slightly, then set off deliberately at another horse. Obviously, horse with a rider trumps a horse, and that horse moved out of Raymond’s path without a fight. I felt Raymond take a short, happy little breath. “Ah-HA!”. You could almost hear him say it out loud. He picked up a steady little trot towards another horse, pinning his ears and shaking his head menacingly. The other horse bolted out of our way, and Raymond turned, honing in on Rock. Rock was a huge, black boulder of a horse. High-ranking and outweighing Raymond by several hundred pounds, the two of them would occasionally break out in furious, squealing kicking wars late at night. Raymond wasn’t about to let this chance pass him by, and while we were still half a pasture away he was pinning his ears at his nemesis. Rock pinned his ears in return, but moved away in a sulky manner from Raymond’s approach. Like Raymond had figured out, a horse with a rider trumps a horse, and he intended to use that to his full advantage. Raymond began to chase Rock across the pasture at a smooth little trot (his smooth trot was the other reason I loved riding him) practically snickering. I wasn’t in danger of falling off but I popped off and slid to the ground anyways. I hadn’t hopped on to give him the chance to terrorize the herd. Raymond faltered, then stopped, looking back at me in sorrowful confusion. “Why’d you go? We made a great team. We were having such fun.”

The problem with Raymond is that his sense of fun was always a little on the mischievous side. Wouldn’t it be fun to open the gates with our lips and wander through the tack room? We could pull saddles out and fling them around with our teeth! C’mon, guys! Let’s go squeeze through a narrow, dark hallway that we would never enter willingly on our own and go chew through the bridles!

It was like having Tom Sawyer in the herd, or maybe a destructive puppy. His worst game was stealing our radios. Each of the wranglers was assigned a hand held radio in case of emergencies, and most of us clipped them to the back of our belts. Now, with four fingers and an opposable thumb it was difficult at best to unclip these radios from our belts.

Not for Raymond.

Like a teenage boy unsnapping bra straps before bolting away, Raymond LIVED to steal these radios from the wranglers. It was hard to understand just how quick the little mongrel of a horse could be. One second you had your radio on your belt loop, and the next second it had been yanked off and was dangling by its antenna from Raymond’s mouth. When he first devised this game he would twirl the radio by the antenna, amusing himself by swinging it in circles until you got close enough to steal it back. Eventually, he learned how to toss it. He’d wait until you got close enough to reach it and then swing it wildly to the side with his head, tossing it a good 8 to 10 feet where it would land in the dust, slobber caking the dirt to a crusty mud. He did this one time, and I left him standing with his reins in a half-hitch over the saddle horn. Stalking angrily over to my radio, I wiped it off on my pants leg and repositioned it on my belt. Unbeknown to me, Raymond had followed me, tiptoeing and oddly silent for a horse. Before I had even completely repositioned the radio, he had snagged it again and was skittering away on his toes, laughing at me as he trotted off with the radio.

“RAYMOND. WHOA!” I said, knowing it was useless.

Raymond slowed, glanced at me, and then glanced at the water trough.

“Don’t you dare,” I warned, feeling myself starting a healthy blush as the rest of the guests began laughing at Raymond’s antics.

As if fueled by my command he stepped sideways, slowly, carefully edging closer to the trough until he was dangling the radio inches above the water. He twirled it from his teeth slowly, watching me with a steady gaze, lowering it threateningly as I slid closer to him.

“Raymond, I swear, if you drop that in the water I’m going to turn you into glue. Kibble. Dog kibble. Your feet will be glue and the rest of you will be Purina,” I hissed out between my teeth, edging closer, slowly. I didn’t want to spook him into dropping the expensive radio into the water— I couldn’t afford for it to come out of my check. “Raymond, please,” I said, ignoring the fact that the rest of the group’s riders were now in hysterics at the stand-off between us. “Please. Please… I’ll do anything. Just don’t do it.”

Raymond gave the radio a couple more experimental twirls, then sighed. Leaving the water trough, he took a few steps to the side, and gently lowered the radio until it was only a couple of inches above the ground before dropping it. I darted forward and snatched it up, staring at him for a moment before running a hand gratefully down his neck. Smart horse—- what a scarily smart horse.

I really did love to hate Raymond. What a personality.