Page 94 of Tough Love

“Fine.” I grab up one of the bags and walk three stalls down, torn between hating Adam right now and being desperate for his help. Hudson is leaning on the side of the stall three doors down, chewing a piece of straw. And when his blue eyes find mine, they are consumed with concern.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know he was coming.”

“It’s alright, Addy. You said we needed help. Here it is.”

“At least he is a brilliant vet. I’ll give him that.”

When I’m inside the stall, Hudson pulls me into his arms and drops his head into my hair.

“God, Huddy, I’m filthy. You don’t have to.”

“I also need a long, hot shower, sweet girl.” But the last two words fade out a little. When the mare behind us starts pacing, we uncouple. She twitches, pawing the ground as Hudson clips a lead to her halter. Something’s not right. Plucking the charts from the bag, I flick through them until I find Cherry’s.

Healthy heartbeat, size was a little small, but the last ultrasound was fine. A bit hazy and all legs but... I snap the images out from last time. And then I see it. Six legs, not four... No, is that? Eight! How the hell did I miss twins!? Fucking hell.

“Shit.”

“What is it?”

I look up at Hudson and he reads my face, rushing to my side to grip the folder and scan the page.

“Twins. I have no idea how I missed it. She should be in the clinic. I should have monitored her better.”

“It’s fine. We deliver them one by one like human babies, right?”

“Actually,” Adam says from outside the stall. “The odds of both twins being viable in horses are much less than in humans.”

“Jesus.” Hudson pinches his nose, slamming his eyes shut. “And what about Cherry? Will she make it through this?”

“She has Addy and I; of course she will.” He is so confident. Cocky. But he backs it up by helping work her over while Hudson stands outside. We run a baseline set of vitals between contractions. Make a plan and a backup plan. Plan A – deliver each foal naturally, one after the other. Plan B – Cherry isn’t coping or one of the foals goes into distress, then we deliver them by caesarean.

Working with Adam is like clockwork. Everything is routine. Automatic. We are so used to working together that we easily fall into the roles we had for four years in the clinic together. I stand and walk to the barn door and fill Hudson in. He nods and steps back. He stares at Adam, then drags his gaze back to me. “Can you two do all that here?”

“Yes. Ideally, she would be in a clinic environment, but this will suffice.”

When Cherry starts kicking her belly with her back foot and her tail is switching erratically, we know it’s time to intervene. She isn’t instinctually laying down. As if she knows something is wrong.

When I do another internal assessment, I find out why. The first foal is tangled with the second. There will be no Plan A. No clean birth followed by another. They must have shared the same sack. Dammit.

Hudson paces outside the stall.

“Plan B, Adam. It’s a TTTS and... Tangled babies.”

“Shit, okay. Twin-to-twin transfusion is rare. I’m surprised she made it to term at all... I’ll prep the gear. You get her ready.”

Seeing Adam flustered is rare, and I stare at him for a heartbeat before glancing at Hudson. We cannot lose either of these foals. I am kicking myself for not noticing the twins on one of the other visits. Internal exams only ever felt like two feet and a muzzle, and I guess the second foal was underneath at that point in time. Now, however they are so entwined there is no way she can birth them naturally.

I clean Cherry the best I can with the surgical wash and draw the incision line on her belly. When Adam has the anesthesia set up and my instruments laid out, I call Hudson over. “Hudson, can you help Cherry down when she gets dozy?”

He is by her head in a heartbeat, talking to her. He’s nervous, glancing between Adam and me every few minutes.

“It’ll be okay. She will be okay,” I say when he glances at me.

I slip a gown over my mucky clothes and scrub my hands in the bowl full of antiseptic solution as I would in the clinic before surgery. Adam does the same, and when he secures a cannula and administers the drug into Cherry’s vein, it is only minutes before she sways on her feet.

Hudson guides her down, as he did with Sergeant when I was stuck. Something aches in my chest at that memory. Once Cherry is on her side and Adam has her set up with a manual breathing apparatus, I clean her belly again with the solution before making the long incision.

Thirty minutes later, two small foals are huddled tight in the straw on the opposite side of the stall. And we have a crowd. Mack, Reed, Harry, and Louisa lean over the stall’s half wall, watching as Adam runs vitals on the twins and I stitch Cherry up.

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