I sat huddled in the straw on the floor of Cairo’s stall on a rainy early April night. The Predict-A-Foal kit was telling me that based on Cairo’s milk, she could be due in the next 24 hours.

Unfortunately, what was also due was the story I needed to write about how the weekly newspaper I work for in Oregon had been embezzled, and why we went out of business for six weeks before being brought back to print by the support of our readers. It just happened to be the same week Cairo’s foal was due. So I decided to take advantage of the cellular hotspot I had set up in her stall for the foaling camera to get some writing done. 

I was already exhausted. We’d been back to publishing for only two months, with the newspaper on a skeleton staff, we were already breaking news—some of which I was writing—and I was running ragged. 

And now I was waking up every hour to check the foaling camera. So why not just sit there and write and edit? Cairo didn’t seem to mind. And as a journalist and a horse owner, it was far from my first late night writing at the barn. 

Cairo stood, her eyes half closed, her belly wide, and breathed deeply. While she dozed, I wrote and edited, until I too fell asleep in the straw at Cairo’s feet, then, realizing that was probably not a good life choice (as well as annoying to Cairo), I finally tottered off to my nearby horse trailer to nap fitfully. I was grateful Cairo had apparently decided to wait on having her baby until after I went to press.

The next day, I staggered bleary-eyed into work to upload the paper for print. I could barely keep my eyes open, but I perked up when my friend Becky, who had bred and sold me Cairo, told me she was coming down from Washington to check on her farm here in Oregon and check in on the upcoming foaling. She’d foaled out Cairo’s mother, Ruby Contessa, and Cairo herself. She was also bringing pool pH strips, which she assured me would predict the baby’s advent. 

My coworkers, who previously had held a baby shower for Cairo and I, asked me how things were going. “What are you hoping for?” they asked. They meant boy or girl. I told them they same thing I told everyone: I just wanted a healthy baby, and I felt like if I started making demands, the universe would send me a chestnut filly that would turn gray like her sire, the Irish Draught stallion Gemstone Clover. Cairo is a red-bay Irish Sport Horse that everyone thinks is a chestnut, despite her black mane and tail, because she’s so spicy. 

My coworkers, not horse people, just nodded and smiled because the phrase “chestnut mare” meant nothing to them. 

The paper went to press that afternoon, and Becky showed up soon after. 

I’m not gonna lie: I was very proud that I could handle Cairo’s teats enough to get milk out. I had been practicing touching her udder since she was confirmed pregnant. She wasn’t a fan, but I somehow got her addicted to Swedish Fish during her pregnancy and it turns out Cairo will do anything for a sweet red gummy fish, including letting me squeeze milk into a shot glass to test its pH. 

It was about 4:30 p.m. the first time we tested—I had rushed to the farm as soon as we put the paper to bed, and the pH on the pool strips was at 6.2—which, according to Becky (and the 10 videos I had watched), meant the baby was imminent. Predict-a-Foal agreed.

“It’s going to be tonight,” Becky said. She eyeballed Cairo, noting she was calmly eating and showing no signs of agitation or sweat, and she reminded me that mares usually waited until the dark hours of the night. 

But, she also reminded me, it’s Cairo.

We tested again at 7:30 p.m. or so. Definitely tonight, the Magic 8 ball test strips said. 

We reviewed my foaling kit: chlorhexidine for the umbilical cord, enema for the foal if needed, soft rope for the Madigan squeeze if it was a dummy foal, thermometer, bucket for the placenta, thermometer, Banamine for Cairo. 

“Where are your towels?” Becky asked. I showed her the cloths I had. “No,” she said, “you want towels to dry the baby off.”

“I thought the mom licked the foal,” I responded. 

Becky gave me that look that said, “I know you have a Ph.D. and run a (slightly embezzled) newspaper, but sometimes you’re an idiot,” and said, “If it’s cold you will want to dry the baby off.” It was a blustery April day, and yes, cold. 

I said I had a bath towel in my trailer. 

Satisfied, Becky told me she was heading to her own farm to feed and take care of animals, and that I should go get rest so I could be ready when Cairo foaled. 

Becky said she would watch the camera once she got home so I could nap, and pointed out Cairo would prefer to start foaling alone and not with me passed out on the stall floor. She left, and I tucked in Cairo and the other horses I care for with hay and fresh water, then went to my horse trailer. Too amped to sleep, I started editing the next week’s stories. 

Shortly before 10 p.m., just as I started to doze, Becky called. “Go to her stall, it’s happening.” 

I fell out of the gooseneck and pulled on my shoes. Becky called again to let me know she was on her way, but I needed to be there—now. 

I ran the 20 yards across the parking lot, then cautiously drew up to the stall. Cairo was agitated, a little sweaty and getting ready to lay down. I glanced at her hind end and could see something was pressing against her vulva. 

She grunted and went down, and I called my vet—after all, Dr. Violet had put in long hours (and a dose of kerosene) into making this baby happen. He asked who was with me—Agustin our barn manager and Becky, I told him. He said to keep him posted. Agustin and Becky agreed that Cairo trusted me most, so they sent me into the stall to monitor things. It’s a 12′-by-24′ box, so I could be in there without being too close. 

I saw a little hoof, and then another. 

“Do you see a nose?” Becky asked. 

“I am not sure what a nose looks like coming out of the back of a horse,” I said. 

Becky came in and looked—it was indeed a nose. Cairo got up and moved around again, and Becky and Agustin said they would stay out and said it should just be me, quietly staying out of the way. 

Cairo groaned and shuddered and pushed. I could see the head, the shoulders and the white amniotic sack; everything was progressing as it should. It seemed, in the moment, to be taking forever, but when I looked at the video from the stall camera later, I realized it was barely 20 minutes from Becky calling me to my seeing the nose. 

The long legs came out, and then suddenly, the hips, and the foal I had been longing for and dreaming about for two years had slipped out and was looking around with huge, dark eyes. Agustin handed me the towel, and I began to rub her while Cairo took a moment to rest in the straw bedding. 

Since the day I had started telling people I was breeding my sassy mare, folks had asked me what kind of mom Cairo would be. I knew she would be a good one; after all she was spicy but also deeply loyal and affectionate. Cairo rumbled deep in her chest and got to her feet, licking and nuzzling her baby.  

I sat there, caught between how amazing the moment was and trying to remember with my sleep-deprived mind what I was supposed to be doing. Before long, the foal was starting to figure out her long legs and trying to stagger to her feet. 

“A filly,” Becky said.

“A chestnut,” I said with a giggle.  

“Don’t believe what they say about chestnut mares,” Becky warned me. 

“Honestly, I’m pretty sure a chestnut filly was my destiny,” I told her. 

It seemed like another eternity before the little red filly with the long star figured out how to nurse. When I checked it with Dr. Violet, he reminded me to give Cairo some Banamine after she expelled the placenta, and to save it in a bucket and dip the navel. We did both, and I figured no one would notice I put the placenta in the barn fridge with the antibiotics and beer. 

Becky and Agustin hugged me, and I poured a celebratory shot (not into the same glass I milked Cairo in, I promise) and fell asleep. 

Fable, as I named her because she’s a good story, checked out perfectly on her exam with Dr. Violet that day, and has been entertaining the barn with her zoomies and soft nose since that April 4 day she was born. She’s getting close to weaning now at 5 months old, and I’m crossing my fingers that those white hairs on her flank are roan and not gray!

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Camilla Mortensen is an amateur eventer from Eugene, Oregon, who started blogging for the Chronicle when she made the trek to compete in the novice three-day at Rebecca Farm in Montana. She works as a newspaper editor by day.