I became obsessed after that with learning about my syndrome.I studied, I researched, and I tried things.I was sure, absolutelysure, that I would be able to work out, eat, and take supplements that would allow me to overcome this.
I had been told my horse would never jump, but after a suspensory repair and a very long, very consistent recovery period, he did.I was told my lower leg was too busy to ever get it under control.With an hour a day of having my stirrups tied to the girth, ignoring people who said that was dangerous, I fixed it.I wasn’t someone who gave in because things were hard.
In fact, over the next fourteen years, in the pursuit of some answers, I went to school and became a nurse practitioner.I studied, and worked, and I applied everything I learned.
And I also miscarried seven more times.
By the end, Brent was very, very sick of trying.Some days, he seemed to be pretty sick of me as well.“Why are you doing this to yourself?”he asked, after we lost our ninth baby.“Why are you doing it to me?”
I blinked back the tears I knew I couldn’t stop.“Do you really notwanta baby?”
He threw his hands up into the air.“Of course I do.You know I do, but you’re broken, and it’s no one’s fault, but this is just torture.”He started pacing.“You’re just torturing yourself.I can’t watch it anymore.”He pointed at me.“I won’t.”
And that was the first time I hated him a little bit.
“Then we can adopt.”
He shook his head.“You know how I feel about that.We’ve talked about it—how many times, now?”He tightened his hands into fists, still pacing.“I can’t.I’m not sure I can love a child that isn’t really mine.And you know adopted kids will have problems, and every time, I’ll feel like a monster for being mad about it.”
“I think you’d be fine.”I stood.
“Would you risk a child’s happiness on it?”He lifted both eyebrows.“Would you?”
I collapsed back into my chair and started to weep.This time, instead of holding me like he had eight times before, he stormed out of the house, got in his car, and drove off somewhere.I had no idea where, and I didn’t care.
My uterus wasn’t the only thing that felt broken.
It had brokenus,which was ironic, because my uterus got us together in the first place.
So, yeah.
My friends have been growing and improving and basically shining since high school, but me?I’ve really only fallen apart, broken down, and generally disappointed everyone in my life, including myself.
3
Natalie
Living in Austin, Texas, I was familiar with the idea of what a drought does to pastures and fields.The grass dies, sure, but as the horses pace and frolic, they turn dead grass into a dusty, messy lot.
And then when itdoesfinally rain, that lot turns into a mud slick.
Or marshmallow fluff when twelve-hundred-pound horses walk on it.
It’s disgusting.
To try and prevent that from happening, the barn I rode at would sometimes drag hoses and sprinklers around to keep the grass alive during dry periods.Sure, it was costly running the well around the clock, and it was messy, moving sprinklers, because sometimes you’d leave them in one place too long and it would get muddy.It got your legs and hands wet when you moved them.You were always tripping over a hose.
But it was part of my job when I was working to pay for my riding.
There was this one hose that was really like ten hoses all twisted together, because that hose had to water an entire two-acre pasture.The barn manager was so cheap that he never wanted to replace any of them, no matter how old or janky they were.Near the end of the summer, the last hose in the setup started leaking where it joined with the one before it.I tried to tighten it, hoping to eliminate the slow leak, but it didn’t ever help.
When I moved the sprinkler, I always had to find a super dry spot for that leaking joint, or that small leak in a concentrated area would turn into a massive lake.I mentioned the problem to the property manager, but he said, ‘figure it out,’ so I dealt with it for more than two weeks, moving that sprinkler twice as often as the others to try and avoid creating wet, boggy spots for the horses.It was the big gelding pasture and they were already plenty stupid enough.They didn’t need extra reasons to slip or fall.
Then, on a Friday morning, blessedly, it finally rained!
We shut the stupid hoses off and coiled them all up.
Within less than a week, though, the ground was dry and hard again, and we had to turn the sprinklersbackon.But before I did, I had an idea.I took that weak, leaky spot, and with the hoses turnedoff, I tightened the joint between the two as much as I could.
