My fairytale gone bad :(

I’ll just copy and paste this from equichat.com as I don’t find the strength to write all this again:

Dear equichatters,

this morning I got a call from my barn owners. Bella is fine, her foal is dead.

The vet was already there. She foaled without any signs before. Though we checked her from time to time during the night. at 6 am there was nothing. And at 7am the foal lay there, dead.
Everything must have gone so quickly. Bella is fine, said the vet. We should only check her temperature every day to make sure nothing's getting infected or so.

Her foal came on earth being very very small, like a twin, but looked "complete" and like it had been able to live, said the vet. He said there are no signs it had already been dead before birth and no signs for an infection. It must have died becaus it wasn't strong enough to get out of the placenta (right word??) and breath. And this is what makes me so sick. It could have been alive if somebody had helped.
My barn owners said though that no one knows wether it had been strong enough to survive the next days. Because it was really really small. :/ But who knows?

The whole family is very very sad. My barn owners are too.
And I know all of you had been looking forward to seeing her foal as well. So I'm sorry I have to tell these bad news.

The most important thing is that Bella is fine though. She seems to be not sad. She didn't really recognize what was going on. She didn't even sweat, it must have been a super quick birth.

The foal was black-brown and a colt without any markings. He looked like I had always seen him in my dreams.

No I’ll have to add that Bella is still fine. Her temperature isn’t rising or so. She isn’t sad as long as she’s in her box and seeing her friend’s colt. But when you take her outside her box she is screaming and prancing and so on. :( :( I feel so sorry for her!!!

I broke down at the barn yesterday. I felt so guilty… I dreamed last night that I was there to help my colt and that he survived… :(

My barn owners told me that nature can be cruel sometimes. If he didn’t make ist out on his own he might have been so weak that he died hours or days later… or would have become a horse who tends to become sick. Who knows. It’s not easy to understand for me that everything worked perfect in pregnancy for her, birth worked perfectly for her, the colt was just perfect looking and than he died. :(

I’ve been registering her in an orphan foal registry on tuesday. But there wasn’t an orphan foal for her.

I won’t let her cover again though my vet encouraged me to. But I think there was a reason why the foal was that small. Maybe she couldn’t give him all he needed in pregnancy, though she was in good shape, almost a bit too fat. And maybe this was because she was 16 already and still a maiden. Who knows? But if this was the fact it won’t get any better next year. And I won’t risk another hole in my or my mare’s hearts. And I won’t risk my mare’s health.