Riding While Pregnant

For those of you who don't know me or read my other blog at all, you should know that I have a horse, Shadow. It has come up a lot lately whether I will be riding or not throughout my pregnancy. This simple answer? NO

The long answer?

It took me a long time to get pregnant. I wasn't one of those lucky girls who gets pregnant on the pill or on their first try. I wasn't even sure if my body was ever going to ovulate in order to give me that 20% CHANCE in the cycle to try to get pregnant. So forgive me if I would like to bubble wrap my belly if I could. :) Because of all of this and the fact that I have PCOS my doctor is also more cautious with me (I've had more ultrasounds and blood work than most women have their entire pregnancy) and I'm a little higher risk, so I think it would be absolutely stupid, on my part, to want to ride.

This baby is not just mine either. It's my husband's child and it's my responsibility to do everything in my power to make sure it's as safe as possible. Don't get me wrong, the rational side of me acknowledges that IF something were to, God forbid, happen, it is very unlikely it would be caused from riding my horse, but the irrational side doesn't want to spend the rest of my life wondering "what if".

We'd obviously be devastated either way, if something were to happen, but I can only imagine how much worse I would feel if I had participated in something "risky" and something happened.

Having said that, my horse is pretty tame and I wouldn't consider her "risky". But shit happens. That's why they're called accidents - because they're not normal, sometimes you've done nothing wrong, and you don't see them coming. If I could prevent anything bad from happening that might be one thing, but no rider who is worth their weight in gold, is egotistical enough to believe that they are good enough or their horse is good enough to prevent anything from going wrong.

Take my first horse, Abby, for example. When I first got on Abby at the age of 12 years old I'd been on a horse ONCE in my life before that. Abby was the best babysitter horse ever and would do nothing to hurt me on purpose. I still look back and am so thankful for having such a wonderful first horse to teach me to ride. (Abby died about 2 years after I started riding her and owned her from a twisted gut, totally freak accident. Funny thing is, I was actually RIDING her when it happened and she knelt down on her front legs to get me off and once I was off proceeded to THRASH around the arena - safety first for her!)

Anyway, my point is, Abby was great. However, back in Michigan we had an indoor arena b/c of the weather and one day a HUGE chunk of snow and ice fell from the corner of the roof, just as we were rounding the corner and coming down the long side. Abby FREAKED out and was at the other end of the arena in a matter of seconds and I was on the ground. I got the wind knocked out of me and the next thing I knew, Abby had u turned around to where I was dumped and was standing over me with her head on me looking like "omg what did I DO???"

So accidents happen. Shit happens even with the safest horse. I've had Shadow for 11 years now and we've never had an accident, so I feel like we're long over due. I'm not willing to find out while I am caring for another life.

So no, I won't be riding.