Annie Painted Purple

"Yes, yes, now I remember. While I was still in the birth sac I was playing with my hoof and all of a sudden I felt myself rushing downward and I became frightened. The force, oh, the force, plummeted down, down. An unfamiliar object grasped my ear and then my head. I did not want to leave my safe home, but it was too late. My shoulders had been removed from the warmth, and I began to shiver. My back left leg was wedged, and once again I felt the unfamiliar object tugging. Ouch, I mooed, but it just kept pulling. I tried to kick, but the object held a tight grasp until my leg became free. I bawled really loud as I hit the hard ground. Then, suddenly, I felt myself totally suspended and gently placed in the warmth of loving but strange skinny hooves; nothing like I thought my Mother would feel like."

"So, all this is what Mother spoke so softly but firmly about when I was in her womb. Her voice was always so kind and gentle as she stammered and stuttered to explain how I began and what kind of calf I would be in this wonderful world. I rarely paid much attention and certainly didn’t even know what a ‘world’ was. Just developing kept me too busy jumping and bouncing in my birth sac."

"My favorite part of development was the heart. It started out just a tiny thump and then became annoyingly loud. Vibration from the sound waves rushing through the most sensitive area of my eardrum increased the noise level of the blood as it swiftly traveled through my veins. Sometimes the perfect rhythm of the heartbeat would keep me awake, and I would tell it to be quiet! Thank goodness, it didn’t listen to me or I would be dead now."

"Eventually the ingenious creation of my ears responded to the sound of each rhythmic beat pounding out the message of life, as blood pumped throughout hundreds of vessels. At times I would hear Mother coo as she listened to the beat. I bet it wasn’t as loud out there."

"When my brain began to form it was incredible. It was a mass of pinkish gray tissue encased in the protective cranium. All the twists and turns of about ten billion nerve cells kept my head spinning trying to think too much.