Our cats and the baby (and a bit of the hospital story)

How I thought it would be

After being a cat owner for quite some years, and having cats with every baby that was born, I thought I knew how things would go after the baby was coming home and being introduced to our ladies. Boy, was I wrong! Not only did they not snuggle up on my belly as much as I thought they would being pregnant but they even had less interest when we finally brought home our baby boy after he was hospitalized for a week after birth.

So first the little girl of the house left on Sunday and it really seemed as if mainly Maesi was pissed off at us that every time when we opened the door, the little girl was not there with us. She even seemed a bit depressed honestly. She slept on our daughter's bed all day and probably night, and was not herself at all, it was clear that she missed her a lot.

Then we left

Some days later, it was c-section day and we left to the hospital so they surely noticed that suddenly we took a lot of stuff, we left more food and water and two litterboxes cleaned for them, which was out of the ordinary. My boyfriend planned on going home to check on them the second day so that we could just go with the flow the first day. But then things went south with our boy and I was devastated and I think he was afraid to leave me alone after I had a huge fall out against the hospital staff that I hadn't been with my baby for more than an hour in the first day and if they would not take out the catheter now I would do it myself because I was going to see him NOW.

This was not me being a rebel but my motherheart crying her eyeballs out because my boy was in pain and without his mother, only dad could walk in and out to check on him) and then on top of that he was going to be transfered to another hospital and I wasn't. Breastfeeding did not go well due to the stress of this all and I was not having anymore of it, I needed to walk and I was going to do it right then and there. Within 30 minutes they had me out of the bed. My boyfriend was in shock and probably a bit ashamed at first, but later he told me that he was happy I did that as I was right.

Released day 2

Instead of staying 4 days, I was released on day two (the day after he got hospitalized in another hospital at neonatology) this was a record, even for me. I was home sooner with all 3 other kids but never on day 2. But I had my boyfriend helping me anyway, and surely didn't need to stay there for the comfortable bed. Going home meant we could go to see our son whenever we wanted at least.

It meant we were going home to the cats first to check on them, drop off our suitcases, it was the strangest thing ever. Taking a stroller, baby seat, diapers, baby wipes and clothes (unsure what I needed in this different climate compared to holland) and having it all back home unused because we had not changed one diaper, neither did he wear one piece of clothes, let alone touched the stroller or car seat.

Heartbreaking

It was heartbreaking to realize and I admit that I'm still traumatized by how things went due to lack of communication in the hospital. I can truly say the care in the public hospital at neonatology was WAY better than the care in the private hospital where I gave birth. And it could have been avoided that it went this way because it was purely communication that caused all the issues.

After pendeling back and forward for the rest of the week without having the baby with us, we expected that our cats would be at least curious who this new human was when we brought him home. Nothing was further from the truth, lol. They did not care one bit! In fact, Maesi seemed still pissed at us that we swapped the girl for a loud smaller boy edition and was not amused, I swear, I really think she thought we swapped kids!

The first time I tried to let the baby touch Luna, he moved his arm (it was a reflex) and Luna probably thought he hit her because since that moment, she quickly ran away once I came to close with him. Pussy! Maesi let us come closer but still kept her distance, patiently waiting for the little girl to come home. When she finally did after 11 days, she was still pissed at first, and wanted to let us know this was not ok, haha. Duly noted, we will try not to seperate these two again, haha.

Lots of changes

While all this above happened, and we tried to get used to our newborn son who had quite some issues from the start, we were also surrounded with moving boxes and for my boyfriend it was back to work again after some days as well. So much for taking some time to chill, we'd be moving provinces in just 5 weeks time. I was a wreck, not because of little sleep, I could deal with that quite well, but being surrounded with stuff that needed to be sorted, packed or thrown out was making me desperate, add to that a baby with colic pains and it's a recipe for going mad some days. I'm so lucky that we could share the burden instead of me being alone. His big sis has been the best and I'm so proud of her for stepping up and helping where she can, I'm surprised in the best way. She's a proud big sis and they are each other's biggest fans!

Fast forward

We moved, we lost our dear friend @whywhy in the first week that we moved in, he helped us get here, and then our story closed right then and there. While I stayed home with the kids, my boyfriend was in the hospital the day before he died and saw him turning from our friend to someone that already died but was being kept alive with a machine, he surely has to process this as well because it's not been a great sight.

Meanwhile the cats seem happy in this home, they have not been really weird honestly, I expected them to be more out of character than they have been. But they got used to the home quite fast. Still, not any interest to be close to the baby, the closest they'd come is to stand next to one of us to see why on earth that animal makes so much noise, lol. While adding a headbut to our arm or whatever, the baby was left untouched.

Until...

This happend a few days ago:

I was feeding the baby in the chair and suddenly Maesi jumped on the chair in between my legs. She didn't do that before and I wondered if she'd come closer. She did, she found a spot on top of me and him and the baby thought it was ok. No stress about the moving feet either, she just accepted his movements and I was touched because now she finally accepted him and a friendship could be born here.

Fast forward a few days and this happened, Maesi was under the blanket where my legs were (she hates the cold weather here) and then Luna decided she was going to climb on top of all three of us and put her heavy booty on top of Maesi and placed the rest on the little boy's legs and me. I was in shock what just happened and decided not to move or make a sound for a while because this seemed unreal, lol.

Then I decided to cuddle her as she also kept calm while the baby was moving his legs constantly, I was a bit scared she might think it was a prey under the blanket because she's very playful so I needed to keep a close eye on it of course. Nothing happened, she stayed with us, being cuddled and purring for an hour or so. Maybe, just maybe this is the start of a friendship for life between our ladies and our baby boy....

Your experiences?

Do you have cats and kids? How did yours react after being introduced to the new edition in the house? Again, my previous experiences were totally different, but then again, everything about this pregnancy, birth and the maternity leave was different compared to the previous three so I guess I could expect this..

All pictures above are my own..

Well, I could have known as the pregnancy was way too smooth compared to the previous three :) Everything in balance, I guess :)

But can't lie, it's been a lot to process and with no time to do so, it will probably hit me hard at some point..

Ours only had experience with our daughter, who they love dearly but she's 9 so not a crying baby :) him having colic constantly probably didn't help either as they probably thought why on earth we'd bring home a loud thing like that :)

But not all cats are the same, clearly, at least now they want to snuggle up on us as they're cold.. there's a huge difference compared to where we lived before, especially inside the home, and Maesi has no fat on her body (Luna has some extra's lol) so she's extra cold..

!PIMP

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bulliontools (74) 5 months ago

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience! I'm glad everyone is safe at home now.

Our cats didn't mind our sons when they were born. They ignored them initially and then warmed up to them, but they didn't have previous experience with kids. I'm sure things will improve and they'll get used to the new addition to the family.

!BBH
!PIZZA
!LUV