So, to recap: one five month old cat gets spayed (or is it neutered?) on the same day that the not-yet-Momma announced that she was pregnant, and that our tiny and anesthetized cat was going to become a middle child.
With jubilation, trepidation, exaltation and utter panic we announced to the world that we were going to become parents. While there were, as it's always the case, a bunch of concerns that anyone who's ever been married to a pregnant woman or have been a pregnant woman themselves, the world you know slips away from underneath your feet slowly at first and then all of a sudden, knocking you off your feet. When you get back up, the whole room is different, the person standing next to you is different, and you yourself are different. Now picture that with two cats.
Almost straight away, it was if the cats could tell. Tapete in particular acted quite like a cat. He was distant and aloof, looking upset over the whole situation. He peed himself on the bed once and always acted distant. When it was just me, he acted the same as always, wanting to be the center of my attention. Pie, on the other hand, grew closer to Momma, always wanting to be near hear, near the belly, like a hen hatching an enormous egg.
The world at large, we discovered, seemed quite set in their views about old time myths regarding cats and pregnancy. (I don't know if you have noticed, most likely you haven't if you are not a cat person, but there is a quite clear and distinct anti-cat bias in the media. Yes, I'm calling it out. The media has an anti-cat agenda.
Cats are always the tricksters, the conniving ones, if not the outright villians, even when they are the celebrated stars of the show, like Garfield, for instance. Cat-like qualities are always given as adjectives to the sneaky, shifty, untrustworthy and selfish person only out to look for him or herself, when cats, while prone to their pecularities, are loyal, caring, loving companions. I was so perfectly made to be a male cat lady. Oh yes.) One of the villianizing myths around cats is how they are bad for pregnant women and for babies. After researching ans asking, we found out that, if you follow the right precautions, the risks are nonexistent. It came to a point where the third or fourth question out of people's mouths, after "When are you due?" or "what's the baby's name gonna be?" was "So... are you getting rid of the cats?" or its variation "When are you going to get rid of the cats?" And the answers were always the same.
No. Never.
The pregnancy went on as planned, and our bouncing female ball of joy was born in August of 2011. We were cautious at first inhow they approached her, never letting them get too close, even though we had done one of the recommended things, before taking the baby back home, I took the blanket she slept in so they could smell it. Then the baby came home, and they were sure this was the newest ball of fur on the block of a higher stature than theirs. Luckily, there were no behavioral problems, the cats never felt displaced or out of place; there were no bouts of jealousy over our attention, not really.
What did happen, was that the roles reversed: Pay, who seemed to be the protective, nurturing one, became intensely disinterested in the baby and even dettached from Momma as her person. He used to follow her everywhere, and then just stopped, opting to sit on my lap and sleep on my face instead. Tapete, on the other hand, became a big brother right from the start. He would come running if he heard her crying, sniffing her for wounds and to see if she was alright. If the crying got too intense, he would meow and look at us, like a judgemental parent awaiting you to do something to help the poor little thing.
Emilia, almost two years old now, has grown withthe idea of animals around her as a normal thing. She spends a lot of time at her grandma's, who own a small poodle that she pets and fights over food with. She has petted dogs, cats, sheep, foals, and many other forms of small livestock. She's grown healthy and undisturbed by the constant presence of them, and most importantly, she is learning the lesson that there are creatures in our world who don't look or act like her, who are an integral part of the world she inhabits, and that they deserve respect and gratitude. (she likes ham and eggs, after all.)
And it's all because of two entitled and princely felines that live in our home.
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