Love Me When I'm Gone (sad)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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[copyrighted song lyrics removed]

Things had been going fairly ok. Rumpleteazer and Buttercup had been getting along fairly ok, with the occassional spat here and there but nothing serious. But tonight, though I will never know what triggered it, it spilled over into violence, something beyond my control, something I was afraid to try and break up. Rumpleteazer came out of it with a bad scratch across the nose and Buttercup, well, Butters was the loser in this one.

She ended up being crated and taken down to the local SPCA to be…surrendered. I was upset about it all evening…Brandon tried to calm me but, except for brief moments, I haven’t been calm at all. I can’t seem to stop crying and wishing I hadn’t been so hasty in telling him to ‘do it before I change my mind’ as I said over and over and over just before we took her down. The lady at the SPCA said if Butters didn’t calm down enough to be handled numerous times on a daily basis, she would be put down.

Now I’m sure I’ve condemned my sweet kitty to her death. She’s alone and she’s scared…she’s never been around so many cats and she isn’t used to being handled by anybody but me a zillion times a day. I worry about her and I miss her so much. I’m afraid to sleep because I know when I wake up she won’t be there for our morning rituals. No more facerubs, no more headbonks,no more purring kitty on my lap. I can’t stop crying and I miss her so goddamned much it hurts. I keep thinking I screwed it all up, that I made the wrong decision, that I should’ve given her one more chance to work it out with Rumpleteazer. I really should have. I told Brandon I don’t care HOW much it costs, I want to go down tomorrow when he gets off work and get her back, but he says it’s better to leave her there. But I can’t see myself leaving my little clown there…I just can’t. I betrayed her trust and her unconditonal love for me by doing this.

I promised when I brought her home she would be home to stay and now look what I’ve done. I told a lie to her. She’s gone now and I want her back so badly I can taste it, surely as I can taste the salt from my tears. But part of me knows I will never see her again, except in memories and dreams of days gone by and perhaps, if I am lucky, on Rainbow Bridge, if I ever get there someday. I am worried about what will happen to her, if she’ll find a good home, if she’ll be ok. Brandon also told me that if Rumpleteazer doesn’t get along with the baby, out she goes. The cat…not the baby. I can’t bear the thought of that either. It’s bad enough losing one cat but to lose both because of this baby will surely kill me I think. I don’t know. I know right now I’m not thinking clearly because I’m so upset about this. I try to think straight but then I see her face and I start crying all over again. I wonder if I’ll ever get over this. Brandon reassures me I did the right thing but I"m still unsure, still so uncertain as to my own decisions on ANYTHING. What if I messed up? Now I have no way to right the wrong I did. Ever. If I can’t handle this…how can I handle a damn baby? I’m not fit to be anybody’s mom…I’ll screw it up like I screwed this up. I can’t do this and yet I know it’s too late to undo the pregnancy, even if I really wanted to, which I’m sure I don’t at the moment. I feel so bad for feeling ambiguous about the baby right now, like I’m commiting a crime or a sin or something. I’m not sure what’s going on in my head. All I know is my heart is shattering into a zillion tiny kitten shaped pieces at the moment.

MetalMaven :frowning:

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Take a deep breath.

First, I’ve never heard of a cat that had conflicts with a baby. (I’m sure that some Doper will be along to give gory details of just such an encounter, but they tend to be rare.) So I doubt that Rumpleteaser is in any danger at this point.

Next, is it possible or practical to reverse the decision regarding Buttercup? Was this the most serious of many fights? Or was this simply a small, infrequent squabble that went bad? (I am not recommending that you run down to the SPCA and reclaim Buttercup. I am suggesting that you spend some time thinking over the situation.)

If Buttercup is vicious or cannot live with another cat, you may have done the only thing possible. You can regret the need to do it, but you should not beat yourself up that it needed to be done.

If it’s any comfort (which I am sure it is not, but you need to realize this, now), you will make far worse decisions (and mistakes) as you raise your kid(s). However, if you pay attention and put your best efforts into it, your kids will grow up fine, despite–or perhaps because of–those mistakes.

Don’t let one bad evening with your pets cause you to doubt your ability to parent.

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Well, I used to be I_Dig_Bad_Boys but I got TubaDiva to change my name.

In this thread I detailed the problem we had before with Butters and Rumple and last night, though they’d been living together again for at least a month or so, it started all over triggered by something unknown.

Hubby says he wasn’t willing to go through that whole three month mess of trying to reacclimate them to each other again, even if I was willing to put up with it.

I COULD go reclaim Butters today but I’m sure that both the SPCA and hubby would question my sanity.
MetalMaven

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Animals and babies… you just never know how an animal will react to this “intruder” in their home. Trust me… I’d take baby over pet any day of the week. I gave away my sweet Zoe (a sweet lil’ mutt who was pregnant while I was pregnant and who had EIGHT puppies BTW. DAMN, dog… what you got in there??) and I felt bad but you know what solved my sadness?

Just watch television news. Every month or so there will be a story about some beloved pet going berserk on some baby/child/spouse that really will make your decision much, much easier. Cats get jealous… it’s not just a dog thing. Cats can get mean… it’s not just a people thing.

It may hurt to get rid of the pets now but your baby is worth it.

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I think you need to separate out the issues. Two cats fighting does not translate into cats which will attack a baby. Getting rid of pets pre-emptively before you see how they react to the baby is a tad premature IMO.

We had 5 cats when my older son was born and they didn’t turn a whisker. He got scratched once when he was 6 months old and grabbed a tail too hard.

Just wait and see.

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You are right an animal shelter is not a nice place to be, especially if you are a cat. One I worked at killed 4 out of 5 cats that came in, that’s about average. It’s kitten season, so right now our local shelter is putting down between 20 and 50 cats a day.

Do you know what happens to cats they put to sleep at shelters? The one I worked in they through them in garbage bags like trash (and you can fit about 7 large cats per bag), keep them in a freezer for a month or so, and then send them off to be burned.

Do you know how they put cats to sleep? Couple of different methods. Cats are small, so some shelters are still gassing them. Put them in a box, leave them overnight, and poison them. Have to leave them overnight, because it takes several hours for them to die, and they scream, so they prefer not to do it when there are people around.

Second method I have used is to use inject the poison, but they don’t just fall asleep like your cat does if you take them to the vets where they can use an iv. Shelters have to use a different type of drug. First needle goes into the thigh. It burns, and they scream. Sometimes they fall asleep right away, and then we would take the second needle and jam it into their heart. But now the first drug used has been banned, and the new one takes a lot longer for the animal to be knocked out. They go into convulsions if there is any noise, and often they wake up.

You sound like a nice person, and I know I will come off as a bitch, but frankly I feel bad for the cat. You know she isn’t going to find a home there, so instead of burying your head in the sand, go and do the right thing. If you couldn’t keep her you should have taken her to you vets to be put to sleep yourself, so at least she didn’t have to die alone and in pain.

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Magayuk, that wasn’t very nice. She said in the OP that she knows her cat will probably be put down, and is obviously feeling very bad about it. She made the decision that was right for her at the time - it seems that for her cat to have a chance at another (hopefully single-cat) home appeared a better choice than directly putting her kitty down. You and I may have made a different choice, but it’s not really appropriate to drag out all the gory details and make her feel worse.

MetalMaven, I’m sorry things didn’t work out between your cats. I’ve been following the stories and hoping that they’d just settle down. Sometimes cats just don’t get along with each other, and it sounds like you did your utmost to make it happen. It’s sad, but don’t beat yourself up about it, and don’t let it make you sad over your baby. Your other cat is really unlikely to have a problem with the baby.

Julie

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I only got rid of one…so far. I got rid of Butters because SHE was the one who started most of the fights around here.

And Magayuk–that was a tad rude of you. I had put up with a LOT of shit between these two cats and I was willing to do it again, though hubby was not. If I’d had a choice, Butters would still be with me, albeit behind a locked door seperated from Rumple unless one of us was there to supervise. I did the best I could with those two, I really did.
edited so as not to offend Magayuk too badly…I try not to let my pregnancy hormones get the best of me.

MetalMaven

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That is sad. but kids come above pets. if i had to chose between regretting the loss of a pet or regretting the mauling of a child, i’d choose the pet anyday. and this comes from someone who doesnt like kids…

And Maven, welcome back to the boards :slight_smile:

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oops, i feel that wasnt clear. i meant i’d chose to lose the pet…

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copyright issues

This includes copyrighted song lyrics. Do not do this again, 80sHairMetalMaven.

Cajun Man ~ SDMB Moderator