Showing posts with label Angel Litter 10/19. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Angel Litter 10/19. Show all posts

Coping (I guess?)

First of all, I think I owe an apology to anyone who read my entry yesterday. I was in a very dark place (can't claim I'm still in a good place but I'm a little bit better today although I think that has more to do with herbal tea and not actually moving on yet), I was angry, I was lashing out. I admit that. But I suppose the point of keeping a blog like this is to have an outlet and sometimes a girl has to vent. Yesterday I vented. Today I'll try not to because today the grief is setting in and I'm just trying to cope with it.

While I accept peoples' opinions and criticism (not with ease, but I do tend to listen to what people have to say; I'm not saying I agree with all of it but I do listen) and I get that pet stuff is always a hair trigger for very strong opinions to emerge, there's a time and a place for everything and yesterday was neither of those. I mean, I lack a major empathy bone but even I wouldn't confront someone on the day something really horrible has happened whether I thought they were at fault or not. Would I do it after a while? You know what, I probably wouldn't because at the end of the day it just isn't my business but if I were to make it my business, I would still give the person a grace period to cope and come to terms with something bad before expressing a negative opinion of them to them. Not cool and completely uncalled for & it's definitely not going to make me change my mind if people try to bully me into something while I'm hurting. That's just mean and you guys know it.

Today's been not so much about moving on, but about laying down the foundation that is required for it. I've taken apart the birthing boxes I put together for Maiko and salvaged what towels I can and slammed them on a boiling hot disinfectant soak while getting rid of everything that was obviously not going to recover from things... a cat giving birth is hella messy business. I don't think it's beneficial to me or Maiko if the flat smells like blood (or if she insists on sleeping in a box that smells like, well... her dead children, to be very blunt about it), and I'm not 100% sure if that smell is actually lingering or if it's in my head. Nonetheless, cleaning up is therapeutic to me and seems to have calmed Maiko down. She is actually sleeping instead of constantly pacing and meowing so I feel I've made the right choice.

With the aid of caffeine I did the general laundry & tidied up a bit, just sort of forcing myself into motion. One could claim I'm trying too hard to push forward but sometimes it's necessary. My emotional triggers aren't something I like to mess with and right now I feel raw & hurt, and that scares me because I don't want even the slightest relapse. Yes, again, I'm being selfish in cleaning up the 'physical evidence' of what's happened and one could even say I'm trying to erase the fact that the kittens were ever there but trust me, the memory of it is so deeply imprinted in my mind that there's no way I'll forget about it. Ever. Maiko might, as that's just nature being nature, but I won't. Because I'm human & believe it or not, I feel human emotions. Granted, not like most people do but the emotions are still there and right now I'm hurting & I would just ask for people to understand and respect that, even if they don't agree with any of this.

Have I made any decisions yet? No. Will I soon? Yeah, over the next couple of weeks, I'm sure. I'm not a 100% in either direction yet & I need time to think and come to terms with whatever decision I end up making, whether it's the one people want me to make or not. I'm not going to give up my dream of having a kitten by Maiko in my clowder simply because people would rather I adopt a kitten from a shelter. If I give up that dream, I give it up because I'm ready to give it up.

Again, I repeat: yes it's a very selfish dream/thing to do, but so was getting pregnant while suffering from a serious mental illness, and I did that twice even if the second one wasn't planned. No one screamed at me when I miscarried either of them and preached about adopting instead, although a (now former, thanks to it) friend did state that I'd probably end up suffocating my children in their sleep or something 'equally psycho'. Do I think I'd make a great mother, on that note? I'd try my best. That's what any mother can do. But, again, was that comment necessary, especially in that situation? Hell no. Freedom of speech doesn't translate to 'hurt a person however much you like by spitting venom at them when they're already suffering'.

I'm not a perfect person. I'm, in fact, a very selfish person & I don't pretend to be anything else. Am I working on my flaws? Sure. But at the end of the day, I am who and what I am.

Yes, these past couple of entries have come from a place of hurt, maybe even confusion, and I'll probably eventually regret posting them, at least a little bit... but it's my blog, I'm putting my life out there & I just don't want to be one of those bloggers who pretends her life is sunshine & roses all the time. If anything, my life is difficult most of the time because of mental challenges alone. Raw emotions are allowed in blogs & I think it's harmful to keep up the charade of a perfect life, perfect family, perfect everything when we all know nobody survives life without getting knocked around. Nobody.

Do my sometimes idiotic choices make my life that much harder? Absolutely! I self-sabotage like an absolute bitch, 100%. Why do you think I'm in therapy, mate? :D

For now, I'm sure the blog won't be a delight to read because my existence right now is not exactly fun. This blog reflects my life at the time of writing entries. It is what it is and maybe one day I'll find the key to eternal happiness & spread the gospel of whatever that key may be, but today is not that day. Today I'm hurt, and I am writing out of that place of pain and confusion. Apologies if it's something you'd rather not read & shame on you if you use it as a weapon against me. Be nice. Please. Even if it's only for now. ♥ Thank you.

Faded

For the briefest of moments, my household had kittens. Maiko went into labour last night and delivered her firstborn, Phoenix, at 7:53AM. The second one, Poem, was stillborn. The third, Shiloh, survived for about half an hour but refused to suckle or accept formula and eventually just went to "sleep", and the last one, Lyric -- like Poem -- was stillborn. Phoenix showed promise but started fading at around noon and despite intervening, there was nothing I could do.

As far as I'm aware, this was Maiko's first litter. The birth went just fine, there were no delays, no complications, and she tried to nurse every kitten, took care of the placentas, cut the umbilical cords. She was a natural mama even to the kittens that only physically entered this world but were never 'there'. She did everything right, and I'd like to claim that I did everything right as well because I've done this bloody thing before with orphaned cats, but the vet's comment on it was that it's... just one of those things with cats. Entire litters fade. Entire litters are stillborn or miscarried for no apparent reason. It sounds so cruel. Just one of those things. But that's what it is.

There have been messages asking what my next step is and honestly, I don't know. There's been requests for Maiko's kittens and even a few messages since I lost this litter (and that's only about an hour or so ago that the last baby faded, so I'm not very impressed with people right now) asking if I intend to breed her again and my answer has been a (rude, I'm sure) No? I don't know? Don't ask me this now. I had everything prepared for kittens. I was ready to keep them all if need be, no problem, although I had homes lined up for up to six. I had amazing mental images of little kittens running around the Christmas tree, all that bullshit, and what do I have now? A kittenless dam crying and looking for her kittens and I feel so horrendous that it pretty much is on the same line as my own miscarriages, only I have to observe someone/something else going through it.

And I know I shouldn't humanise my cats and once the hormones settle she'll probably forget she ever had them but right now she is... lost. I'm lost. We're just stuck. Stuck comforting each other. Stuck without the squeaky bundles of pain in the ass, but I wanted those pains in the ass. Maiko wanted those pains in the ass. This is unfair and if you saw Maiko right now, you'd believe without a shadow of a doubt that she is mourning her loss. No question.

It's been a countdown to nothing. Shopping for nothing. Looking into extending my insurance, into arranging for the vet I wanted for them, special foods, special care, not even picking mama up for two months, everything for nothing. For the sheer pleasure of burying four newborn kittens. I'm not sure if I'm angry or if I'm sad or if I'm both. There was even a split second when I felt relief. Relief. For a split second I felt an emotion only a genuinely evil person would feel when they have four dead kittens in a box. And then it turned into this mesh of negative, violent emotions of regret, self-hatred, more anger, more grief, and just plain hatred toward not only my own split-second emotion that blipped out as quick as it blipped in, but also toward the people who I'll talk about in the next paragraph. Whoosh.

Of course there's the lot who just couldn't wait to blame me. Yes, I'm fully aware this is my own fault, do you really think I don't realise that? It's my doing she was pregnant, and I chose to keep the kittens (there's always an option to terminate but good luck getting me to ever sign up for that) so it's my fault she's going through this now. I. Am. Aware. I was selfish, yes. Did I go through with it because I liked the idea? Yes. Was I irresponsible? No. That I will not accept. From day one there were arrangements, systems in place, plans. At no point did I throw my hands in the air and brush it off as a minor thing that this was about to happen (and ultimately ended very horribly); I knew what I was getting into and yes, I put Maiko through a pregnancy and the heartbreak of loss. That's on me. But I won't be accused of being irresponsible, not now and not if I decide to breed her one more time before a permanent spaying. That's my choice, if that is the choice I end up making.

"But Noo, why would you breed her? That's so unnecessary!" Yes, it is. It is. 100%. But this is also Maiko, and there is a very selfish part of me that wants any additions to my lot to be her babies because she is hands down the best-behaved, loving, amazing, gorgeous and social cat I've ever encountered. Extremely selfish or not, I want a chance to have a cat or cats with those characteristics when I add to my clowder, if I add to my clowder.

Right now I don't know what the best solution is, I don't know what I want to do. Right now I don't even want to see a picture of a random kitten because it makes me burst into tears and I see Maiko in her current state and I feel horrendous guilt and my heart breaks for her, and for myself too. Would breeding her be ideal? No. Absolutely not. No. I know that. Would it be selfish? Absolutely. But I still don't know. Don't ask me now. Now I just want to grieve.


//Edited to add: in case you want actual -evidence- (dear Jesus, people, what?) that there was indeed a litter of kittens born this morning, I took photos. Why? I didn't exactly expect them all to -die-. Knock yourself out, right out of my reader list if you actually require evidence of a very traumatic experience. And yes, I'm very sad and very angry right now. Can you actually blame me?

No, scratch that. Some of you probably actually can.