Pet Parallels

Our new kitten Rosa is still doing really well.  After just a week we can already see so many changes in her.  She is comfortable with us and is clearly happy here.  We are thrilled to have her, but it's stirred up some strange emotions.

We are finally getting a handle on Rosa's feeding and litter box habits, but it hasn't been without moments of frustration or panic.  We are glad she has a vet appointment this week to look at her fleas and her tummy issues, and despite those things she hasn't slowed down in the slightest.  It has been work, though, to train her and clean up after her.  We have also moved past the worry of her first days as she adjusted, although we still anxiously await a fully clean bill of health.  However, we are feeling this strange comparison to our hopeful future parenthood.

To be clear, we don't conflate pet ownership with parenting a child.  We understand many people feel very deeply about their animals, and we don't begrudge anyone that.  We won't, however, call her our furbaby or child.  We love Rosa very much, but perhaps the pain we've felt over our infertility struggles has colored our view.  To us, we don't see pet ownership as a fair or equal trade-off. We aren't choosing to have a pet instead of a child, and we didn't decide to bring her home to compensate for not having a baby in our arms.  That being said, we have found ourselves wondering how this would compare to parenthood -- the worry when she doesn't feel well, the anxiety when she doesn't seem to eat or sleep properly, the stress of teaching her appropriate behaviors.  It's certainly not right to say it doesn't matter because she's just a cat, but if we are having these feelings and experience moments of being overwhelmed now, how will it feel with a baby?  In some ways Rosa presents more challenges -- she is already mobile, she fits under the dishwasher, and she doesn't wear diapers.  She also can't speak and will always do certain things like using her claws because of her cat instincts.  Babies and kittens are not the same, but one subconsciously reminds us of the other.  The circumstances of how she came to us certainly are a factor, knowing the grim fate that she may very well have faced otherwise.  We love her and are so happy to have this new light in our house.  The diversion is welcome, but being with her sometimes makes us wonder if this is the only type of family we'll have.