- Joined
- Jan 19, 2018
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This will be a bit too long so if you want the short version please skip to the last paragraph. 
I'm sure I'm not the only one who hates leaving their furry babies behind but I'll give you a bit of backstory anyway. My sweet baby girl Frida crossed the rainbow bridge a year ago (February 11th) and I was left devastated after sharing my life for 15 years with this beautiful furry cat who became my everything, my baby. In her 15 years of life, I only was away from her for three nights. However, she stayed at home with my mom so it wasn't a big change for her, it was the same home and she could sleep in my room. Furthermore, she stayed with the other two people who loved her the most in the world apart from me, my mom and my brother. We never traveled otherwise, certainly not together, just so she wouldn't have to stay behind, much less with a stranger. She wasn't a friendly cat except with us, and even then she was skittish and had quite the temper, but we adored her all the same. Our lives were shattered when she passed away last year and in an attempt to pick up the pieces and do something for ourselves after such a loss, we decided to plan a long trip together, all three of us. We wanted to adopt again but only once we came back so we once again wouldn't have to leave our new baby behind.
I started planning our trip, all travel agencies charge ridiculously large amounts and the best way to plan it was to do it on our own. We bought the plane tickets, although the trip was still many months from that time, and I started to book hotels for us. Suddenly, last June, one of my dad's cats got very ill. He had been sickly his whole life, and even though the vet (who happens to be a good friend and colleague of Frida's vet) tried everything to save him, he sadly passed away. I'm not very close to my dad but in that moment I knew he needed me, so my mom and I were at the clinic with him to let him say goodbye before we took him to the pet funeral home. While we were there, my mom spotted a cute kitten, only under two months old, and squeaked at me to come look. She carried him and we both fell in love but commented to the other vet that we wanted to a adopt two kitties. Right on that moment, he pointed to the cage where this kitty's litter brother sat watching us. We both squeaked and fell in love with both.
"We were looking for females..." We told the vets.
"Try males, they are lovely!" The lady vet told us.
"But we're going on a long trip!" We added.
"I'll look after them." She offered.
It's been seven months since we adopted them. Needless to say, we are head over heels for the two. They are our babies and even though they don't fill the void Frida left, they have helped heal the wounds and created their own place in our hearts. Now, that long trip we had planned nearly a year ago is happening in two weeks and a half.
We're going to Europe for a bit over a month and it's killing me to leave them behind. Our vet is lovely, she and her husband (the other vet) will be taking them to their home where they will babysit them for us all that time. I know they couldn't be in better hand but the separation anxiety is killing me. Killing us, actually. I keep thinking of worse case scenarios like them getting out or another earthquake hitting (we're in Mexico). And while I tell myself it will be okay, the part that kills me the most is thinking of how they will feel. Will they think we've abandoned them when the vets take them to their place and they don't see us for five weeks? Will they forget about me? Will they be sad? Will they feel betrayed? What about when it's time to sleep and I'm not there to hold them at bedtime? All of this is killing me so much and I don't know what to do. I've wanted to write an entry about this for a while, but as you can see it's really long and only now I finally got around to writing it.
Any words of advise and support are welcome.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who hates leaving their furry babies behind but I'll give you a bit of backstory anyway. My sweet baby girl Frida crossed the rainbow bridge a year ago (February 11th) and I was left devastated after sharing my life for 15 years with this beautiful furry cat who became my everything, my baby. In her 15 years of life, I only was away from her for three nights. However, she stayed at home with my mom so it wasn't a big change for her, it was the same home and she could sleep in my room. Furthermore, she stayed with the other two people who loved her the most in the world apart from me, my mom and my brother. We never traveled otherwise, certainly not together, just so she wouldn't have to stay behind, much less with a stranger. She wasn't a friendly cat except with us, and even then she was skittish and had quite the temper, but we adored her all the same. Our lives were shattered when she passed away last year and in an attempt to pick up the pieces and do something for ourselves after such a loss, we decided to plan a long trip together, all three of us. We wanted to adopt again but only once we came back so we once again wouldn't have to leave our new baby behind.
I started planning our trip, all travel agencies charge ridiculously large amounts and the best way to plan it was to do it on our own. We bought the plane tickets, although the trip was still many months from that time, and I started to book hotels for us. Suddenly, last June, one of my dad's cats got very ill. He had been sickly his whole life, and even though the vet (who happens to be a good friend and colleague of Frida's vet) tried everything to save him, he sadly passed away. I'm not very close to my dad but in that moment I knew he needed me, so my mom and I were at the clinic with him to let him say goodbye before we took him to the pet funeral home. While we were there, my mom spotted a cute kitten, only under two months old, and squeaked at me to come look. She carried him and we both fell in love but commented to the other vet that we wanted to a adopt two kitties. Right on that moment, he pointed to the cage where this kitty's litter brother sat watching us. We both squeaked and fell in love with both.
"We were looking for females..." We told the vets.
"Try males, they are lovely!" The lady vet told us.
"But we're going on a long trip!" We added.
"I'll look after them." She offered.
It's been seven months since we adopted them. Needless to say, we are head over heels for the two. They are our babies and even though they don't fill the void Frida left, they have helped heal the wounds and created their own place in our hearts. Now, that long trip we had planned nearly a year ago is happening in two weeks and a half.
We're going to Europe for a bit over a month and it's killing me to leave them behind. Our vet is lovely, she and her husband (the other vet) will be taking them to their home where they will babysit them for us all that time. I know they couldn't be in better hand but the separation anxiety is killing me. Killing us, actually. I keep thinking of worse case scenarios like them getting out or another earthquake hitting (we're in Mexico). And while I tell myself it will be okay, the part that kills me the most is thinking of how they will feel. Will they think we've abandoned them when the vets take them to their place and they don't see us for five weeks? Will they forget about me? Will they be sad? Will they feel betrayed? What about when it's time to sleep and I'm not there to hold them at bedtime? All of this is killing me so much and I don't know what to do.
I've wanted to write an entry about this for a while, but as you can see it's really long and only now I finally got around to writing it.Any words of advise and support are welcome.
I hate leaving my babies too; so I understand. 
My girls are seniors and on medications. I've had to ask my mother to miss work (she gets no sick-time) to take one of my cats to the vet when we were traveling (she was constipated). It was stressful to coordinate that from hundreds of miles away. Our vets office knows her for this and would have been able to take care of it in a snap had they been watching her. Now that house sitter has had a baby so she isn't house sitting anymore. Noodles didn't like the new house sitter at first so again my mother came to the rescue and helped Noodles get to know her so she would take her medicine from her. And this woman is very good with cats and volunteers with a rescue. Again; the vet would have been able to handle it easily. Having a knowledgeable sitter you already know makes them worth their weight in gold. And we never had issues until the last couple of years as the girls became seniors with those health issues. When they were younger it was easy to leave them with except for missing them while we were gone. 
She loved that too! 
