We took our cat, Tiger, to the vet on Friday. What a fun family adventure that was (note the hint of sarcasm). There was a lot of claws, fur and blood flying. It was not a pleasant experience and I have decided that it will be worth the investment to purchase a cat carrier. My daughter has most of the wounds from Tiger's nervous scratching. I mostly got bit because I got the job of holding her while she was given her immunizations and she let me know, with her teeth, that SHE was not happy with that.
We were also there to discuss getting her spayed and declawed. But I needed to ask the vet to check for possible pregnancy. She has gone into heat once about a month ago and there was a male cat hanging out while Tiger was repeatedly making frantic dashes out the door. We were not always successful at keeping her quarantined during this time. So, I suspected she may be "with kitten".
The vet leaned over close to my ear and said, "Her uterus is a little swollen. How do you feel about that?" I told him I'm not entirely happy about it but we will deal with it. Then he said, "Well, if you want to, we can take care of it."
I was kind of stunned. He was proposing to do an abortion with my cat. I just smiled at him and didn't get "political" and said, "No, we will let nature take it's course. I think this will be a good experience for my kids. It's something all kids should get the chance to see at least once. We're ok." He then also told me that if we have trouble finding homes for the kittens they can take care of that too with a charge for "disposal".
I found this to be a little bothersome. I don't intend to get real political because I am talking about a cat. However, when it comes to my children, particularly my daughter, I know that I am very accountable to her for the decisions I make in regards to the life of our pet. And this is an opportunity to demonstrate in a small way what the sanctity of life means. I am not a person who puts animals above people. However, I do believe that as a Christian, I have a duty to be a good steward of the earth and it's inhabitants so I need to care about issues pertaining to other creatures. I find that I would not be able to live with myself if I were to kill unborn kittens because they were an inconvenience to me for a few months and yet tell my children that it is my belief that it is wrong to kill unborn human babies.
There is a lot of room here for talk about natural consequences. I talked to the kids about how important it was to keep Tiger indoors when she was in heat, granted she made it very challenging, but because we were not successful, she got herself "knocked up" so the natural consequence of that is that we will have a pregnant cat to take care of and then a litter of kittens to care for and find homes for.
On a lighter note, when I was sharing the news of the maternity of my cat with my co-workers, who are all social workers, we made some jokes about whether or not the father-to-be was going to step up to the plate and take care of his children or whether I would have to pursue him for kitten-support. (We folks in social services often have dark humor. It's how we cope with some really tough, icky issues. )
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