Last Updated on September 16, 2022 by Natalie

Sometimes I get these completely illogical thoughts.

I would maybe learn to recognize them as such, if my fears didn’t come true.

For example many moons ago I suddenly became paranoid, for no good reason that I could identify, that my boyfriend was going to fall for a girl who had been in his friend group for several years.

Then I discovered my boyfriend invited her as his date to his brother’s wedding. And then years later to his own.

Recently after I became pregnant, I was online in my room with my pups and going down a rabbit hole.

My husband walked in and asked me what was on my mind. I burst into tears and said “I’m afraid the dogs are going to die now because I’m pregnant.”

“What??” He asked me with pure confusion.

“Everyone’s dog dies when they’re pregnant!!”

I listed celebrities that were just recently pregnant when they lost their furbabies: Khloe Kardashian, Eva Longoria, Chrissy Teigan…

I knew this was totally ludicrous to deduce.

A few months later

When I was 6 months pregnant, my younger dog, the min pin, was diagnosed with Transitional Cell Carcinoma (TCC), a bladder cancer.

The prognosis was 8 months with chemotherapy. He started chemo the very next day.

I. Was. Devastated.

For years I’ve feared the day that I’d need to say goodbye to my furbabies. I had an extra special bond with my little furry boy.

He was beautiful, hilarious and a little bit of an asshole…but not to me. Even his tendency to be an asshole was cute because he was a tiny thing at 5 pounds.

I was in shock.

My spunky boy didn’t look sick. I had taken him to the vet because I noticed little bits of blood in his urine. I figured it was a UTI.

He didn’t even make it a full 4 months.

He died in my arms next to my dining room table just 3 days after I came home from the hospital after having my baby.

I like to think he held on so he can meet his human baby brother but really, he was like a shell of himself when we got back home from the hospital. I don’t think he really knew there was a new guy in the family.

Another part of me thinks that perhaps my being away from him for days while I was in the hospital made him give up. It was me he was holding on for. He loved me so much. And I him.

He would’ve turned 12 the month after he passed away (even though he felt like my baby) and I know that it’s because of my dedication to caring for him that he lived that long.

He had a liver condition since he was 1 that he was on a special diet for, went through meningitis at 5 years old that caused him stumble around, and after the year we spent treating the meningitis he started to experience partial seizures (AKA focal seizures) from time to time and he had to take medication 3 times a day for the rest of his life to avoid these seizures.

What I dealt with regarding his health during my pregnancy is a whole post of its own.

Despite his health issues, I never expected he would go first. Then cancer changed everything.

My other furbaby, a chihuahua, was 16.5.

She was originally my sister’s dog but after only a year, my sister was moving into an apartment in New York that didn’t allow dogs so I took her home to Miami to live with me and my other dog that I had at that time.

She was my low maintenance dog. She was just 6 pounds but healthy as a horse and the sweetest, goofiest girl.

She nearly died when my sister first got her and spent a good while in the animal hospital.

Turns out that the “teacup” chihuahua my sister thought she was getting was actually just a malnourished regular chihuahua and the people she purchased her from were actually a puppy mill.

After she made a miraculous recovery from that, it’s like she was unbreakable.

Even at 15 years old she was jumping super high and running circles around her younger brother.

I think she thought she was human. She was the sweetest (to fellow humans–she didn’t care for animals because gross).

She was loyal and persistent. She managed to always sneak her tongue inside your mouth no matter how prepared you thought you were to prevent it.

If we ever tried to not have the dogs sleep in the bed, it was her who wouldn’t give up trying to jump on the bed and cry for-EVER.

A couple of years ago she showed some kidney damage in her labs so we started her on a prescription diet.

Then we began taking her to the vet weekly to receive subcutaneous liquid to help her kidney-function.

After the baby was born, I took her less frequently but when we tested her 2 months ago, she was pretty stable.

After my younger furry boy passed away, she started to rapidly decline.

I don’t know if it was a coincidence in timing or if his passing had an effect on her.  She always seemed pretty independent from him but I can’t imagine she wouldn’t be affected after nearly 12 years with him. Even if only because her day to day was shaken up.

We didn’t take walks as often anymore, her partner in crime was missing, there was this new roommate in the house and mom seems to be giving all her attention to him.

She had already been hard of hearing and had poor vision but now she became totally blind and deaf and also developed doggy dementia.

She’d walk into things, stare at the wall, pace around, get stuck in odd corners or under the coffee table and pee and poop on the wood floors despite knowing where the wee wee pads were.

She’s always been finicky but recently she started eating less. She lost a lot of weight and the sight of her spine hurt my heart.

Over the last few days she stopped eating and her fur looked dry and disheveled.

I recognized what these were signs of. I did this just 5 months ago.

Last week, I bathed her but just a day later she smelled again.

Then 5 days ago she had stumbled but unlike all the million other times she stumbles she wasn’t able to get back up. I kept trying to help her stand and it was as if she was trying to turn and was bending her boney, delicate little body in half.

I held her for a while and when I put her back down, she was able to walk again. She kept walking into things (as she does) so I placed her in her bed where she stayed for the rest of the evening.

That was the other thing. She spent more and more time in bed. She would get up once in a while to pace. Sometimes it was in the middle of the night.

I noticed her gums were swollen and pale. I knew she was getting to the end.

I took her to the vet to confirm my suspicions. Sure enough, they told me she was dying. Could be tonight or in the next couple of days.

They gave me a couple of numbers of people who could come to my house to put her down.

I didn’t think I’d use them but as I watched her trying to get comfortable in her bed and let out cries while she was laying down, I wondered who I was favoring by making her hold out.

I started to imagine that if I let her go naturally, when she does go, what if it was while I’m breastfeeding the baby? Or the baby is crying? Or, more likely, it would happen in the middle of the night.

I wouldn’t be with her in her last moments and I’d feel terrible for making her go out alone.

As my sister pointed out, it was the only way to have a little control over a situation I had no control of.

I had a company called Resting Paws come to my house that same day (that I saw the vet) to help her cross over the rainbow bridge.

That was 3 days ago.

The passing was rough but I didnt feel the guilt I expected I would.

The aftermath was stranger than I expected but the sadness surprisingly feels stronger as the days pass.

It’s the end of an era.

I’ve had a dog most of my life.

Consecutively, for nearly the past 20 years.

My family and everyone who knows me know me as an animal lover.

How strange it will be that my 5 month old son will not grow up knowing me as the kind of person I feel represents such a large part of who I am.

3 days ago I unbecame a furmom.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) around the same time as I became an actual mom.

Although I always envisioned myself as the mom who walked with a baby in a stroller and a dog on a leash, I suppose that if there was a right time for it to happen, it would be when I have a small baby that requires a lot of my attention and that can also help soothe my heart after my losses.

At least, even if they don’t know it, my baby and my furbabies got to cross paths on their ways in and out of my life.