It's ICLW and all I want to do is cry

Hello and welcome to International Comment Leaving Week.  This is my second time participating, and aside from really enjoying the sense of community and reading new blogs, I like that it usually lights a fire under me to write more.

Unfortunately I am having a bad, bad day today.  Last night my husband, Jeeves, and I had to put our cat, Abbott, to sleep.  In October Abbott started drinking more water than usual, so we took him to the vet, who diagnosed him with lymphoma.  Lymphoma is terminal in cats.  But we thought we'd have more time.  In the last week or so he deteriorated pretty quickly: seemed hungry but didn't like anything we put down for him, lethargic, stopped grooming.  He'd loss muscle mass in his back legs and couldn't really jump anymore.  He lost a lot of weight.  His eyes lost their brightness.  He purred less and less.  On Tuesday night, he got into my lap for about 10 minutes and I said to him, "I don't know what to do.  You have to let me know when it's time to let go, okay?"  Last night, he started meowing as if in pain and tried to hide in the bathtub.  At one point I bent down to pat him and he looked at me and let out the saddest meow - I felt like he was telling me it was time.  At first we thought we would just take him to our regular, awesome vet on Thursday morning, but as the evening progressed, I knew I couldn't stand to leave him like that overnight.  We packed him up, sad meows and all, and took him to the 24-hour emergency animal hospital in midtown.

The emergency vet was awesome.  He opined that Abbott was not in pain, but perhaps disoriented due to low blood pressure, or that he might have fluid in his lungs, or possibly he was becoming very anemic due to the lymphoma.  They ran an ultrasound and some blood work, which ruled out those thoughts.  That left pain.  The vet felt Abbott was probably in pain - he had an enlarged stomach and gall bladder, and we had a long talk with the vet about what we should do.  Ultimately, he said he could give us some pain meds that might help for a couple of days, but that sooner rather than later we were going to have to make the decision to free our kitty from his illness.  While he never steered us one way or the other, we both felt he thought (and we agreed) that the humane thing was to end Abbott's suffering now.  As the vet said - he's not grooming or eating, in other words - he's not being a cat anymore.

I decided I wanted to be there when they put him to sleep.  I couldn't stand the idea of him being scared with strangers while that happened.  It was hard, but I'm glad I was the person holding him in the end, just like I held him when he was a little kitten, or when he was a fatter kitty.  Abbott, we love you and miss you so much.  We hope we did right by you.

So, if this is your first time on my blog and you ventured here from Stirrup Queens and ICLW, I apologize that you walked into this mess.  I am hopeful the coming days will get easier.

Obligatory ICLW schpiel - my husband and I started trying for a baby in April 2012.  The fall of 2012, we went to an RE and had the usual workup.  You can read more about it in my Timeline.  We did 4 IUIs - #1 was a chemical pregnancy, #2 was a BFN, #3 was a missed miscarriage where we never had a heartbeat, and #4 resulted in my current pregnancy.  Today I am 10w2d pregnant, the farthest I have ever made it.  I am perpetually wracked with anxiety about having another miscarriage.  Tomorrow is my second OB appointment, and I'm hoping we get continued good news in that department, because I just don't think my heart can take more bad stuff this week.

As for other stuff, about me, etc., I live in NYC, I usually like to eat, cook, and talk about food, but this pregnancy means that I mostly find food to be gross.  Sometimes I have a good day and food seems delicious again.  I also love books, television, NPR, Christmas lights, Thanksgiving stuffing and pumpkin pie, sleight of hand magic, and being lazy.  Being productive is pretty cool too.  Thanks for reading.  Happy ICLW!