Perfect Moment Monday -- Fur Baby Edition

My blogging and Twitter friend Suzy has had a feature on her blog for a few months now called "Perfect Moment Monday". Lori (who created Perfect Moment Monday) says "Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between."

Today I had one of those "perfect moments." I know many of us have our fur babies, and in many cases, our fur babies replace the babies we can't have due to infertility. We have a big ole Garfield cat. He looks like Garfield and often acts like him too. He has attitude and I swear he knows more than he lets onto. He's strangely human. He was my husband's cat before I came into the picture, but now he's my big fur baby too. He is aging and it makes me sad to think of the day he will no longer be with us. I had my first major pregnancy meltdown a couple of weeks ago when we left on vacation and I was saying goodbye to him for the week. I knew he would be spoiled by our neighbors, but the tears started anyway as I held him and he looked at me with his big eyes. I'm happy to say we both survived the week away.

We have a tradition, especially in the winter time, that I will lay on the couch and he will pop up and lay and purr on my stomach while I pet him. From the time of my embryo transfer up until about 20 weeks, I did not let him lay on my stomach. He was none to pleased when I made it clear he did not have that option anymore and he would sulk and go lay at my feet (which broke my heart). At my 20 week appointment awhile back, I asked my OB if it was okay to allow him to lay on my belly and she gave the okay to do so. It took him awhile to warm back up to doing so.

Today was a long day at work. I got home and the cat immediately let me know he wanted to cuddle (he likes to herd us). So I changed my clothes, laid on the couch with his favorite blanket on top of me and he popped up to join me. He maneuvered my ever expanding belly to find a comfortable place and we settled in -- me rubbing his cheek and he purring away. As soon as he started purring, baby started kicking away. After about a half hour (in which time we both fell asleep), he got down and then came back up about 5 minutes later and settled into a new location on my belly until hubby got home about 30 minutes later. The amazing thing to me was during those 5 minutes he was off my belly, baby stopped moving. As soon as he laid back down and started purring again, baby started moving again.

I love this connection between my baby and my fur baby. It makes me smile. It makes my heart happy. And it makes for a perfect moment Monday.