Hi everyone,
I just wanted to write about this because I am struggling with my emotions. Where do I start. My wife decided to get two little cavvies last year. After thorough research and looking around she finally found 2 babies - a black and a white girl we called them Kara and Alba. She even built them a house for our living room all nice and modern to go with our furniture. At the time I wanted to support her as I know how much she loves animals. We were also going through a rough patch in our lives and I thought they will help her. When she first got them I wasn't that interested. I liked them but I didn't really interact with them as much. As the time passed they slowly became part of our family. They developed their little personalities and I started to get more and more 'into' them. Also my wife's love for them somehow reflected on me. I hadn't experienced anything like that before as I never had pets before. I am a 33 year old man and such emotions were a bit uncommon for me. I know it may sound silly to some people but I think you guys might understand.
So, fast forward to March this year. My wife got pregnant - with twins! Wow. Won't get into that but i can say its amazing no doubt. We talked about hygiene issues and arranged that I'll clean the cage from that point. We made other arrangements. Time flew and the pregnancy progressed. Then one day a friend of ours came along and said that her sister is looking for guinea pigs to adopt and whether we thought of giving them away. At first my reaction was 'no way we are giving them away, they are part of our family'. But as time passed and we started learning more and more about babies and how we would care for them and the time and attention they would require, and the hygiene they need in the first month etc.. And we started worrying about it, and how we would not have time for our little cavvies and that we wouldn't be able to cuddle them much and not have time to clean them and that they would suffer, our babies needed to come first. Generally we started thinking that realistically we have to be strong and now that there is the opportunity and the people who would take them are friends and not strangers etc. etc..
So we gradually came to the decision that we would give them away. Painful as it was we had to. For their sake and for our babies sake. We arranged for the adoption and set a date. The countdown started and before we knew it the day came. We agreed that we would give them away with their little house and the people that took them were great, very kind, understanding.
Now I never expected it from myself but I miss them like hell. I miss every little aspect of them being there. Their personalities, their noises at night, the 'popping' when they had hey and food, they chirping, their little button eyes. You may think I'm nuts. As for my wife I don't even know where to start. She misses them so much. Its been 3 days now since we said goodbye and we are both still missing them. Our babies are due in November and I know that once they come along we will feel better. But how can we ever forget. They were our family. Our little girls. There are no two other guinea pigs like them and there won't be. We had them from babies. And I wanted our kids to meet them. Cavvies and kids really like each other... gosh I don't know.
Forgive me for ranting. We just don't know if we've made the right decision. Did we just cop out and abandon our girls? They were there when we needed them and now we just gave them away. They brought us luck... Maybe we actually would be able to cope and we are just scared of the unknown. It feels wrong. Empty. Maybe it will pass.
I don't know anymore. Maybe we should get them back. And now if we try to get them back we will hurt the people we gave them to. They were so excited to have them.
anyhow. forgive me all for ranting so long I just wanted to share it with people who will understand as it is the kind of thing you don't understand until you experience it. Does anyone have a similar experience. did we do the right thing?
hugs
vlado
I just wanted to write about this because I am struggling with my emotions. Where do I start. My wife decided to get two little cavvies last year. After thorough research and looking around she finally found 2 babies - a black and a white girl we called them Kara and Alba. She even built them a house for our living room all nice and modern to go with our furniture. At the time I wanted to support her as I know how much she loves animals. We were also going through a rough patch in our lives and I thought they will help her. When she first got them I wasn't that interested. I liked them but I didn't really interact with them as much. As the time passed they slowly became part of our family. They developed their little personalities and I started to get more and more 'into' them. Also my wife's love for them somehow reflected on me. I hadn't experienced anything like that before as I never had pets before. I am a 33 year old man and such emotions were a bit uncommon for me. I know it may sound silly to some people but I think you guys might understand.
So, fast forward to March this year. My wife got pregnant - with twins! Wow. Won't get into that but i can say its amazing no doubt. We talked about hygiene issues and arranged that I'll clean the cage from that point. We made other arrangements. Time flew and the pregnancy progressed. Then one day a friend of ours came along and said that her sister is looking for guinea pigs to adopt and whether we thought of giving them away. At first my reaction was 'no way we are giving them away, they are part of our family'. But as time passed and we started learning more and more about babies and how we would care for them and the time and attention they would require, and the hygiene they need in the first month etc.. And we started worrying about it, and how we would not have time for our little cavvies and that we wouldn't be able to cuddle them much and not have time to clean them and that they would suffer, our babies needed to come first. Generally we started thinking that realistically we have to be strong and now that there is the opportunity and the people who would take them are friends and not strangers etc. etc..
So we gradually came to the decision that we would give them away. Painful as it was we had to. For their sake and for our babies sake. We arranged for the adoption and set a date. The countdown started and before we knew it the day came. We agreed that we would give them away with their little house and the people that took them were great, very kind, understanding.
Now I never expected it from myself but I miss them like hell. I miss every little aspect of them being there. Their personalities, their noises at night, the 'popping' when they had hey and food, they chirping, their little button eyes. You may think I'm nuts. As for my wife I don't even know where to start. She misses them so much. Its been 3 days now since we said goodbye and we are both still missing them. Our babies are due in November and I know that once they come along we will feel better. But how can we ever forget. They were our family. Our little girls. There are no two other guinea pigs like them and there won't be. We had them from babies. And I wanted our kids to meet them. Cavvies and kids really like each other... gosh I don't know.
Forgive me for ranting. We just don't know if we've made the right decision. Did we just cop out and abandon our girls? They were there when we needed them and now we just gave them away. They brought us luck... Maybe we actually would be able to cope and we are just scared of the unknown. It feels wrong. Empty. Maybe it will pass.
I don't know anymore. Maybe we should get them back. And now if we try to get them back we will hurt the people we gave them to. They were so excited to have them.
anyhow. forgive me all for ranting so long I just wanted to share it with people who will understand as it is the kind of thing you don't understand until you experience it. Does anyone have a similar experience. did we do the right thing?
hugs
vlado