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Writer's pictureRachel Berntsen

nymeria


Everyone, I apologize for the delay and I promise to resume on Wednesdays starting next week, but I wanted to wait until after yesterday to write this post because, as you can see from the picture, Peter and I have a new addition to our family! She's an 8-year-old cat we adopted yesterday afternoon from SPCA Connecticut (a no-kill shelter in Monroe), and we've named her Nymeria (Game of Thrones fans should appreciate that!).


Quick backstory: Shortly after getting married, Peter and I were discussing kids (to be expected), and we thought it'd be good practice to have a pet or two before having kids so that we could ease ourselves into parenting as best as possible (not trying to say raising a pet is the equivalent to raising a child, but it's a start). The idea was to get a cat first because cats require the least maintenance. Then we would consider getting a dog, and THEN we'd start having kids (not that all of that is going to happen in the same year, mind you). We had a contingency for adopting a cat, though, because we didn't want it to be something we just randomly decided to do. Our house was fairly messy after the wedding from leftover wedding decorations, things of Peter's that he still hadn't unpacked when he first moved in a year before we got married, and things of mine that were in boxes from my parents' house (unfortunately, I still have more coming...). So we made a deal - we said we wouldn't get a cat until we organized the first floor bedroom (which is now my office/library) and the basement. I was able to tackle the first floor bedroom on my own, after Peter put together the shelves for my books, but we kept putting off the basement because it just looked so daunting. You could hardly see the floor - that's how much stuff we had down there. Fast forward to two Mondays ago: as part of my birthday gift, Peter and a friend set up all of the shelving units we had so that we could finally organize our boxes onto the shelves and clean up the floor space. I like to say that, in essence, Nymeria was Peter's birthday gift to me. =D


Last Sunday, we went to visit SPCA because it's in the same town as our church. We hadn't really thought we'd find a cat then and there - we just thought we'd look around and see what cats they had to offer. Originally, the plan was to adopt a cat between the ages of 1 and 3. We didn't want a kitten because we didn't want to have to go through the process of training it to use the litter box and such, but we still wanted one on the younger side. The SPCA is located in a house that they renovated a bit to become a home for rescues. The cats are kept in the upstairs bedrooms and in the attic, away from the dogs. We were taken into each room, and while a few of the cats were in the age range we were looking for, they were feral, unfortunately, and the people at the shelter had yet to train them to be more sociable. Eventually, we entered a room with three cats, two of which were sisters. One was clearly the more outgoing of the two - she came right up to us and let us pet her and rubbed against our legs and such. The other sister was much more reserved. She ducked into a little cubby hole and stuck her head out and eventually let us both pet her from where she hid. Guess which one we ended up taking?


After touring the rest of the rooms, we ended up going back to the room with the two sisters and were both drawn to the shy one. We knew the outgoing one would have no problem getting adopted (she was adopted last week, in fact), and because I can definitely be shy at times, I knew I wanted to raise the shy one. At first, we weren't sure about separating the two sisters, but the shelter workers actually advised separating them because part of the reason why Nymeria is shy is because of her sister. Her sister craved attention and would sometimes bully Nymeria for it. We definitely felt for her, and we knew that it didn't matter that she wasn't as young as we had originally wanted, because she needed a home and we had one to offer her. The next day, we got in touch with the shelter and said we'd take her!

Fast forward to yesterday: We brought Nymeria home! We were advised to let her out into one room, containing a litter box plus food and water, and close the door to allow her to acclimate without being overwhelmed. We checked on her after an hour and found her hiding in the closet. We cracked the door open and left her alone. The next hour, I went and checked on her again and she was still in the closet. Peter suggested she might stay that way for the rest of the night, so we both reluctantly settled on that possibility and started watching the Super Bowl. Around 7, about two hours later, we both heard meowing coming from upstairs. Peter found her on the landing and decided to open up the door to the 2nd floor bathroom and our bedroom to give her more exploring space, and moved her food and water to the landing as well. She let him pet her as well, which was awesome progress (I stayed downstairs so we wouldn't crowd her, but I couldn't concentrate on the game because I desperately wanted to pet her too!). He came back down, and maybe a half hour later, she meowed again. Peter went back and tried to get her to come downstairs, since she clearly wanted attention, but she wasn't quite ready for that yet. At one point, though, I spotted her in the dining room! She sniffed around a little bit then darted right back upstairs lol. So when I went up a little bit later after hearing her meowing again, I spent some time with her and gave her a couple of treats (and took several pictures), and then as I walked back down the stairs, I simply gestured with my hand for her to follow me and said, "Come on" encouragingly, and she eventually followed me down and let me give her a tour of the first floor hehe. Last night was a bit rough because I decided to leave our bedroom door open in case she needed something, and she spent almost the entire night meowing because she was wide awake and wanted someone to play with her. I'm running on maybe 3 hours of sleep at the moment lol. Of course, she's super quiet now, and back in the closet where she started, taking a cat nap. I'm hoping to get in some naps throughout the day while she sleeps too. At least now I know she's not in the closet to hide.


This whole experience has been both thrilling and nerve-wracking for me, as someone who has never owned a cat before. When I was a kid, my parents offered to take care of a friend's cat for a couple of weeks, but as my dad puts it, that cat had PROBLEMS. When you think of a stereotypically mean cat, that specific cat comes to mind. I wasn't really exposed to nice cats until high school (I had a close friend with two cats and one of my dad's closest friends had several cats), and I've only recently been exposed to cats on a more regular basis (one of Peter's best friends has a cat, his second oldest brother has two cats, and my pottery instructor has two cats). I kept panicking that I wasn't prepared, despite the research that I did both online and in person with people who currently own cats, but honestly, Nymeria makes it easy because she's such a sweetheart. The upside to adopting an older cat is that while she's very shy, she's also very mellow. It'll be interesting to see how she interacts with visitors after she's gotten more comfortable with us. Definitely love being a cat mom so far. =]

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