My Cat Ate My Daughters Umbilical Cord
Posted by realityrounds on July 29, 2009
Not while it was still attached to her, thank God. (Because that would be really gross and creepy, unlike the TMI story I’m about to tell).
I am not a sentimental, scrap booking, volunteer for the PTA type of parent. I’m just not an artsy fartsy, or touchy-feely type o’ gal. My wedding dress is still in a plastic garbage bag hanging in my closet, and it took me 3 years after the wedding to order a wedding album. I still have not made any baby books for my two girls, who are now 5 and 4 years old.
So, flashback 5 years. I am an exhausted new mom, with a colicky newborn. My days were filled with sleep deprived all-encompassing newborn care. Nursing, crying, diapers,….repeat ad nauseam. I waited with anticipation for all the newborn milestones; coos, grasping, rolling over, cord falling off……… Hmmm, why does she still have her cord still attached? Here we are 4 weeks after birth, and my baby still has a dried up chunk of decomposing umbilical cord still attached. The “average” cord falls of by 2 weeks of life, but my daughter is above average. Her cord would not budge. I just got used to it. Didn’t think about it. Until one day, when it was gone! It just disappeared, to be replaced with a cute little belly button.
Fast forward two years after her birth. My evil little black cat is being very feisty. She is chasing and playing with what I assume to be a bug, underneath my king sized bed. She starts to pounce on this “bug” and runs around my bedroom with it in her mouth. I become curious. I grab the cat, open her mouth, and pull out………my daughter’s umbilical cord. It is dried up, brown, and still has the indentations from where the clamp was placed.
Don’t be so judgmental. There are plenty of moms out there who save their babies umbilical cords for scrapbooks, or who store their own placentas in the freezer (you know who you are). I just “accidentally” saved my daughter’s cord for over two years, and I “saved” it from being ingested by my evil cat. This is normal, right?
RR
Erin said
Ha!
My dogs ate my babies’ umbilical cord. And I’m not all that freaked out by it. By the time I realized it was on the ground, it had already been gnawed upon. Gross.
Still, props to you for admitting it on your blog! It made me feel better about the fact that, when I saw my dogs chewing on it, I just let them have it.
Jill said
Dude! I could have written this almost verbatim. I think I set my younger one’s cord stump on the dresser (rather than stick it in my pocket and take it to the trash? I don’t know), came back and it was GONE. Damn cat. I was mildly disturbed for a moment.
Seven years and stil no wedding album here. Dress in bag in rafters. Baby books… where are they? I hear you.
Julie Davis said
Um, OK. I’d suggest penning a short story right on time for Halloween & send to local media! It would be hoot story for everyone to read! Cheers, Julie
Kathy said
LOL! Oh, that is so funny!
Ditto everything else — no baby books (I did get my older son’s first 3 months in a Creative Memories album… then ran out of steam), wedding dress in plastic bag (need to sell on eBay), didn’t save the little “treasures” (umbilical cord clamp, etc.) because I don’t know what I’d do with them. I guess I’m a bad mommy.
Kim said
You’re doing better than I am. I gave my wedding dress to a friend a few months after the wedding. What can I say? She needed it and I was done using it! I also have ridiculously few pregnancy pics. I need to get a few before it’s too late. On that note, I do intend to bury the cord and placenta mostly because of my husband’s cultural traditions.
realityrounds said
Glad to know I am not alone in all this.
mamamia said
Slightly disturbing, but so what!
Started a baby book for 1st born, wrote in a few details for a month or so, took a ton of pixs. Baby #2, bought a baby book, wrote his name in it, proceded to misplace it for a year or so, and not even 1/10 of the amount of pixs taken on 2nd as were taken on 1st. A bit of guilt there, but we all will get over it.
Haven’t a clue what happened to cord #1 or #2, and won’t lose any sleep over it.
Kathy said
Oh, wanted to add — my sister (#3 of 4) regularly teases my mom about the fact that there are almost no pictures of her as a baby. There are tons of #1, lots of #2, almost none of #3, and then more with me, #4. But, in addition to being the baby and definite last one (tubal), I also had heart problems and they thought I might not survive surgery or infancy, so there was a definite impetus to take more pictures of me — to remember me by, had I died. Kinda morbid, but true. (Mom didn’t say that, but it’s fairly obvious if you put the pieces together.)
I actually have more pictures of my younger son than my older one — I was really bad about not getting the camera out too much when my older son was a baby, but then we moved closer to family and I started taking more pictures myself, plus I had siblings taking pictures of my kids too. Still, I hated to take a lot of pictures and pay for developing the inevitable closed-eyes pictures and otherwise bad ones.
Then, we got a digital camera last year, and I’ve taken literally hundreds of pictures this year — whereas before I was good to average one roll per month, including birthdays. Still no albums! But I can make an album sometime in the future.
I don’t have a “wedding album” either — but I did get a lot of wedding pictures and have *plans* for an album. I’m big on planning… not so much on follow-through.
Eileen said
Married 5+ years and still no album. Baby #1 has a photo memory book of first 6 months, baby #2, I’m working on (okay, tonight I begin). Cords?! E-gads, what happened to the cords?!
Andrea said
My dog ate my baby’s stump. I thought it was appropriate, as my dog is my “first” baby.
pinky said
That’s funny.
M'Lynn said
HAHAHA! We have a three month old kitten, and I’m due in 12 weeks. I think I’ve seen the future!
Joy said
LOL!!!!!!
Akiko said
I saved my first daughters umbilical scabby thing. I found it in he rcrib and just put it away.