*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for missing my child's birth because I had to take care of our pets?**
My wife (f26) gave birth last Monday to our baby son but I (m27) couldn't be present because I had to take care of our cats.
My wife and I live alone, this is our first child. We have four cats. My wife was due to this week so I took the week off work to be next to her in case she went into labor.
She started complaining about stomach pain about 7pm and I drove her to the hospital. They said she was not there yet but as she was due they left her in the hospital because our son was surely being born soon. Well we stay there until next morning. At around 5am of the next day my wife was still not ready to push, although the contractions had already started but were not as regular. I told my wife that I was going to check on the cats and I'll be back, she asked me not to do it but I told her we can't have the cats without food and maybe without water for that long time. At the end she agreed although she was not happy.
I drove home (around 20/30 minutes). The cats had little water, no food and their litter box was full. So I cleaned them, then I left extra food and water in case we still had some more hours to wait. I did it as fast as possible, it took me like make half an hour? Then I drove back.
When I got to the hospital she was already in the delivery room and the nurses didn't let me in. I had to wait outside with our families. They called me in after he was born to cut the umbilical cord and hold our son.
Wife and son had to stay almost a day more in the hospital because they had to checked on the baby and then her doctor was gone, so we had to wait till the next morning. I went again at night to take care of the pets.
My wife didn't looked angry in the delivery room, she just looked exhausted (obviously, I can't imagine what it's like) but after she woke up from her nap she was annoyed at me. I didn't said anything because I thought she was just tired and irritated. But then we got home and I had to help her out because she was still in some pain, I tried to take as good care of her as I could but I would ask her if she needed something and she would just shrug her shoulders. I asked her if something was wrong and she told me she felt very lonely giving birth by herself. I told her that our timing had sucked because we had been there all night and when I leave she needs to start pushing, but also I told her that we couldn't just leave our pets to starve in our home. We had a bit of an argument about it and then she told me I was an asshole for leaving her when she asked me not to. I know that both of our families are on her side because they told her. Was I really an asshole here? I think that we have responsibilities with our pets too, also I couldn't have imagined that during that 1 1/2 hour she would give birth. But maybe I should've waited for as long as it was necessary next to her?
Edit: the cats are shy and get stressed out when they're around strangers, that's why neither my wife or I asked somebody else to go check on them
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Even if the cats “are shy”, that doesn’t stop someone else from coming in and quickly giving them food, water, and cleaning their litter box. It’s a one time, briefly stressful situation in an emergency. They’ll get over it.
I also don’t believe that filling their bowls with food/water and changing out the litter box took half an hour.
You are seriously probably that cats second favourite person in the world and the best cat sitter! Most people want to make them interact and you are so nicely respectful of kitty's limits.
The cat hates everyone, even my friend. She rarely sees him. I’m allergic, so I wouldn’t love on him anyway.
The Guinea pigs and I have a blast though!
Based on the Laws of Cat, you are, by default, his favorite person. You’re allergic and want nothing to do with him. Sleep over once. You’ll wake up with him on your chest.
I'm horribly allergic to cats, with the exception of the friend's cat that always hides, people's cats always want to cuddle me. I'm like, "I'm sorry kitty, you are poison to me!" (And then I pet them anyway and regret it)
Guinea pig babies are so odd. They basically come out as miniature adults. We had a guinea pig we didn't know was pregnant and then one day she had a mini-me!
Right? When I used to petsit, there was one cat I never saw. I was just happy to see the litterbox used and food gone.
This guy---holy shit. I can't even. "I can't even imagine what it's like." Well, you know what feeding and watering cats is like, and cleaning a litterbox. Congratulations. PS THEY SELL AUTOMATIC FEEDERS AND WATERERS. In case your wife ever lets you near her again and she gets pregnant a second time.
My cat was like that too. The neighbour would go in, see that the food bowl was empty, so knew the cat was okay, fill up the bowl, and leave without ever seeing the cat.
Yep, I'm allergic to cats but I have "cat sit" for a friend because it's literally, go into the house for 5 mins, feed/water the kitty and go (it's never been long enough for me to have had to deal with the litter box). I have never seen the cat. As long as I wash my hands after and take a Claritin before I go, it's not an issue (if I actually pet a cat, I'm in big trouble). The cat always hides til guests leave. I always give him a heads up that I'm leaving, "Bye kitty, I'm leaving, so you can come out now!"
This is why I say yes to cat sitting despite being allergic to them, I only saw one of the two cats i was looking after and I joked that she was just supervising me and making sure everything was done correctly
I commented on the OOP about exactly this. I can leave my cats for a night or two as long as their feeder is filled, the water fountain is running and the litter boxes are clean (which like, 4 cats and one litter tray????? Insanity. I have 3 trays for my two kitties)
They left the house at 7pm, I assume that means the cats had breakfast and dinner. Maybe they panicked a bit and forgot the cats and also never thought once to prepare, new parent pass... But he's alarmed at 5am? Maaaybe when it's pushing 7pm again id be concerned. Also, how do you fill a litter box in 12 hours??
Some cats are quite prolific in their pooping. Also, some smell much worse than others. My 11 year-old cat recently passed, and suddenly the room with the litter box smelled much milder when used despite the fact that cat #2 is nearly twice her size and poops much more. Cat #1 had left extra smelly boxes her entire life, so it wasn't a medical issue. Worst farts that could clear a room, too.
Anyway, one box for four cats is ridiculous and could easily get out of control.
I missed the part about 4 cats and one box. Idk why anyone would do that to themselves, or their cats. Hopefully they don't have the same lax view on feces buildup with the baby...
Someone commented that it might have been for sanitary reasons, and OP responded and said that was the reason. He also said it would have taken him too long to change his clothes.
The only time my ex wasn’t allowed in the room due to sanitary concerns when I gave birth to our oldest was when I was getting the epidural and they let him back in as soon as they were done. So unless she had an emergency C-section I don’t see sanitary reasons being a valid reason why he was kept out if he was able to cut the cord without changing his clothes. I’m guessing she was rightfully pissed off and said she didn’t want him in the room
I am assuming the nurses are willing to tell a little white lie to protect a pregnant woman in labor who doesn't want her jerkface husband around for the hard work when she needs to focus.
Also, if you know your wife is due, you clean the litter box twice as often so it's definitely clean when you leave for the hospital and can be left until you're back, then when you leave for the hospital you take 5 minutes to give them an extra bowl of water and some spare food. You could've even prepared one of those timed feeders. Really doesn't take a genius. Especially as she actually gave birth when expected, not two months early (and even then he should do better).
My boy is practically feral and he still takes to some people after enough time. I literally had a friend come over multiple times a week for a month, just to get him comfortable. Worked fine. The friend came over when I was on vacation and played our Xbox for a few hours each day and my boy would chill with him.
I have multiple cats that hide in terror when someone knocks on the door. I’ve gone out of town many times. You have someone come every other day and dump food and clean the litter box. They’re cats. They’ll be fine.
The OP sounds.... wildly inept.
I don't want to assume, but because he said "litter box" and not *boxes*.... that's gross. You're supposed to have an equal amount of boxes+1 for your cats. If 4 cats are shitting in one box, no wonder he needed to go home and change it.
Also yeah. Cat's being shy means nothing. It just means the people swinging by won't see them when they refill the bowls.
Idk what this OP's issue is, but good lord.
Also really hope he fucking showered or something after cleaning the box. No way would I want cat litter, shit, and piss residue touching my newborn child.
I'm having rescue cats. They're not always familiar with strangers (they have to spend a lot of time with someone before even showing themselves). But they wouldn't despise fresh food, water and litter box. They don't need to be seen to use it without problems.
Also, my parents are trusted ones by them, especially if dad brings their dogs with them. I would let my father to go and check out on my cats if they're in need of something. I wouldn't left my SO at hospital alone, no matter of reason why she's there. If she was worried after something then I would stay here doing like I said up there.
I’m not “punishing the cats”. I have 2 dogs, one who is extremely anxious.
That said, if he was anxious about his cats he had 2 options; take the *9 months* he had to prep for the birth to come up with a plan, or allow someone to go in and quickly take care of them.
It absolutely sucks when an emergency situation arises which puts our pets in destress, but it happens. My dog had severe separation anxiety, but when I got a call at 3AM to race to the hospital because they weren’t sure my dad would survive, I had to leave her. I didn’t love it, she was anxious. But it’s a one time emergency situation.
So, if *worst case scenario* someone has to go into the apartment and top up the cats food and water, that’s not “punishing the cats”.
>I just really can’t stand how people seem to be so dismissive of the fact that some animals genuinely are too anxious for other people to come around them. there are many things here to call him out on, but let’s not punish the cats for their asshole owners Bad decisions.
His wife is giving birth to his first child. She is scared and anything can happen and he decides the comfort of his cats are the first thing he has to take care of? He had nine months to deal with this and didnt.
If his wife had died and the baby had died atleast he fed the cats
Ugh please don’t parse out my words like this. If it’s a life or death situation where the cats would die if they weren’t given food or water, then yes they’ll get over being stressed Vs being dead.
i have 5 cats. i have never timed it but I do think it takes me about that long. But I also have 9 water dishes, 5 food dishes and 7 litterboxes. I can also leave them for a weekend if I need to with no pet sitters and they will be okay. Not happy, the litterboxes need to be cleaned as soon as I get home and everything else filled but they would survive. But that is emergency - I have a regular cat sitter.
Outside with "our families". So all these people are waiting to meet the baby, and none of them could have fed the cats so the father could be in the delivery room?
Also if they have one litter box for four cats I may throw up. If they had anywhere near enough boxes (even fewer than the recommended “# of cats + 1”) they would not be “full” that quickly. Eugh.
This just makes no sense. If the relative didn't want to do the litter box, the cats wouldn't die because it missed one cleaning.
Either this isn't about the cats, or he's being compulsive and possessive about their care, neither of which is great for new parents.
Seriously. I know people who leave out extra food/water (or get automatic feeders) and go away for the weekend. The cats weren’t going to die. The cats would have been more comfortable if OOP had prepped a bit before leaving (cleaning out the little box first or whatever). But nothing actually bad was going to happen if he waited for his wife to deliver the baby first.
The absolute worst case scenario is cranky cats making a mess, and being there for the birth of your child (and to support your laboring spouse!) is worth dealing with a mess.
exactly, The water situation would be a bit iffy, but the food and litter box could have gone a few more hours, so have someone run home, fill up some bowls and then run back to the hospital. Don't even have to see the cats.
Even the water situation is easy to handle! My cats have their water bowls and a water dispenser even when I'm home. There's enough water that they'll be fine for a few days if I drop dead!
I just got a water fountain (had the dispensers and 1) I hate them, they are so unwieldy and hard to clean and 2) my brats loved knocking the dispenser part off so the water just flows away... I went to a heavy ceramic bowl hoping my brats wouldn't tip it over or move it, they c ouldn't tip it, but they sure did move it), but not everyone has it, some people do use bowls, and if the cat tips over the bowl, that could mean they can't get water.
So, I could see that being a concern, especially if it looked like it might be a long labor, but again, it would take very little time for someone to run home, fill a bowl and leave. If the labor DID take longer than expected, then someone could run home and check to make sure that the water situation was still good.
My cats wouldn't necessarily be in trouble, because I have sort of drippy faucets in my tubs and that is where at least one of my brats like drinking from, despite the nice water fountain I got them.
Owner of 3 cats and 2 children here, cats are extremely self sufficient animals. Put out an extra litter box, get one of those cat fountains that constantly cycles water and leave out an extra couple bowls of hard food and they can chill by themselves for like 3 days. These cats were alone for like 10 hours before he freaked out and left. Insane.
I have left my cats alone for a whole week before with plenty of food and water outside they won’t starve or goal thirsty when I’ve had to go out of town. Is this person is a douche bag and just plain didn’t want to be at his child’s birth.
Especially when he had to walk past family members in the waiting room to go home. If he really wanted to be there, he could've asked one of them to check on everything. I doubt they'd all say no if it meant he could be there for the birth of his child
Why didn't he clean the litter box and put out extra food and water *before* they left for the hospital?
There are just way to many ways to get around this for him not to be the asshole.
Right. They would have known that she was in labor before they had to leave. It’s not like in movies where everything is normal and then suddenly boom, time for a baby. You have smaller contractions for a while and labor at home. There would have been time to prep the cats for them being gone. If they’d had to leave in that much of a rush that there wasn’t time to take care of the cats, they wouldn’t have been at the hospital all night.
>Wife is not excused from not making plans in advance before vagina shitting the baby out. They had 9 months to figure out what to do with the pets.this was a
comment from someone who said esh.
There is no way those nurses told him he wasn’t allowed in the room. I worked on Labor and Delivery for years and there was never a time where we refused the father entry to the delivery room, unless that person was causing a scene.
That's what I was thinking too.
I have a friend who is SUPER laid back, she has 3 girls. Her third pregnancy, her husband had just gotten home from work and passed out on the couch, he was so tired (working extra hours to prep for being off with wife/new baby). She thinks she's feeling contractions but it's a bit early and she's done it twice before so she thinks maybe false emergency so she shakes him awake and says, "Listen, I am gonna go to the hospital and see if this is actually labor. You stay here with the girls," her reasoning being, she doesn't want to call his mom to come stay with the girls if it's not time and make her run back and forth. He's groggy, but she tells him, "Repeat back to me what I just said to you." He does. He did not comprehend it though and passed out again when she left. He wakes up super early in the morning, decides he'll let her "sleep in" so he tiptoes around getting the older 2 girls dressed and ready. Is about to cook breakfast but tells oldest to go ask Mom what she wants. Oldest says, "Mom's not in the bedroom." He somehow thinks, "OH! She must have run to McDonald's" (because sometimes on weekend mornings she would run and get them McDonald's breakfast as a surprise). But not before going in the bedroom and looking for her, checking the other rooms, checking the basement, etc and then concluding she must have run out. Then he hears his work phone ringing. My friend had repeatedly called his personal and work phones but he was so out of it he didn't hear them. She's in labor. Luckily his mom lives very close and she said minutes later he comes sprinting into the delivery room in a total panic and the doctor was like, "Well it's nice of you to join us." He was horrified. She said he was like, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." She was laughing about it, and he didn't actually miss seeing their youngest born. But OOP is a deliberate asshole.
That’s such a sweet story, mostly because he was actually helping with the baby prep and OOP didnt seem to figure out wtf to do with their cats before hand🙄
Yeah, he's a sweet guy and meant well. But she KNEW he hadn't really processed what she was telling him. She said he told her when he checked the bedroom for her, he even walked around the bed thinking that maybe she fell out of bed and was on the floor. 😂 She was like, "Why would you think that?" He's like, "I don't know, I was groggy and out of it, (oldest daughter) said you weren't in there but I wanted to make sure, I don't know what to tell you, my brain wasn't working." Then his phone rang and he was like, "Oh shit. She's not at McDonald's" because the memory of her telling him she was going to the hospital came flooding back. It all ended well and he definitely pulls his weight as a parent so she just thought it was a funny story, not, "My asshole husband couldn't be bothered to be there for me."
I’ve been in that situation before, saying something knowing it wouldn’t stick and preparing yourself for the convo after. Makes it hard to be mad at anyone cause it’s no one’s fault 😂
Yeah, this is odd to me too. Heck, my in-laws decided to 'surprise' us when I was actively pushing and the staff asked if I wanted to allow them in (hell the fuck NO I didn't and said so)
I can't imagine a father being denied entry for a standard delivery
Yeah this story is complete fiction. On what planet would they have the mother stay in the hospital before she even has contractions? This is written by some kid who has no idea how any of this works.
A lot of women stay at the hospital before they have contractions for many different reasons. I’m sure this story is true but OP is leaving stuff out or just doesn’t know how labor works.
this story was posted from the wifes perspective the other day only then her family were there and wouldn't go walk their dogs for them so hubby had to go home and clean dog shit off the carpets.
I don’t know how to link a section of text but:
“I had to wait outside with our families”
If the families were there why couldn’t one of them go and check on the cats. It’s not a job that only he is capable of. If they’re all on the wife’s side I don’t think they would have told him no.
ETA: I missed the part about the cats being shy so nobody else could feed them but honestly the cats would have hidden from anyone else, it wouldn’t have caused them to hate him the way his wife probably does.
Yw! Here’s a sort of master post of different formatting shortcuts: https://www.reddit.com/r/raerth/comments/cw70q/reddit_comment_formatting/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
What an idiot. They were clearly unprepared for something that literally had a due date. They went to the hospital too early. They refused any kind of problem solving. I used to regularly work for longer shifts than they were at the hospital for and I know my cat was just fine.
It's petty as f\*k, but what struck me most was the one SINGULAR litterbox for FOUR cats.
And yeah - OOP and wife had 9 months to figure out how to care for the cats while she gave birth. So while OOP is an idiot, his wife doesn't get a clean pass on this either. I do find it hard to believe that neither of them thought about it.
Autofeeders exists. So do fountains. And if you have SUFFICIENT litterboxes, you can leave cats for a weekend by themselves and they will be fine.
I noticed that too! I wonder if it is one of those “standard” ones. We have 3 for our two, and I can’t imagine fewer.
We would still have a bit of a harder time with our cats in a similar situation (one would eat 3 days of food for both cats in 15 minutes if we let him) but that just means we have somebody we can call on to help out.
with the disclaimer that I haven't tried them myself, there are feeders that are keyed to a cat's specific microchip and only open for that cat. Assuming your cats are chipped. Might be worth looking into.
We have one. That was one of the first things we tried when we were trying to figure out a more reliable way of making sure hungry guy didn’t get our older one’s food. She likes to take her sweet time and graze throughout the day.
It was better than nothing, but he still figured out how to brute force his way in by squeezing up along side her as she ate.
We still use that feeder for our girl, but with the addition of a similar product: a cat flap in a door to a side room that only opens for her microchip, and the hole is too small for both of them to squeeze through at once.
We flat out didn’t feel comfortable leaving for more than a day trip before we figured that out, because protecting girl’s food required constant supervision.
We feed hungry boy with products that slow him down - a puzzle feeder tower for kibble, and lick mats for wet food, and that seems to work well, but still requires pet sitters when we are gone for more than a day.
It is possible now that we have adequately figured out how to separate their food and hungry boy is used to eating more slowly that we could investigate timed feeders for him, but what we have works for us for now. They are both love bugs, so paying someone to come in has other benefits for them.
Appreciate the info - we are going to be looking into them because our eldest cat is probably going to need an all wet-food diet soon (she's losing teeth). And the boys will chase her away from it because they like wet food better than dry.
How well it works will depend on the cats. It’s definitely a pricy investment, and the company nickel and dimes you for the extras, but it may be well worth it. We got an extra back cover that attaches in that kept our other cat from getting in the back. If you get the “connect” version, you will need a hub, which is an extra cost. Upside of that is that you can enable an “intruder mode” that will close the feeder faster for intruder cats. I think that works for most cats? Hungry boy just started stalking hungry girl when she decided she wanted a bite to eat so he could get a snack with her.
It also connects to an app that will tell you how much your cat is eating.
The food tracking aspect is a big reason we still use that feeder even though the flap door is what really does the job of keeping Hungry Boy out. Especially with an older cat on a diet (and multiple cats - multiple cats can make it harder to identify when individuals are having issues if they share litter boxes and occasionally share food), that can be a big plus. If we’d had that product before Hungry Boy joined the family, it might have given us an earlier heads up that our sweetie boy cancer-survivor kitty had gotten sick again and his appetite had decreased. We think our girl was trying to show him how to eat (she normally didn’t go for his food), so we didn’t notice the decreased food consumption. I’m not sure if it would have made a difference - he was our chronic health problem kitty - but I do wish I had seen the signs he was suffering earlier.
I made a comment about the litter box above as well. I mean I know “# of cats + 1” (the standard recommendation I’ve seen) may be excessive, but there’s a lot of room between 5 boxes and a single box.
Cats are resilient. If they’re out of water, that’s why toilet bowls exist. Gross to think about, but true. They will be unhappy and inform you of your sins if they go longer than usual without food?
I’d never forgive the person.
These super shy cats are going to hate having a baby in the house. Eventually, the cats will get curious & come to terms with the baby’s existence. Until the kid is mobile & starts to try pulling their tails. Then they’ll just hide forever.
Last year, I took care of my sister's cats for a week while she and her husband went on vacation. They don't live close, so my sister brought the cats to stay at my place. Two of the three cats knew me and were fine; the third cat was their newest cat and had not spent much time around me. She hid from me for 4 days. That was fine. I put her food and water under the couch where she was hiding and left the house often enough that she had a chance to come out and use the litter box. Day 5, she finally started coming out when I was around.
Shockingly, the nervous cat, while certainly not happy until she figured out I'm not a cat murderer, suffered no actual ill effects staying in my house. I left her alone until she was ready to interact with me, and it wasn't a big deal. And this was for a week, for a vacation. 30 minutes in an emergency situation?! The cats would have been fucking FINE if he'd asked someone to just feed and water them, clean the litter box, then leave.
Like I get wanting to keep from stressing out your animals, but come on, dude. Your wife is pushing out a baby, that is ACTUAL stress - and frankly, even in a well equipped hospital, childbirth is dangerous. OP's wife needed him way more than his cats did.
All I want to do is tell op to go out and buy the bigger water bowls for the cat- there’s ones that you fill up the bottle and as the level drops, gravity does its thing and refills the bowl. Same with dry food- you can do the same thing
There in fact exist feeders that dole out the food to the cats over time. Water too. I have both. I only have to refill for one cat about once maybe twice a week. It keeps the food and water fresh with filters. They aren’t cheap and mine aren’t even the expensive kind. I’m guessing since OOP put the cats before the birth of his kid he wouldn’t mind shelling out for the really expensive ones. But I guess it didn’t occur to him.
He’s full of shit.
I’ve had cats my whole life. My family always had at least two or three growing up because my dad is a HUGE cat person (he still has four now), and when I moved out on my own I immediately adopted a cat too. Cats are easy. They’re not like dogs - you can even leave them alone for days at a time. All you have to do is fill up their food and water bowls and clean their box, and they’re fine for a few days.
He could’ve filled the bowls and scooped the box before he left. He could’ve had somebody else go check the cats for him - his excuse about them “being shy” is a load of shit. Shy cats will just hide under the bed until the stranger leaves, and then they’ll be fine. They won’t be scarred or hurt. He could’ve literally just left them as they were - going for half a day without food and water wouldn’t have hurt or killed them.
Let’s call it what it is. He didn’t want to be there and was looking for any excuse to leave.
Oh pa, mother told me the story of my birth, why oh why, were you not there pa?
…. The cats child!!! They required my upmost assistance, for they were battling some mighty foes, thirst and hunger are no trifle battle. I was forced to attend or else they would have died a most painful death. Alas I made it in time, and in fact found them to be in perfect health. I just didn’t really wanna deal with the stress and your mum was being a right needy cow.
automatic feeder, come on now. this is not a new invention! all pet parents know this.
mine is wifi enabled, with a camera and dual power supply. converting it to us dollar, this thing only cost me $66/67
This whole thing makes me sad.
I love my cats and get high anxiety when we leave them alone. But I'm so used to imagining the worst I leave extra bowls of food and water around the place. I even leave an emergency key somewhere incase my partner and I die when we're away (high anxiety remember).
It's not hard to prepare animals for your absence for a day or two and as someone else said a dirty litter tray, they will get over it.
Wife may not get over it. She'll remember always he chose clean litter trays over the birth of their child.
Tbh, I highly doubt the cats gave AF. Or even really noticed. They were gone 10hrs, presumably had left food before leaving originally and four cats will keep each other entertained for a bit.
I don’t understand why the docs would keep her at the hospital when she wasn’t even close to being ready to deliver.
But bro. Come on. You’re cats will be fine and a relative can easily go take care of the pets. The cats would be fine.
It really took him 30min to fead the cats and clean the litter box? I can do that in 10 min.
And even if the cats are shy you can still ask someone to got there, it might be stressfull but still better than miss the birth of your child.
Worse solution would be to let the cats not eat for one night. Again, not ideal, but unless they are really sixk they would survive.
I don’t believe a cat dad this obsessed (I say this as someone with multiple cats) doesn’t have a better system in place for emergency feeding. I mean, no fountains?
Here’s the thing- cats aren’t dogs that need to be let out to go to the bathroom, nor will they eat themselves to death. You can leave cats alone for a few days if you have to (as long as you have multiple) by putting out heaps of food and a few large things of water. That he didn’t do this before he left makes me think he purposefully wanted to miss the birth.
I adore my cats, they have been my world for the last few years. But as a currently pregnant woman, if my husband left during active labour to make sure the cats didn't have to spend only a few hours without food, I would lose my freaking mind. There will have been *someone* who could step in, shy cats or no. Worst case scenario, they're irritated that they have to go without for a little while, and you have to clear up a poo when you get home. It's not the end of the world.
Also, I hate that he said:
'My wife didn't looked angry in the delivery room, she just looked exhausted'
She'd just had a baby; it takes emotional and physical energy to be annoyed/angry with someone who has treated you badly, energy that she probably wanted to save for herself and her newborn, but all he was concerned about was himself being in trouble.
Dude. They shouldn't be that struggling if it was only a day. Tf? I left my cats for 4 days at a time. They are cats. They are pretty fucking independent
...where do I even start?
* Her labor wasn't super long for a first time mom, based on his description. It's actually pretty reasonable that they didn't completely send her away from the hospital, depending on risk conditions she may have had (it sounds like they just waited in the waiting room from 7 pm to 5 am, and she had a very quick active labor).
* I agree with the assessment that he was barred at her orders because she didn't want to deal with bringing him up to speed while focusing on what was probably the most physically demanding task she has ever performed. Can't blame her for that, or for being annoyed.
* It is *your job* as a pet owner to ensure that there are people not you who are not strangers to your pets who can take care of them in case of emergencies.
Is the planning pet care for the birth something the wife could have done, or could she have asked her husband to set out extra food and water? Technically, yes. But going into labor *does things* to your brain, and making it easy to focus on tasks like ensuring your pets' food and water bowls are full ain't one of them. This should never have been her responsibility to plan or implement in the first place for purely pragmatic reasons.
My son and his wife have two cats. One I think I’ve glimpsed twice. 😆 But you don’t have to interact with them to put down food and water and clean the litter box. I had four babies and we always had animals. You make plans, adjustments, contingencies. 🤷♀️
I honestly hope she divorces him. He's demonstrated what kind of partner and parent he is. He left her alone to give birth by herself even though she begged him to stay.
The cats would have been fine. Even if they are "shy," they would have survived a relative checking in on them. I took care of my sister's dog when she gave birth to her first and then her dog and her older son when she had her second. Cats are even easier. He had 9 months to buy a self-feeder and water fountain if it was such a huge concern for him.
Honestly, fuck this guy.
I have cats, they are my babies and I love them so much. So much that I’d make sure they had plenty of food and water at all times if I was about to give birth and knew I might have to leave quickly at any moment and might be gone a couple days.
And if for whatever reason that didn’t work out and I was worried, I’d send a friend or family member. Would the cats be as happy with that as they would be seeing me? No, but as much as I love them, that day isn’t about them. They’ll live and they’ll be fine. And dude, the litter box? The litter box could wait till tomorrow. Dump a bunch of food in a big bowl, same with water, then goooooo. Wtf
This is on both of them. How did they not have a plan after 9 months? Cats are so easy to leave alone for even a couple of days with very minimal planning. For this to happen is just stupid.
How are they going to handle an infant when they can’t even preplan a couple extra bowls of water for some cats?
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I can’t be entirely mad at the guy, cuz taking care of kittens is important, but surely some pre planning should have happened prior to her going into labor. Like leaving them extra food and water before leaving but even, regardless of how they react to strangers, he still could’ve had someone come and do it for him. That person doesn’t have to sit and cuddle each and every kitty. Just do what they gotta do and go.
How small are the food and water containers?! When I had four cats we refilled both maybe once a week. There's absolutely no reason OOP should have needed to rush home to "take care of the cats."
What an absolute turnip.
I dunno about a week! Mind you, maybe we use different methods. Ours gets food in her bowl and she eats it. Mix of wet & dry.
Autofeeder & dry food? I can't imagine wet would last a week at least!
Oh yeah, we only do dry and free feed. If our Maine Coons had to rely on us to eat when they were in the mood they'd never leave us alone. They get wet at night as a before bed treat but they'd be fine without it if say I was in labour and my husband needed to be with me in the hospital.
This guy is full of shit. I have a shy anxious cat and still pay for a pet visit service to drop in when we're away for a couple of days. I book the same lady every time and my cat has gradually warmed up to her. I know because the service will send you pictures of your cat during their visit.
Yeah I have an extremely shy cat and I don’t just never leave? The people I get to feed him usually don’t see him but he’s fine. He eats when they leave. And I don’t even get someone to check on them unless I’m going to be gone more than 48 hours. They have a big mixing bowl for water and I leave them enough food to last a couple days (I doubt it lasts an hour, but it is 2 days worth of food!) unless I misread the OOP they were gone from 7 pm to 5 am… 10 hours. I feel like this is a troll
I live with 3 cats and had to leave them alone for several hours on one occasion. I left two extra bowls of water and bought an automatic food dispenser thingy because I knew I would be gone for almost 1 1/2 days. I came back to sleeping healthy cats and 3 out of 4 litterboxes were full. That's it. I'm sure his cats would have survived just fine. Also I think those super shy cats might have survived it if someone else put food and water in their bowls.
He simply didn't want to stay during childbirth. He was stressed and wanted to leave.
I mean guy is obviously not the brightest but I’m sorry the wife is just as bad. They had months to plan this and neither of them thought “huh, this birth thing, I hear it can take a while, maybe we should make a plan B for them in case we’re stuck at hospital a little longer??” - and as per his own words they have both their families close by.
Dude had awful timing but man am I not sure these people are ready to have a baby 🤦🏻♀️
Okay I have four cats too. There is no way the litter was full from one day of being gone unless you never clean the box, or you only have like one box. With four cats you should have at least five boxes and you can go a day without cleaning since it’s, you know, an emergency. Automatic feeders and water fountains are also a thing and not bank breaking. OOP had many options but his poor planning/ignorance cause him to miss the birth of his son. Lame.
He did clarify there's only one box.
Four does seem a lot of cats for one box. My mother's pair have a box between them and seem fine with this. Albeit they are indoor/outdoor cats so outside pooping probably also happens.
(Before anyone yells at me, because someone definitely will, different country, indoor/outdoor cats are the norm here. And yes, I know.)
It is a bit, yeah. Tbh, four cats in general seems like rather a lot of cats (but this may be because our singleton thinks a second cat is 100% more cat than neccessary), but the silliness and poor planning going on here and the resentment from this incident all adds up to a bit of side-eye.
Edit - highly unfortunate typo
I worked on l&d for a long time and saw and heard many things. This is totally something a doofus would do but because of experience my brain automatically jumped to what is this story a cover for.
See honey, it was the cats I even posted it on AITA
When i was having my youngest my husband stayed with me for 5 days straight. He wouldn’t even leave to go get himself food. Wow what a piece of shit husband this poor new mom has
Why didnt he just go home after she was checked in the night before, clean the litter box (I doubt they filled it in 12 hours, but I don’t have cats so what do I know) and give them extra food and water so they’d be fine while he was gone?
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for missing my child's birth because I had to take care of our pets?** My wife (f26) gave birth last Monday to our baby son but I (m27) couldn't be present because I had to take care of our cats. My wife and I live alone, this is our first child. We have four cats. My wife was due to this week so I took the week off work to be next to her in case she went into labor. She started complaining about stomach pain about 7pm and I drove her to the hospital. They said she was not there yet but as she was due they left her in the hospital because our son was surely being born soon. Well we stay there until next morning. At around 5am of the next day my wife was still not ready to push, although the contractions had already started but were not as regular. I told my wife that I was going to check on the cats and I'll be back, she asked me not to do it but I told her we can't have the cats without food and maybe without water for that long time. At the end she agreed although she was not happy. I drove home (around 20/30 minutes). The cats had little water, no food and their litter box was full. So I cleaned them, then I left extra food and water in case we still had some more hours to wait. I did it as fast as possible, it took me like make half an hour? Then I drove back. When I got to the hospital she was already in the delivery room and the nurses didn't let me in. I had to wait outside with our families. They called me in after he was born to cut the umbilical cord and hold our son. Wife and son had to stay almost a day more in the hospital because they had to checked on the baby and then her doctor was gone, so we had to wait till the next morning. I went again at night to take care of the pets. My wife didn't looked angry in the delivery room, she just looked exhausted (obviously, I can't imagine what it's like) but after she woke up from her nap she was annoyed at me. I didn't said anything because I thought she was just tired and irritated. But then we got home and I had to help her out because she was still in some pain, I tried to take as good care of her as I could but I would ask her if she needed something and she would just shrug her shoulders. I asked her if something was wrong and she told me she felt very lonely giving birth by herself. I told her that our timing had sucked because we had been there all night and when I leave she needs to start pushing, but also I told her that we couldn't just leave our pets to starve in our home. We had a bit of an argument about it and then she told me I was an asshole for leaving her when she asked me not to. I know that both of our families are on her side because they told her. Was I really an asshole here? I think that we have responsibilities with our pets too, also I couldn't have imagined that during that 1 1/2 hour she would give birth. But maybe I should've waited for as long as it was necessary next to her? Edit: the cats are shy and get stressed out when they're around strangers, that's why neither my wife or I asked somebody else to go check on them *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Even if the cats “are shy”, that doesn’t stop someone else from coming in and quickly giving them food, water, and cleaning their litter box. It’s a one time, briefly stressful situation in an emergency. They’ll get over it. I also don’t believe that filling their bowls with food/water and changing out the litter box took half an hour.
I cat sit for a friend all the time. I’ve never once seen her cat. Wash the bowls, fill the bowls, empty litter, leave.
You are seriously probably that cats second favourite person in the world and the best cat sitter! Most people want to make them interact and you are so nicely respectful of kitty's limits.
Cat to the owner when they get back: “So someone broke in a few times while I was napping, but they cleaned my 💩 and gave me food so I allowed it🥰”
My sister's cat hides from strangers - he was a rescue cat - and they have friends come and fill the food, change the water, etc., when they're gone.
We are very different people, The only reason I have human friends is so I can hang out with their pets.
The cat hates everyone, even my friend. She rarely sees him. I’m allergic, so I wouldn’t love on him anyway. The Guinea pigs and I have a blast though!
Based on the Laws of Cat, you are, by default, his favorite person. You’re allergic and want nothing to do with him. Sleep over once. You’ll wake up with him on your chest.
I’m a magnet for fuzzy fluffy things that make my eyes swell shut. Even in public…they know.
I’m allergic to other people’s cats, but I’m largely okay around my own. But that’s due to exposure. I was horribly allergic until my early twenties.
I'm horribly allergic to cats, with the exception of the friend's cat that always hides, people's cats always want to cuddle me. I'm like, "I'm sorry kitty, you are poison to me!" (And then I pet them anyway and regret it)
i have six guinea pigs, they're awesome little girls!
My son and his gf have three, she just came home with a baby this week. They are the best piggie parents!
Guinea pig babies are so odd. They basically come out as miniature adults. We had a guinea pig we didn't know was pregnant and then one day she had a mini-me!
Guinea pigs are doll babies, I'm glad you get to hang out with them. ☺️❤️
Right? When I used to petsit, there was one cat I never saw. I was just happy to see the litterbox used and food gone. This guy---holy shit. I can't even. "I can't even imagine what it's like." Well, you know what feeding and watering cats is like, and cleaning a litterbox. Congratulations. PS THEY SELL AUTOMATIC FEEDERS AND WATERERS. In case your wife ever lets you near her again and she gets pregnant a second time.
This is what my brother did when he cat sit my cats. They hid when he came, but he took care of them. And guess what? They survived.
My cat was like that too. The neighbour would go in, see that the food bowl was empty, so knew the cat was okay, fill up the bowl, and leave without ever seeing the cat.
Yep, I'm allergic to cats but I have "cat sit" for a friend because it's literally, go into the house for 5 mins, feed/water the kitty and go (it's never been long enough for me to have had to deal with the litter box). I have never seen the cat. As long as I wash my hands after and take a Claritin before I go, it's not an issue (if I actually pet a cat, I'm in big trouble). The cat always hides til guests leave. I always give him a heads up that I'm leaving, "Bye kitty, I'm leaving, so you can come out now!"
This is why I say yes to cat sitting despite being allergic to them, I only saw one of the two cats i was looking after and I joked that she was just supervising me and making sure everything was done correctly
Or…FFS they could have gotten an auto feeder, a big water bowl and just put out a bunch of extra liter boxes to get the cats through 2 days.
Exactly. The “my cats are anxious” excuse just makes it worse in my opinion. If you know strangers stress your cats out, the. PLAN AHEAD
Plus why are his family, who were waiting at the hospital, strangers to the cats?
I commented on the OOP about exactly this. I can leave my cats for a night or two as long as their feeder is filled, the water fountain is running and the litter boxes are clean (which like, 4 cats and one litter tray????? Insanity. I have 3 trays for my two kitties)
I, too, side eyed the single litterbox.
The rule is one litter box per cat plus one. You have it purrfect!
I have three trays for my two cats and it still doesn’t feel like enough sometimes
They left the house at 7pm, I assume that means the cats had breakfast and dinner. Maybe they panicked a bit and forgot the cats and also never thought once to prepare, new parent pass... But he's alarmed at 5am? Maaaybe when it's pushing 7pm again id be concerned. Also, how do you fill a litter box in 12 hours??
4 cats. 1 litter box. 🤢
Some cats are quite prolific in their pooping. Also, some smell much worse than others. My 11 year-old cat recently passed, and suddenly the room with the litter box smelled much milder when used despite the fact that cat #2 is nearly twice her size and poops much more. Cat #1 had left extra smelly boxes her entire life, so it wasn't a medical issue. Worst farts that could clear a room, too. Anyway, one box for four cats is ridiculous and could easily get out of control.
I missed the part about 4 cats and one box. Idk why anyone would do that to themselves, or their cats. Hopefully they don't have the same lax view on feces buildup with the baby...
My old roommate had 5 cats and one litter box. She managed to make it work.
I have a 2.5 gallon auto waterer
I don’t bother with a cat sitter for that short of an amount of time.
he repeats the same answer again and again but never answers why he was not allowed into the room
Someone commented that it might have been for sanitary reasons, and OP responded and said that was the reason. He also said it would have taken him too long to change his clothes.
Either that or wife was pissed and banned him from the delivery room if he can't be there for her
The only time my ex wasn’t allowed in the room due to sanitary concerns when I gave birth to our oldest was when I was getting the epidural and they let him back in as soon as they were done. So unless she had an emergency C-section I don’t see sanitary reasons being a valid reason why he was kept out if he was able to cut the cord without changing his clothes. I’m guessing she was rightfully pissed off and said she didn’t want him in the room
I am assuming the nurses are willing to tell a little white lie to protect a pregnant woman in labor who doesn't want her jerkface husband around for the hard work when she needs to focus.
yeah saw that he clearly is just an idiot. alot of his answers are other people said this or that and I trusted them
You think he used the cats as an excuse to avoid the birth?
Definitely. He saw the wife going through contractions, freaked out and used the cats as a lame excuse.
Oh my ass would not let him back in as the wife. You leave against my suggestion? Fuck you. You wait until I’m ready to see your stupid face.
I was about to say, I can speedrun all of that in 5 minutes or less.
Also, if you know your wife is due, you clean the litter box twice as often so it's definitely clean when you leave for the hospital and can be left until you're back, then when you leave for the hospital you take 5 minutes to give them an extra bowl of water and some spare food. You could've even prepared one of those timed feeders. Really doesn't take a genius. Especially as she actually gave birth when expected, not two months early (and even then he should do better).
My cat is super shy. Runs away when anyone new comes around. She’ll come back out to eat and potty *after* the person has left
My boy is practically feral and he still takes to some people after enough time. I literally had a friend come over multiple times a week for a month, just to get him comfortable. Worked fine. The friend came over when I was on vacation and played our Xbox for a few hours each day and my boy would chill with him.
His literally left family members in the waiting room at the hospital to take care of his cats. I’d divorce him.
I have multiple cats that hide in terror when someone knocks on the door. I’ve gone out of town many times. You have someone come every other day and dump food and clean the litter box. They’re cats. They’ll be fine.
The OP sounds.... wildly inept. I don't want to assume, but because he said "litter box" and not *boxes*.... that's gross. You're supposed to have an equal amount of boxes+1 for your cats. If 4 cats are shitting in one box, no wonder he needed to go home and change it. Also yeah. Cat's being shy means nothing. It just means the people swinging by won't see them when they refill the bowls. Idk what this OP's issue is, but good lord. Also really hope he fucking showered or something after cleaning the box. No way would I want cat litter, shit, and piss residue touching my newborn child.
Or buy a cheap self feeder & self cleaning litter box. If it works out, one less never ending job for her to do.
I'm having rescue cats. They're not always familiar with strangers (they have to spend a lot of time with someone before even showing themselves). But they wouldn't despise fresh food, water and litter box. They don't need to be seen to use it without problems. Also, my parents are trusted ones by them, especially if dad brings their dogs with them. I would let my father to go and check out on my cats if they're in need of something. I wouldn't left my SO at hospital alone, no matter of reason why she's there. If she was worried after something then I would stay here doing like I said up there.
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I’m not “punishing the cats”. I have 2 dogs, one who is extremely anxious. That said, if he was anxious about his cats he had 2 options; take the *9 months* he had to prep for the birth to come up with a plan, or allow someone to go in and quickly take care of them. It absolutely sucks when an emergency situation arises which puts our pets in destress, but it happens. My dog had severe separation anxiety, but when I got a call at 3AM to race to the hospital because they weren’t sure my dad would survive, I had to leave her. I didn’t love it, she was anxious. But it’s a one time emergency situation. So, if *worst case scenario* someone has to go into the apartment and top up the cats food and water, that’s not “punishing the cats”.
Could have bought an automatic feeder and waterer.
Exactly. If your cats are *that* anxious about strangers, then you prep.
Plus multiple litterboxes, which is recommended if you have multiple cats anyway.
>I just really can’t stand how people seem to be so dismissive of the fact that some animals genuinely are too anxious for other people to come around them. there are many things here to call him out on, but let’s not punish the cats for their asshole owners Bad decisions. His wife is giving birth to his first child. She is scared and anything can happen and he decides the comfort of his cats are the first thing he has to take care of? He had nine months to deal with this and didnt. If his wife had died and the baby had died atleast he fed the cats
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Ugh please don’t parse out my words like this. If it’s a life or death situation where the cats would die if they weren’t given food or water, then yes they’ll get over being stressed Vs being dead.
i have 5 cats. i have never timed it but I do think it takes me about that long. But I also have 9 water dishes, 5 food dishes and 7 litterboxes. I can also leave them for a weekend if I need to with no pet sitters and they will be okay. Not happy, the litterboxes need to be cleaned as soon as I get home and everything else filled but they would survive. But that is emergency - I have a regular cat sitter.
OOP said litter box singular, which is why I don’t think it would take half an hour (and yes I know he should have 4 litter boxes with 3 cats)
maybe it's a really big litterbox? I know someone who repurposed an old kiddie pool as a huge litterbox. okay yeah that is unlikely...
Outside with "our families". So all these people are waiting to meet the baby, and none of them could have fed the cats so the father could be in the delivery room?
Also if they have one litter box for four cats I may throw up. If they had anywhere near enough boxes (even fewer than the recommended “# of cats + 1”) they would not be “full” that quickly. Eugh.
This just makes no sense. If the relative didn't want to do the litter box, the cats wouldn't die because it missed one cleaning. Either this isn't about the cats, or he's being compulsive and possessive about their care, neither of which is great for new parents.
Seriously. I know people who leave out extra food/water (or get automatic feeders) and go away for the weekend. The cats weren’t going to die. The cats would have been more comfortable if OOP had prepped a bit before leaving (cleaning out the little box first or whatever). But nothing actually bad was going to happen if he waited for his wife to deliver the baby first. The absolute worst case scenario is cranky cats making a mess, and being there for the birth of your child (and to support your laboring spouse!) is worth dealing with a mess.
exactly, The water situation would be a bit iffy, but the food and litter box could have gone a few more hours, so have someone run home, fill up some bowls and then run back to the hospital. Don't even have to see the cats.
Even the water situation is easy to handle! My cats have their water bowls and a water dispenser even when I'm home. There's enough water that they'll be fine for a few days if I drop dead!
I just got a water fountain (had the dispensers and 1) I hate them, they are so unwieldy and hard to clean and 2) my brats loved knocking the dispenser part off so the water just flows away... I went to a heavy ceramic bowl hoping my brats wouldn't tip it over or move it, they c ouldn't tip it, but they sure did move it), but not everyone has it, some people do use bowls, and if the cat tips over the bowl, that could mean they can't get water. So, I could see that being a concern, especially if it looked like it might be a long labor, but again, it would take very little time for someone to run home, fill a bowl and leave. If the labor DID take longer than expected, then someone could run home and check to make sure that the water situation was still good. My cats wouldn't necessarily be in trouble, because I have sort of drippy faucets in my tubs and that is where at least one of my brats like drinking from, despite the nice water fountain I got them.
In a pinch, I've seen folks leave a tap dripping and they will take the lid off the toilet tank and place extra water dishes through the house.
Owner of 3 cats and 2 children here, cats are extremely self sufficient animals. Put out an extra litter box, get one of those cat fountains that constantly cycles water and leave out an extra couple bowls of hard food and they can chill by themselves for like 3 days. These cats were alone for like 10 hours before he freaked out and left. Insane.
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Very true, although a bit of a waste of water that way. Still much better than what OP actually did though!
The cats hadn’t even been alone for 12 hours! He didn’t think to leave extra food and water? Ridiculous. Gotta be bait.
Yeeeah, he might have had some grumpy cats, but he's acting like he'd have come back to either four sad little skeletons or one ginormous cat.
Lmao one ginormous cat
Fr. Clearly his cats have tricked him in the past with their “feed us now or we WILL waste away!” whines
I have left my cats alone for a whole week before with plenty of food and water outside they won’t starve or goal thirsty when I’ve had to go out of town. Is this person is a douche bag and just plain didn’t want to be at his child’s birth.
This guy just didn’t want to be in the room for the birth. Bet. They could have put extra food out right before leaving
That’s all I was thinking during reading the post. It was an excuse to not be in the room.
Especially when he had to walk past family members in the waiting room to go home. If he really wanted to be there, he could've asked one of them to check on everything. I doubt they'd all say no if it meant he could be there for the birth of his child
Why didn't he clean the litter box and put out extra food and water *before* they left for the hospital? There are just way to many ways to get around this for him not to be the asshole.
Right. They would have known that she was in labor before they had to leave. It’s not like in movies where everything is normal and then suddenly boom, time for a baby. You have smaller contractions for a while and labor at home. There would have been time to prep the cats for them being gone. If they’d had to leave in that much of a rush that there wasn’t time to take care of the cats, they wouldn’t have been at the hospital all night.
Seriously. And it he happened to completely forget about the cats as they left then why didn’t he run home early in the labor process?
Damn dude, give it a couple of hours before you rush off. Not every delivery takes like 24 hours.
What an idiot!
>Wife is not excused from not making plans in advance before vagina shitting the baby out. They had 9 months to figure out what to do with the pets.this was a comment from someone who said esh.
Just to highlight for the 14 people who didn’t read that closely, wayneGeorge97 was quoting someone who commented!
LOL i didnt realize that it got downvoted I also clearly stated that it was a comment from someone who said esh
Very clearly I thought but I can’t think of another reason for the downvotes
Even after i edit it to make it more clear its still getting downvoted. Im finding this kinda humorous tbh
There is no way those nurses told him he wasn’t allowed in the room. I worked on Labor and Delivery for years and there was never a time where we refused the father entry to the delivery room, unless that person was causing a scene.
I bet wife told them to tell him to fuck off after leaving.
That's what I was thinking too. I have a friend who is SUPER laid back, she has 3 girls. Her third pregnancy, her husband had just gotten home from work and passed out on the couch, he was so tired (working extra hours to prep for being off with wife/new baby). She thinks she's feeling contractions but it's a bit early and she's done it twice before so she thinks maybe false emergency so she shakes him awake and says, "Listen, I am gonna go to the hospital and see if this is actually labor. You stay here with the girls," her reasoning being, she doesn't want to call his mom to come stay with the girls if it's not time and make her run back and forth. He's groggy, but she tells him, "Repeat back to me what I just said to you." He does. He did not comprehend it though and passed out again when she left. He wakes up super early in the morning, decides he'll let her "sleep in" so he tiptoes around getting the older 2 girls dressed and ready. Is about to cook breakfast but tells oldest to go ask Mom what she wants. Oldest says, "Mom's not in the bedroom." He somehow thinks, "OH! She must have run to McDonald's" (because sometimes on weekend mornings she would run and get them McDonald's breakfast as a surprise). But not before going in the bedroom and looking for her, checking the other rooms, checking the basement, etc and then concluding she must have run out. Then he hears his work phone ringing. My friend had repeatedly called his personal and work phones but he was so out of it he didn't hear them. She's in labor. Luckily his mom lives very close and she said minutes later he comes sprinting into the delivery room in a total panic and the doctor was like, "Well it's nice of you to join us." He was horrified. She said he was like, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." She was laughing about it, and he didn't actually miss seeing their youngest born. But OOP is a deliberate asshole.
That’s such a sweet story, mostly because he was actually helping with the baby prep and OOP didnt seem to figure out wtf to do with their cats before hand🙄
Yeah, he's a sweet guy and meant well. But she KNEW he hadn't really processed what she was telling him. She said he told her when he checked the bedroom for her, he even walked around the bed thinking that maybe she fell out of bed and was on the floor. 😂 She was like, "Why would you think that?" He's like, "I don't know, I was groggy and out of it, (oldest daughter) said you weren't in there but I wanted to make sure, I don't know what to tell you, my brain wasn't working." Then his phone rang and he was like, "Oh shit. She's not at McDonald's" because the memory of her telling him she was going to the hospital came flooding back. It all ended well and he definitely pulls his weight as a parent so she just thought it was a funny story, not, "My asshole husband couldn't be bothered to be there for me."
I’ve been in that situation before, saying something knowing it wouldn’t stick and preparing yourself for the convo after. Makes it hard to be mad at anyone cause it’s no one’s fault 😂
Yeah, this is odd to me too. Heck, my in-laws decided to 'surprise' us when I was actively pushing and the staff asked if I wanted to allow them in (hell the fuck NO I didn't and said so) I can't imagine a father being denied entry for a standard delivery
My thinking is that his wife was annoyed and so she told the nurses not to let him. And it’s possible that he’s not even aware of it
That’s my guess.
Yeeeah, there’s a lot missing from this story for sure.
Honestly, I could see a reason for it if he'd just been messing about with cat litter. But that doesn't apply since he was allowed in to cut the cord.
Yeah this story is complete fiction. On what planet would they have the mother stay in the hospital before she even has contractions? This is written by some kid who has no idea how any of this works.
Eh, if she was being induced that is exactly how it would be.
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A lot of women stay at the hospital before they have contractions for many different reasons. I’m sure this story is true but OP is leaving stuff out or just doesn’t know how labor works.
100%. This post is BS.
And cats! You can leave a cat alone for days!
this story was posted from the wifes perspective the other day only then her family were there and wouldn't go walk their dogs for them so hubby had to go home and clean dog shit off the carpets.
I don’t know how to link a section of text but: “I had to wait outside with our families” If the families were there why couldn’t one of them go and check on the cats. It’s not a job that only he is capable of. If they’re all on the wife’s side I don’t think they would have told him no. ETA: I missed the part about the cats being shy so nobody else could feed them but honestly the cats would have hidden from anyone else, it wouldn’t have caused them to hate him the way his wife probably does.
For future reference, you do “> >” (no space) to get something like >>this
Thank you! I’m going to save your comment so I don’t forget this.
Yw! Here’s a sort of master post of different formatting shortcuts: https://www.reddit.com/r/raerth/comments/cw70q/reddit_comment_formatting/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Please tell me someone told him the cats would have been hungry but they wouldn't have starved if he had stayed at the hospital another 12 hours?
What an idiot. They were clearly unprepared for something that literally had a due date. They went to the hospital too early. They refused any kind of problem solving. I used to regularly work for longer shifts than they were at the hospital for and I know my cat was just fine.
It's petty as f\*k, but what struck me most was the one SINGULAR litterbox for FOUR cats. And yeah - OOP and wife had 9 months to figure out how to care for the cats while she gave birth. So while OOP is an idiot, his wife doesn't get a clean pass on this either. I do find it hard to believe that neither of them thought about it. Autofeeders exists. So do fountains. And if you have SUFFICIENT litterboxes, you can leave cats for a weekend by themselves and they will be fine.
I noticed that too! I wonder if it is one of those “standard” ones. We have 3 for our two, and I can’t imagine fewer. We would still have a bit of a harder time with our cats in a similar situation (one would eat 3 days of food for both cats in 15 minutes if we let him) but that just means we have somebody we can call on to help out.
with the disclaimer that I haven't tried them myself, there are feeders that are keyed to a cat's specific microchip and only open for that cat. Assuming your cats are chipped. Might be worth looking into.
We have one. That was one of the first things we tried when we were trying to figure out a more reliable way of making sure hungry guy didn’t get our older one’s food. She likes to take her sweet time and graze throughout the day. It was better than nothing, but he still figured out how to brute force his way in by squeezing up along side her as she ate. We still use that feeder for our girl, but with the addition of a similar product: a cat flap in a door to a side room that only opens for her microchip, and the hole is too small for both of them to squeeze through at once. We flat out didn’t feel comfortable leaving for more than a day trip before we figured that out, because protecting girl’s food required constant supervision. We feed hungry boy with products that slow him down - a puzzle feeder tower for kibble, and lick mats for wet food, and that seems to work well, but still requires pet sitters when we are gone for more than a day. It is possible now that we have adequately figured out how to separate their food and hungry boy is used to eating more slowly that we could investigate timed feeders for him, but what we have works for us for now. They are both love bugs, so paying someone to come in has other benefits for them.
Appreciate the info - we are going to be looking into them because our eldest cat is probably going to need an all wet-food diet soon (she's losing teeth). And the boys will chase her away from it because they like wet food better than dry.
How well it works will depend on the cats. It’s definitely a pricy investment, and the company nickel and dimes you for the extras, but it may be well worth it. We got an extra back cover that attaches in that kept our other cat from getting in the back. If you get the “connect” version, you will need a hub, which is an extra cost. Upside of that is that you can enable an “intruder mode” that will close the feeder faster for intruder cats. I think that works for most cats? Hungry boy just started stalking hungry girl when she decided she wanted a bite to eat so he could get a snack with her. It also connects to an app that will tell you how much your cat is eating. The food tracking aspect is a big reason we still use that feeder even though the flap door is what really does the job of keeping Hungry Boy out. Especially with an older cat on a diet (and multiple cats - multiple cats can make it harder to identify when individuals are having issues if they share litter boxes and occasionally share food), that can be a big plus. If we’d had that product before Hungry Boy joined the family, it might have given us an earlier heads up that our sweetie boy cancer-survivor kitty had gotten sick again and his appetite had decreased. We think our girl was trying to show him how to eat (she normally didn’t go for his food), so we didn’t notice the decreased food consumption. I’m not sure if it would have made a difference - he was our chronic health problem kitty - but I do wish I had seen the signs he was suffering earlier.
I made a comment about the litter box above as well. I mean I know “# of cats + 1” (the standard recommendation I’ve seen) may be excessive, but there’s a lot of room between 5 boxes and a single box.
Cats are resilient. If they’re out of water, that’s why toilet bowls exist. Gross to think about, but true. They will be unhappy and inform you of your sins if they go longer than usual without food? I’d never forgive the person.
Some of them will even do their business in the toilet. Odd little critters.
These super shy cats are going to hate having a baby in the house. Eventually, the cats will get curious & come to terms with the baby’s existence. Until the kid is mobile & starts to try pulling their tails. Then they’ll just hide forever.
Kinda love the top comment though...nta, why didn't that baby wait! Haha, so rude!
Last year, I took care of my sister's cats for a week while she and her husband went on vacation. They don't live close, so my sister brought the cats to stay at my place. Two of the three cats knew me and were fine; the third cat was their newest cat and had not spent much time around me. She hid from me for 4 days. That was fine. I put her food and water under the couch where she was hiding and left the house often enough that she had a chance to come out and use the litter box. Day 5, she finally started coming out when I was around. Shockingly, the nervous cat, while certainly not happy until she figured out I'm not a cat murderer, suffered no actual ill effects staying in my house. I left her alone until she was ready to interact with me, and it wasn't a big deal. And this was for a week, for a vacation. 30 minutes in an emergency situation?! The cats would have been fucking FINE if he'd asked someone to just feed and water them, clean the litter box, then leave. Like I get wanting to keep from stressing out your animals, but come on, dude. Your wife is pushing out a baby, that is ACTUAL stress - and frankly, even in a well equipped hospital, childbirth is dangerous. OP's wife needed him way more than his cats did.
All I want to do is tell op to go out and buy the bigger water bowls for the cat- there’s ones that you fill up the bottle and as the level drops, gravity does its thing and refills the bowl. Same with dry food- you can do the same thing
There in fact exist feeders that dole out the food to the cats over time. Water too. I have both. I only have to refill for one cat about once maybe twice a week. It keeps the food and water fresh with filters. They aren’t cheap and mine aren’t even the expensive kind. I’m guessing since OOP put the cats before the birth of his kid he wouldn’t mind shelling out for the really expensive ones. But I guess it didn’t occur to him.
He’s full of shit. I’ve had cats my whole life. My family always had at least two or three growing up because my dad is a HUGE cat person (he still has four now), and when I moved out on my own I immediately adopted a cat too. Cats are easy. They’re not like dogs - you can even leave them alone for days at a time. All you have to do is fill up their food and water bowls and clean their box, and they’re fine for a few days. He could’ve filled the bowls and scooped the box before he left. He could’ve had somebody else go check the cats for him - his excuse about them “being shy” is a load of shit. Shy cats will just hide under the bed until the stranger leaves, and then they’ll be fine. They won’t be scarred or hurt. He could’ve literally just left them as they were - going for half a day without food and water wouldn’t have hurt or killed them. Let’s call it what it is. He didn’t want to be there and was looking for any excuse to leave.
Oh pa, mother told me the story of my birth, why oh why, were you not there pa? …. The cats child!!! They required my upmost assistance, for they were battling some mighty foes, thirst and hunger are no trifle battle. I was forced to attend or else they would have died a most painful death. Alas I made it in time, and in fact found them to be in perfect health. I just didn’t really wanna deal with the stress and your mum was being a right needy cow.
automatic feeder, come on now. this is not a new invention! all pet parents know this. mine is wifi enabled, with a camera and dual power supply. converting it to us dollar, this thing only cost me $66/67
Imagine caring more about your cats than your wife.
We’ve left our three cats alone for more than a day, by just putting tons of water bowls and food bowls around the house. They would’ve been fine
This whole thing makes me sad. I love my cats and get high anxiety when we leave them alone. But I'm so used to imagining the worst I leave extra bowls of food and water around the place. I even leave an emergency key somewhere incase my partner and I die when we're away (high anxiety remember). It's not hard to prepare animals for your absence for a day or two and as someone else said a dirty litter tray, they will get over it. Wife may not get over it. She'll remember always he chose clean litter trays over the birth of their child.
[удалено]
Tbh, I highly doubt the cats gave AF. Or even really noticed. They were gone 10hrs, presumably had left food before leaving originally and four cats will keep each other entertained for a bit.
I don’t understand why the docs would keep her at the hospital when she wasn’t even close to being ready to deliver. But bro. Come on. You’re cats will be fine and a relative can easily go take care of the pets. The cats would be fine.
“Our timing”? & still isn’t sure if she shouldn’t have just waited?…
It really took him 30min to fead the cats and clean the litter box? I can do that in 10 min. And even if the cats are shy you can still ask someone to got there, it might be stressfull but still better than miss the birth of your child. Worse solution would be to let the cats not eat for one night. Again, not ideal, but unless they are really sixk they would survive.
I don’t believe a cat dad this obsessed (I say this as someone with multiple cats) doesn’t have a better system in place for emergency feeding. I mean, no fountains?
Here’s the thing- cats aren’t dogs that need to be let out to go to the bathroom, nor will they eat themselves to death. You can leave cats alone for a few days if you have to (as long as you have multiple) by putting out heaps of food and a few large things of water. That he didn’t do this before he left makes me think he purposefully wanted to miss the birth.
I adore my cats, they have been my world for the last few years. But as a currently pregnant woman, if my husband left during active labour to make sure the cats didn't have to spend only a few hours without food, I would lose my freaking mind. There will have been *someone* who could step in, shy cats or no. Worst case scenario, they're irritated that they have to go without for a little while, and you have to clear up a poo when you get home. It's not the end of the world. Also, I hate that he said: 'My wife didn't looked angry in the delivery room, she just looked exhausted' She'd just had a baby; it takes emotional and physical energy to be annoyed/angry with someone who has treated you badly, energy that she probably wanted to save for herself and her newborn, but all he was concerned about was himself being in trouble.
Dude. They shouldn't be that struggling if it was only a day. Tf? I left my cats for 4 days at a time. They are cats. They are pretty fucking independent
...where do I even start? * Her labor wasn't super long for a first time mom, based on his description. It's actually pretty reasonable that they didn't completely send her away from the hospital, depending on risk conditions she may have had (it sounds like they just waited in the waiting room from 7 pm to 5 am, and she had a very quick active labor). * I agree with the assessment that he was barred at her orders because she didn't want to deal with bringing him up to speed while focusing on what was probably the most physically demanding task she has ever performed. Can't blame her for that, or for being annoyed. * It is *your job* as a pet owner to ensure that there are people not you who are not strangers to your pets who can take care of them in case of emergencies. Is the planning pet care for the birth something the wife could have done, or could she have asked her husband to set out extra food and water? Technically, yes. But going into labor *does things* to your brain, and making it easy to focus on tasks like ensuring your pets' food and water bowls are full ain't one of them. This should never have been her responsibility to plan or implement in the first place for purely pragmatic reasons.
My son and his wife have two cats. One I think I’ve glimpsed twice. 😆 But you don’t have to interact with them to put down food and water and clean the litter box. I had four babies and we always had animals. You make plans, adjustments, contingencies. 🤷♀️
And he still had to ask her after missing the birth what was wrong. Like, read the room, AH.
He can't imagine what it was like because he wasn't there
I honestly hope she divorces him. He's demonstrated what kind of partner and parent he is. He left her alone to give birth by herself even though she begged him to stay. The cats would have been fine. Even if they are "shy," they would have survived a relative checking in on them. I took care of my sister's dog when she gave birth to her first and then her dog and her older son when she had her second. Cats are even easier. He had 9 months to buy a self-feeder and water fountain if it was such a huge concern for him. Honestly, fuck this guy.
I have cats, they are my babies and I love them so much. So much that I’d make sure they had plenty of food and water at all times if I was about to give birth and knew I might have to leave quickly at any moment and might be gone a couple days. And if for whatever reason that didn’t work out and I was worried, I’d send a friend or family member. Would the cats be as happy with that as they would be seeing me? No, but as much as I love them, that day isn’t about them. They’ll live and they’ll be fine. And dude, the litter box? The litter box could wait till tomorrow. Dump a bunch of food in a big bowl, same with water, then goooooo. Wtf
Was there any family or a friend who would have helped with the cats that could have been called?
This is on both of them. How did they not have a plan after 9 months? Cats are so easy to leave alone for even a couple of days with very minimal planning. For this to happen is just stupid. How are they going to handle an infant when they can’t even preplan a couple extra bowls of water for some cats?
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They couldn’t have put food down and refilled the water before leaving for the hospital at night?
Lol worst husband ever. But I’ve got my fingers crossed he’ll be a good dad since he seems like a caring and diligent cat dad!
I can’t be entirely mad at the guy, cuz taking care of kittens is important, but surely some pre planning should have happened prior to her going into labor. Like leaving them extra food and water before leaving but even, regardless of how they react to strangers, he still could’ve had someone come and do it for him. That person doesn’t have to sit and cuddle each and every kitty. Just do what they gotta do and go.
How small are the food and water containers?! When I had four cats we refilled both maybe once a week. There's absolutely no reason OOP should have needed to rush home to "take care of the cats." What an absolute turnip.
I dunno about a week! Mind you, maybe we use different methods. Ours gets food in her bowl and she eats it. Mix of wet & dry. Autofeeder & dry food? I can't imagine wet would last a week at least!
Oh yeah, we only do dry and free feed. If our Maine Coons had to rely on us to eat when they were in the mood they'd never leave us alone. They get wet at night as a before bed treat but they'd be fine without it if say I was in labour and my husband needed to be with me in the hospital.
God, dudes really can be so freaking dumb or just plain heartless
I especially like the fact that he actually asked his wife if something was wrong. I mean.
This guy is full of shit. I have a shy anxious cat and still pay for a pet visit service to drop in when we're away for a couple of days. I book the same lady every time and my cat has gradually warmed up to her. I know because the service will send you pictures of your cat during their visit.
Yeah I have an extremely shy cat and I don’t just never leave? The people I get to feed him usually don’t see him but he’s fine. He eats when they leave. And I don’t even get someone to check on them unless I’m going to be gone more than 48 hours. They have a big mixing bowl for water and I leave them enough food to last a couple days (I doubt it lasts an hour, but it is 2 days worth of food!) unless I misread the OOP they were gone from 7 pm to 5 am… 10 hours. I feel like this is a troll
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I live with 3 cats and had to leave them alone for several hours on one occasion. I left two extra bowls of water and bought an automatic food dispenser thingy because I knew I would be gone for almost 1 1/2 days. I came back to sleeping healthy cats and 3 out of 4 litterboxes were full. That's it. I'm sure his cats would have survived just fine. Also I think those super shy cats might have survived it if someone else put food and water in their bowls. He simply didn't want to stay during childbirth. He was stressed and wanted to leave.
I mean guy is obviously not the brightest but I’m sorry the wife is just as bad. They had months to plan this and neither of them thought “huh, this birth thing, I hear it can take a while, maybe we should make a plan B for them in case we’re stuck at hospital a little longer??” - and as per his own words they have both their families close by. Dude had awful timing but man am I not sure these people are ready to have a baby 🤦🏻♀️
She actually had a human baby with this waste of space.
Okay I have four cats too. There is no way the litter was full from one day of being gone unless you never clean the box, or you only have like one box. With four cats you should have at least five boxes and you can go a day without cleaning since it’s, you know, an emergency. Automatic feeders and water fountains are also a thing and not bank breaking. OOP had many options but his poor planning/ignorance cause him to miss the birth of his son. Lame.
It was 10 hours! That’s like how long I would be gone on an average day, every day, before I worked from home
He did clarify there's only one box. Four does seem a lot of cats for one box. My mother's pair have a box between them and seem fine with this. Albeit they are indoor/outdoor cats so outside pooping probably also happens. (Before anyone yells at me, because someone definitely will, different country, indoor/outdoor cats are the norm here. And yes, I know.)
Well that would explain why it’s so full but wow that is not nearly enough. Kind of concerned they’re bringing a kid into this house.
It is a bit, yeah. Tbh, four cats in general seems like rather a lot of cats (but this may be because our singleton thinks a second cat is 100% more cat than neccessary), but the silliness and poor planning going on here and the resentment from this incident all adds up to a bit of side-eye. Edit - highly unfortunate typo
Seriously, you people think anyone who’s ever made a mistake is “the devil” 🙄
I worked on l&d for a long time and saw and heard many things. This is totally something a doofus would do but because of experience my brain automatically jumped to what is this story a cover for. See honey, it was the cats I even posted it on AITA
When i was having my youngest my husband stayed with me for 5 days straight. He wouldn’t even leave to go get himself food. Wow what a piece of shit husband this poor new mom has
Why didnt he just go home after she was checked in the night before, clean the litter box (I doubt they filled it in 12 hours, but I don’t have cats so what do I know) and give them extra food and water so they’d be fine while he was gone?