saying good-bye to my furbaby :(

When we first found out that we were infertile we learned that friends of ours had dealt with it as well. During their wait they bought a puppy and he was their "baby". They named him Dudley and he really helped to ease the pain they were feeling. Once they learned about our struggles they wanted to show their support and maybe help ease our pain as well and they gave us one of Dudley's puppies. We named him Dudley Jr and he has been my baby. My first baby. We have had him for over 11 years and we love him to pieces. He sleeps with us, he travels with us, we even dress him in those ridiculous sweaters.

Dudley has always been a healthy dog so when I noticed him really slowing down I feared the worse. Then I noticed a large lump under his jar and my heart sank. We took him to the vet immediately and the vet was not optimistic. He treated him with antibiotics in case it was an infection but that did not help. In fact, he has more lumps and he is very lethargic. Tomorrow I will call the vet to take him in again. If the vet is fairly certain it is cancer we will say our good-byes. If he thinks that there is a good chance of it being something else we will have testing done.

I am not holding on to any hope of it being treatable. He is too old for expensive testing and treatments. Just the blood work alone is $150. If it is cancer we are looking at thousands of dollars for him to maybe live an extra year or so. We do not have the money nor the heart to put him through all of that. So chances are tomorrow we say good-bye. And it is killing me!!!! I am praying that he will pass in his sleep tonight so that I will not have to make this decision. I can't stand the thoughts of him wagging his tail as I take him to his final destination, looking at me with his big, brown eyes. I really don't want to do this! But I have to. He is my baby and it is my place to be with him.

Please pray for me tomorrow. I really need strength to say bye to him. We all love our pets but to those of us that suffered infertility I think that pets hold a special place in our hearts that only other infertiles really can understand.