My husband LOVES cats. I cannot emphasize enough how much he loves them. He freaks out in their presence and can barely contain himself. In the moment, I sometimes have to remind myself that he also loves cars and knows how to fix things while he is squealing over a cat. It's incredible and almost disturbing (but cute).

That he married me in spite of my cat allergy is a testament to his love for me. So, in exchange I promised him that we would try to find a hypoallergenic cat.

We did a bunch of research on and off across many months and settled on purchasing purebred Siberian cats through a breeder*. Siberians are hypoallergenic and very friendly and social cats. We selected a breeder who will allow me to allergy test an individual kitten before bringing it home. Since Siberians are social and we both have full time jobs, we decided to get two so they could be buddies and not be too lonely during the day.

Ironically, we paid the deposit and put ourselves on the waiting list on Father's Day. (Now do you see where this is going?)

.
.
.

Of course, I got a BFP two days later. We had been trying for eight months and already experienced a miscarriage, so we had no idea when/if I would get pregnant again.

Now, I did not grow up with cats. I am not used to them. I don't really know what I am getting into with the cats, though it sounds like it's a great breed. And they are so friggin' cute in the photos I have seen! And did I mention how much my husband loves cats? We have even purchased our first piece of cat furniture already.

So, here is the question: Are we crazy to go through with this with a baby on the way? Given our spot on the waiting list, I expect that we will bring the kittens home at age 10-12 weeks, right around the 20th week of my pregnancy. So, they will have several months to adjust to their new home, and we can most likely leave them with my MIL for a couple of weeks when the baby comes home so that we have time to adjust to being parents. They will have to be indoor cats because we live in an apartment, so as far as I can tell there is not really any risk of toxoplasmosis unless we feed them raw meat. My concerns are centered more around having enough time to care for all of these new babies at the same time, and making sure that they interact with each other in a positive way. (FWIW, I did have my first scan yesterday and confirmed that my pregnancy is a singleton, and this will be our first child.)

*No judgements, please. We would have gone to the pound if there was a bat's chance in hell that I wouldn't be allergic. I get that there are ethical issues with purebreds, but this is an extenuating circumstance. We actually found some Siberian mixes on Craig's List and tried to conduct an allergy test, but the cat freaked out and bit it's owner in a very violent manner and we were not comfortable bringing that particular cat into our home.