Lauren Maners thought she was done fostering animals — at least temporarily.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!As she entered the final stages of her pregnancy with daughter Kylie, the lifelong animal rescuer decided it was finally time to slow things down and focus on preparing for motherhood.
But then she met Dove. The pregnant stray cat would end up changing everything.
“I had a long history in fostering and rehabilitating animals, but when I got toward the end of my pregnancy, I decided that it was time to take a break from all of that as the animals I usually fostered/rehabilitated were usually sickly and needed lots of care, which I would not have time for once the baby came,” Maners told The Dodo.
That decision lasted only a matter of hours.
On the same morning she promised herself there would be “no more fostering for now”, Lauren and her husband Kainan were driving home from breakfast when they spotted an injured white cat sitting alone in a parking lot.
The situation immediately felt wrong.
“I knew that she was in bad shape and also felt a sort of connection to her due to us both being very pregnant,” Maners said.
The cat was wounded, skinny and heavily pregnant.
Lauren managed to lure her over using leftover food before wrapping her in her jacket and taking her straight to the vet.
“I managed to catch her by luring her up to me with our leftover food and wrapping her in my jacket, and we brought her to the vet.”
After checking for a microchip and asking around locally, the couple learned the cat — later named Dove — had reportedly been living as a stray for over a year, surviving off scraps from a nearby café dumpster.
Lauren knew she couldn’t leave her.
“I attempted to find her owners and then was informed that she was a stray and had been eating out of a dumpster of a nearby cafe for over a year,” she explained.
“All of our no-kill shelters were full and I couldn’t just leave her knowing that she was going to have to take care of her babies in the wild.”
So despite originally planning to step away from fostering, Lauren welcomed Dove into her home.
And almost instantly, the two bonded.
“I and Dove had an instant bond. It was like she also knew that I was pregnant and that I was a friend. She was not instantly trusting of my husband the way she was of me.”
As both pregnancies progressed, the pair became inseparable.
“She would follow me around everywhere I went, and loved sitting outside with me in the mornings in our fenced-in area and letting me rub her belly while we ate breakfast together,” Maners said.
Lauren even joked about their shared pregnancies online, posting: “Had an exclusive Pregnant Girls Club meeting with my newest rescue, Dove. Does anyone want to guess who’s going to pop first?”
Then came the moment nobody could quite believe.
Lauren went into hospital and gave birth to her daughter Kylie — and when she returned home, she discovered Dove had also gone into labour.
The cat had given birth to six kittens while Lauren was away.
“They were very possibly born at the same time,” Maners said.
While Lauren admitted she couldn’t confirm the exact timing, the coincidence still felt surreal.
“I am not certain that we have birth on the exact same day I just know that when I returned from the hospital with my baby – Dove had also given birth while I was gone,” she revealed.
The two new mums settled into life together, raising their babies side-by-side.
As Kylie grew older, the kittens became fascinated with her too.
“When my daughter was 5 weeks old, she began to notice the kittens when I would carry her in there with them to help me feed them and give them some attention,” Maners explained. “The kittens were also very curious about my daughter as well.”
For Lauren, the connection ran deeper than simply rescuing an animal.
“I have been vegan for over 5 years and so animals have always been very important to me,” she said. “I feel extremely connected with all living beings on this earth and I feel like it’s important to be their voices.
“I feel like animals are capable of much more emotional depth than most humans give them credit for. So I knew that I had to bring dove in and give her a safe place to have her babies without having to worry and fight for their survival. I related to that being pregnant and about to have my own child.”
Eventually, Dove and all six kittens were rehomed into loving families.
Thankfully, they didn’t go far.
“Luckily the mother cat went to live with a friend of mine, so I am still able to get updates on her, and several of the babies went to people I know as well, so I have even been able to visit them,” Lauren shared.
What started as a chance encounter in a parking lot ended up becoming one of the most heartwarming rescue stories imaginable — two mothers, one human and one feline, finding each other at exactly the right moment.
Featured image credit: Instagram/mama.maners
