Birth Day for Michaela

The kittens are here.

We have three torti girls and one solid black boy so we won't have any problem telling them apart - well as long as there is good light..

Technically, Michaela gave birth to five kittens, but one did not make it. It is sad, but I am choosing not to focus on that.

I would also like to take a moment and be extremely thankful for the food that showed up at my door. Michaela didn't eat any of the placentas (nor did she detach them from the kittens, she left that to me) so she was quite hungry when she finally felt comfortable enough to leave the kittens and inhaled a cat in like two seconds.  I would love to thank whoever sent it to me, but once again Amazon failed to enclose a gift notification so I don't know where it came from.  But know you made me, Michaela, and Happy Bear very happy

Schrödinger's kittens are here.. ish

I twisted my ankle at work yesterday so when I got home from work I sent my husband down to check on "Skinny" and do the necessary care.  He joked and asked if she wanted to be his friend if he could be, I laughed, but he is right, lady cats love him.

He came up a few minutes later with a concerned look on his face. He heard kittens. So I toddled downstairs with my camera in hand and this is about as close as I am going to be able to get to them.

this is why.

Yeah, I thought she hated me before.. that just went up to level 1000. I tried to make her comfortable by moving the towels on the couch to drape in front of the couch and make her feel more private, but every step I took, every move I made, she growled.

This is absolutely killing me. I want to make sure she is okay. I want to make sure the kittens are okay, I want to clean things up, I want to offer her someplace soft and warm for her kittens instead of the floor..  I have no illusion that she will come out and put the kittens in the basket that I love fostering kittens in, and I doubt she will use the white cube there as that is far too open as well, so I decided to create her another cave hoping she will take advantage of it.

If she voluntarily gets into the cage, it would make my life SOOO much easier. I do not want to stress her out forcing her somewhere else, but I so don't want to leave her where she is, as birth is never a clean prospect.

so.. I have kittens.. I have yet to see them with my own eyes.  I did risk pissing her off to no end to move the meshare webcam to the corner where she is hiding, so I saw them.  I attempted to take a video, but the app didn't record it (although I did find a really cute video from last year). While looking at the video after I placed the camera as best I could (with a very long stick) I am pretty sure I saw at least three kittens. One of them I saw a good amount of the body of, and the kitten seemed healthy enough.

So I have kittens, and I don't have kittens.. and this is KILLING ME!!  I WANT KITTENS!!! (and yes, feel free to laugh at me)

Myla's practical joke

Well maybe practical joke isn't the right term, but what else to call it? We went to bed around 10pm, and at 12:30 I woke up and had to go pee. I got up, did what I had to do, got back into bed, got comfy, then heard screams. Now the bedroom is upstairs and down the hall from the kitten room... pretty far away. They were faint but I just KNEW.. I got up, walked down the hall, through the kitchen, turned the stairwell light on, when I realized I didn't have my glasses. At this time the screams were very loud. Turned around, woke up the hubby - cause if I heard screams THAT loud I knew something was wrong. Grabbed my glasses, walked back down, got downstairs and noticed that Myla had shoved two of her kittens under the door onto the concrete - which is VERY cold. One calico, one red/blond tabby. the red one was the one screaming his head off. Good thing too cause if I hadn't shown up, I have a feeling that the first born would have died. See there was another calico on the other side of the room in a puddle of blood. Barely moving, barely breathing.

I looked around for more, found a solid black one and put the three together. then started concentrating on the cold one. Did a warm bath and lots of rubbing. Watching it gasp for breath was rewarding, so was the second gasp.. and the cries.. very nice. Seems to be doing well.

Started cleaning up and trying to get all the kittens on to some place warm. Myla still didn't seem that interested in them yet. Found a puddle of urine.. *rolls eyes* and another kitten. This one hidden under a pile of towels that are dirty and were set aside to come up to wash.

I gathered all the kittens and put them on a bedding pad in the carrier with the heating pad on. They still feel very cold to the touch. Gave them all a drop of KMR. While drying them off, most of them gave me stool. very odd to me. I don't remember new borns ever producing stool. (rubbing in general gets them to eliminate, but that's usually after they have eaten something) Made the bedding warm with a heating pad then shut if off. Myla joined them as soon as I had them all in there and huddled together.

So at this point we have five kittens. Two calico, two solid black, and one red. I know she has at least one more kitten in her, possibly two, but she seemed to not want to give birth while I was there.

Hopefully the next couple will go smoothly. Not sure what to do next, though. Myla was fighting being a cage this afternoon.. do I try to keep her caged now that she's got something to keep her busy?

Updates

Tweedle went back to the clinic for surgery. We used Iso on her, and she still turned quite blue. They did get her spayed, but they highly recommend that she never go under anesthesia again. She has been living at my house now for a while and is trying very very hard to become a member of the family. We are resisting, but she is a pretty unstoppable force! She takes no guff from the other kitties and fits in very well. We'll see.

I brought home a pregnant cat on the 8th. The shelter named her Dixie. She was extremely pregnant and not eating, so I assumed she would go at any time. After five days, I was pretty concerned and brought her to the clinic where I work for a physical. She showed no signs of distress, and her x-ray showed five or six kittens. Her temp was down, which is a sure sign of impending birth. I brought her home and spent the evening with her, but still nothing.


The next morning, there was one kitten and part of the placenta in the cage, so I brought her in to work for observation. Considering my past history with pregnant cats, I wasn't taking any chances.


She gave birth to one kitten an hour. She loved having her belly massaged. The first time I did it made the weirdest noises like there was air and water inside her. I would massage till the noise went away, and the next time I would check in there would be a kitten. By 11:30 we had four kittens, all looking exactly alike.


Then nothing. She pretty much stopped being in labor. I could feel what I thought were two kitten heads, but I wasn't sure. They just put in the new x-ray machine at work, so I volunteered her for an x-ray. There was one kitten left in her. At four PM there was still no progress and I was getting concerned. I massaged her belly more, and this time heard the squishy noises again. At 4:30, I went back in to check on her. I couldn't see things very well because she had her butt to the back of the carrier, but it looked like she was in the middle of delivering another kitten. One of the other kittens that was delivered breech, I found half way out of her, and I was concerned she stopped half way through this one too. I unscrewed the carrier and found this to be the case. She was cleaning the kitten off but didn't seem to be pushing anymore. I got a doctor, and the doctor pulled the kitten out, but things just didn't seem right. She was stiff and unmoving. We rubbed her, and she breathed, but I was still concerned. There is so little you can do for such little kittens, so I left her with Dixie to clean and stimulate. At 5, I took them home, and she still didn't look right. Her arms were out in front of her and stiff, so when you went to put her on her belly, she'd fall over. She had no suckling instinct and was cold. I stimulated her by rubbing her and moving her arms back and forth. I even made up some KMR, thinking the warm food would help "bring her around" Nothing really helped. At one point she did seem to want to suckle on my thumb, so I put another drop of KMR in her mouth, but she didn't seem interested. I had to go out, so I put her with her siblings and left, expecting to find her dead when I got back.


I was wrong. She is doing really well. Four kittens that look exactly like their mother, and one black one. Four girls, one boy. The boy weighs about an ounce more than his sisters. I was weighing them, and mom got a little concerned. By the time I was done with the last one, she came over, and picked her up, and brought her back into the cage. It was the cutest thing.



Now if I could just get Tweedle off my chest, I'd go give Emmy and Jack a bath. Emmy has tons of dandruff, and Jack's fur is so thick, that he still has flea dirt on him. But she looks so sweet, half asleep.. I can't bring myself to disturb her.