Kittens!!

At 12:30 pm, 5/14/09 my Cat "Lilo" just gave birth to a healthy litter of kittens. Her brother "Stitch" was out with a severely infected foot, his back foot blew up like a balloon. Likely, the attempted shave of Stitch's leg and lancing of the super-hyper enlarged area (I swear his foot looks like a balloon) - or should I say attemped lancing (I got the scissors , and cut in, drained a little- but not the abscess - his foot is misshappen, swollen and critical) ... probably triggered her labor. Stitch was yowling in pain. At least, I'm thinking that happened. Can screams of pain trigger the birth process? Do pregnant mothers give birth if they are in stressful situations?

I was just about to lie down on my very big and very empty bed, an english four-post .. when I heard this mewing + I looked around. Ok. The cat wants to come in.. dragged myself to the door. No cat. Hmmm.. Checked the backdooor. No cat.

So I laid back down and there it was again. The faintest mewing.. I thought.. NO... I started looking around.. finally I found her underneath a solid oak chest of drawers I had , in the den adjacent to my bedroom. This was a place that Lilo and Stitch had run to, when they were kittens. A gray and white one. Others. I breathed a sigh of relief that the offspring were not likely from incest or the bad grey cat (Lilo is all grey, so grey X grey would have been grey kittens altogether) .. but rather, a beautiful white and grey spotted male that was around when she was in heat. I found a bit of afterbirth on the ground, picked it up. Then Lilo and I looked at each other. And her eyes were open wide. I kind of dropped down to the floor and just sort of closed my eyes, and then she closed her eyes in kind and I reached in under the chest of drawers and petted her, and she started purring. I dragged the kids out of bed to see them. They saw them, and were happy. They are both sleeping in my bed while I am upstairs, and they'll get to see them in the morning.

Comments

Brook said…
Watching our cat Katie give birth was an unforgettable and powerful moment. My own childbirth experiences are somehow lost in the experiencing of them but I can clearly remember her, her face and calm demeanor-getting her job done- and the look on her face-the joy expressed in every line of her body as those little kittens squirmed and mewled at her belly. Thanks for the reminder.