Oh hey, a lot’s happened this week. Let me try and catch you up.
You may remember we had a pregnant cat. A pregnant cat who was overdue, according to my calculations. It was getting to the point that it was almost comical. I was posting daily updates to let everyone know she was still pregnant, because I would get so many messages every morning asking. At work, too. I have a co-worker who got some chickens at the beginning of quarantine as her project, but they hadn’t laid any eggs yet. So every time we’d have a team meeting, our boss would ask: “Are there any kittens? Are there any eggs?” Always no.
And then Monday morning, my coworker texted me a picture of an egg! I had been so convinced the kittens would come first, I was starting to wonder if I’d miscalculated when our Abby kitty was due. I was debating calling the vet, when Monday night she went into labor.
It was crazy watching her - you could tell when a contraction was happening, and she’d bear down, and then get a bit of rest. It was exciting and we felt prepared. We’d moved her into our bedroom where there were lots of nooks and private places for her to settle down and have her babies. I called our vet and discussed what was happening, and felt like we were on track.
But then she never settled down. The contractions were coming regularly, but nothing was happening. Her water broke at one point, and I was sure that would speed things along. Instead, she just paced and scratched at me and made noises that didn’t seem quite right. Three hours in, I called the emergency vet. Given that this wasn’t her first litter, they seemed concerned that she’d been having contractions for so long with nothing happening. Still, it’s so rare for a cat to experience complications.
Every vet would tell me that. They’d say, oh this doesn’t sound right, but then quickly say that they were sure it would be fine, since cats almost never have problems with labor. So I waited. And tried to sleep.
But there was no way. Abby wouldn’t settle, and was desperately trying to get my attention. There was no way she’d let me sleep. Finally 6 hours after labor started, I decided to bring her in. I told Tom, if nothing else I needed some reassurance so that my anxiety would go away and I could get some sleep. I brought her to the emergency vet hospital, which is thankfully only a few minutes from our house. Because of Covid, everything is weird. I had to hand her over, and then go wait in my car for the vet to call me.
Again, I was told how rare it is for a cat to have a problem. So rare, he refused to say that’s what this was. However, he admitted the heart rates of the kittens were very low, and he thought that they were in distress. He gave me two options: he could perform an emergency c section and deliver the babies now, (and also spay Abby while he was at it, saving her a surgery down the road), or he said, I could take her home tonight and bring her to my regular vet tomorrow to get spayed.
Confused by the second option, I asked him to elaborate. He eventually admitted that while she might eventually deliver the cats at home, it was also possible she’d be in the same agitated state all night (meaning no sleep for me either) and that when the vet spayed her in the morning, they’d also remove the likely dead bodies of the kittens and dispose of them at that time.
I’m not sure I can explain the shock I felt at this time. It was after 1:00 in the early morning hours, and I was sitting alone in my car, parked on the ramp to the ER of this pet hospital. I was wearing my clothes from the day before, hadn’t slept yet, and was trying to process what was happening with this still new to us cat, and her kittens. After just losing a cat a few months ago, I wasn’t ready to lose four more all at once. In fact, when I was convincing Tom that we should take in a pregnant cat, the one thing he told me was that he couldn’t handle burying any more cats right now. There was no way I was letting these kittens die.
So that’s how our cat ended up having an emergency c section at approximately 2:00 am on September 22nd.
I then had to go home and wait for the call, which thankfully came only a few hours later. Four healthy kittens, and Abby was doing great. The only problem, Abby was too anxious to settle and take care of the babies, so they were being bottle fed. I always knew it was a possibility that I’d have to hand feed them around the clock, of course, but given that this wasn’t her first litter, I was so hopeful that I wouldn’t have to.
They came home in two separate boxes - Abby in her cat carrier, and the kittens in a “build-a-bear box” according to Tom. I had tried to peek, but had only seen a ball of fur. So we weren’t sure what would happen when we got home. We had kitten formula and bottles and were ready to figure out what we needed to do. Our master bathroom has been turned into kitten central for a while, so this is where we reunited Abby with her babies.
There’s been a lot of monitoring, weighing and coaxing, but I’m happy to report that three days in everyone is doing okay! Abby has been slow to eat, use the litter box, and generally be away from her kittens, but she’s slowly getting there. We were so worried she would abandon the babies because of how she was acting at the hospital, but all she wanted was to be home. As soon as she could see us and get some pets, she relaxed and stayed with the babies. Totally understandable, she’s been abandoned or passed around a lot in her life, I’m pretty sure she thought it was happening again.
As for the babies, they are growing champs! An average kitten weighs about 3.5 oz at birth, and runts are usually considered to be under 2.75 oz. Our smallest kitten was over 4 oz at birth, with the largest coming in at almost 4 and a half. Looking back, the thought is that they were too big and one of them was stuck coming out. We haven’t named them yet, but have been keeping track of them by their colors.
Grey: This one looks a lot like Linzy’s cat, who comes from Abby’s sister’s litter (and possibly has the same father as our kittens). It’s our biggest kitten so far, weighing in at 4.6 oz on 9/22 and is up to 5.8 oz on 9/24. We’re looking for about 0.5 oz growth per day, so this one is doing great.
B&W Black: This one is one of the black and white twins, but has more black on their back. This one was born the second biggest but is now our smallest kitten. It went from 4.3 oz on 9/22 to 5.1 on 9/24. Still growing perfectly, this one might be my favorite right now?
B&W White: The other twin, this one has more white on their back. I bet this one will grow up to look a lot like Abby. Started out at 4.2 oz on 9/22 and is up to 5.4 oz on 9/24.
Stripe: This one will end up looking like a tabby cat with the black M on it’s forehead I think. This was the only kitten that wasn’t eating strongly on the first day, which lead me to try and give it kitten formula, but this one was so not interested in a bottle. We worried about it for the first day, but there was no need. This one has gone from 4.1 oz on 9/22 to 5.4 on 9/24, making sure it’s no longer the smallest!
All that to say, it’s been a busy week! I can’t wait until next week when we’re able to play with them a bit more. For now I’m trying to leave them alone as much as possible and only checking on them to weigh them and change bedding.
Hand for scale!
