Are they really mine?

Friends, it's me back again, and boy am I tired. These babies really do take it out of you.






I can't tell you much about how they were born. I know, I know, I promised I'd remember and tell you, but the strange thing is, I can't. one minute the human was sitting talking to me on the floor. I wouldn't let her move a muscle. Every time she got up to try and organise things, I cried and cried for her till she had to sit back down with me again. Labour is scary. I knew I should be pushing, but I couldn't do it. I knew that something was wrong, but I couldn't tell anyone. I was terrified.





The human called the nice vet lady people who I don't like so much any more. She came to see me, and she had to check that I was dilating. Friends, do you know how they do that? They have to feel around inside your looloo! That's the polite term for it. The human tells me that's the word her family uses (they're weird) so that little kids won't come right out and talk about rude things in public.





Anyway, when the vet did this, I screamed my head off cuz I wasn't dilated and I can tell you something, it hurt. If it hadn't been the human's gentle, reassuring hands on my face, I'd have bit, but it's a mark of how far I've come that I only opened my mouth and screamed. When the human first got me, I'd have pulled no punches. Well, I wasn't dilated, and I was leaking out of my looloo too, and so they thought it best that I had something called a C Section. I don't know what this is, but when the vet lady people put me in a PTU and took me away, I was terrified! I was going with her, and my human wasn't coming! I can't tell you how scared that made me, but the vet lady people kept telling me it would be over quick and I'd be first on the list and wouldn't have to wait. First on what list?





When we got to the vet place, she took me into a room, out of the PTU and then... Well, then nothing. Blank. No memory. I came to a little later in a cage, and there were these three tiny little squeaking things beside me. I sniffed them. Smelled strange so I ignored them. I hurt. My yummy tummy was all sore, and even worse than that, they shaved all of my floof off! I was bald!





To cover the shame of that, I sat up so that only my floofy bits were on show. I started to clean the vet smell off of me, and then I felt something very, very strange. A small tugging was going on in my lower belly region, and you know, it felt uncomfortable and right all at the same time. I felt like I should lie down, so I did, but I don't know why. The tugging increased, and so did the squeaking from the moving things. Then a second gentle pulling started. In spite of myself, I felt my body relaxing. I looked down, and there were two of the little wrigglers, and they had their mouths around my nimples! That was what the tugging sensation was. I was too groggy to complain, so I just let them get on with it and wished that my human would come back and get me. I missed her so, so much.





She did eventually come back, and she took me home with her, but the white wrigglers came too. I wasn't too sure about this. They were kinda like mousies, and I know how upset my human was the last time there was a mousie in the house and I wouldn't kill it. I didn't want to kill these. I sorta liked them in a vague kind of way.





I was very gently placed in a soft bed when I got home. I was too tired to give thanks propperly, but I can do it now. Mom Trish sent the big, deep trays that my huan had lined with vetbed for me. Thank you, mom Trish! I watched in some fascination as the human very gently placed the wrigglers in with me, and made sure they were up against my yummy tummy. Strange. If they were mousies, she'd not have allowed them to get loose. But there seemed little danger of them running away. They didn't seem to be able to move propperly, and they all scrabbled at my yummy tummy as though searching for something.





"Those are your babies ,Tia," the human said some while later as she climbed into the pen with me where my bed was. She spent a lot of time cuddling my head, then fiddling around by my tummy. When she did, the tugging started again, and the squeaking stopped. She gave me a little mouse to cuddle under my chin, but I didn't know what to do with it, and anyway, it went wriggling back towards my tummy. I was just content to be home with the human.





Every time the little mousies squeaked, I felt an overwhelming urge to protect them. The only way I could think of to hide them was to lie on them, but this upset the human for some reason. She spent a lot of time soothing me, reassuring me that nobody wanted to take the little mousies away, and that I could keep them all to myself. Lots of times that day she reassured me, talked to me, cuddled me and told me that the tugging was ok and I needed to accept it. Eventually I felt calm enough to go to sleep with my head in the human's hand.





The human took us all to bed with her last night. She has another littler pen in there that she put us all into. I wasn't too bothered. I just wanted to sleep, but something about the mousies bothered me. I nudged one of them away from my yummy tummy and sniffed. It smelled like me now, and I didn't mind it as much . I gave it a friendly lick and it shrieked. I almost did too . I hadn't meant to hurt it! I stopped straight away, but when it stopped too, I decided to try again. The same thing happened, but now I knew I had to lick it all over. Maybe if I got rid of the last of the vet smell, the human would forget that the mousies came from the vets and I could keep them.





I washed all of my mousies all over from head to toe, but I didn't like it when yucky stuff came out of their back ends. I had to lick that all up cuz although it didn't smell like the vet, it didn't smell like me neither. I only washed them once, cuz I didn't want to have to do the cleaning chore again.





When the human looked in the pen this morning, she found me and three clean mousies. As she helped the biggest one to find a nimple to suck on, she told me again, "These are your babies, Tia". But I knew they weren't. My babies were stil inside me. I hadn't pushed them out. Still, if she was Ok with me adopting the mousies, then I was willing to give it a go.





For the next few hours, I pondered this strange phenomenon, but the more I looked at the mousies, the more I listened to them squeak, the more I wasn't sure. They sounded like kittens. now that they were clean, they even smelled like kittens. And there was the other fact that I couldn't feel my own kicking me any more. Could it be?





Friends, I'm still very confused about this all, but the human keeps telling me that yes, it could be, and in fact it is. She never lies to me, so I guess I'll have to believe her. She says the vet lady people cut a hole in my yummy tummy and took the babies out that way cuz I couldn't do it myself. Seems a bit weird to me though. I mean, they come out the same way they go in, or that's what my mummycat told me. But again I say that my human doesn't lie to me.





I have decided that they must be my babies, and I will adopt them and feed them. I have oodles of milk, but despite the fact that I have eight nimples, they all fight. If one is having a drink, the other two come and muscle in on them cuz they want some too. It's stupid cuz I have more than enough for three of them to have more than two each! But they all want the same one! The human says that she told you through Mom Trish that the girl mousie, ah, excuse me, kitten, was in a sack with pus in. Well, she's surviving superbly well and is gaining lotsa weight. She gained one and a half times normal daily weight yesterday, and is still vigorous today! The middle boy has gained loads too, but now your prayers are needed for the fattest mousie. he isn't gaining weight cuz he lets the others push him off the nimple too easily. He's a gentle little thing who seems to like snuggling and loving more than fighting, but he will need to fight if he's to survive. The human's friend expressed some of my milk for him yesterday so that he would get all my immunity, and she tube fed him this morning. The human will syringe him tonight with some extra milk if she feels that he hasn't gained again, but all day she's been fighting his battles, attaching him to a nimple and then keeping the others away for ten or fifteen minutes at a time so that he has a chance to get some mummy's milk instead of powdered stuff. We'll have to wait and see if it's enough though.





He got very cold today as well, so had to become what Mom Trish calls a booby baby. He got to cuddle down the human's top so that he could steal her heat and get warm enough to feed again. She says that they won't feed when they're cold, so it's really important. However, she's worried that all the handling is reducing my already fragile bond with the babies. I've been out of the nest three times today. Perhaps she's paranoid, cuz I usually go a few minutes after the babies start crying, but she says I'm either very relaxed and trusting, or not attached enough, as that is not normal behaviour. I do have a lot of cleaning to do though. I'm leaking icky stuff out my back end, and whenever I try to clean it in the pen, the babies scream at me cuz the milk bar has moved. I can't be dealing with it all the time. I have to have me time as well as baby time.





So, are there any of you that wouldn't mind babysitting for a bit? I could really do with the rest!





Now, I really must go off to the litter tray while these squealers are all asleep. Excuse me...

Kitten Bananza

Friends, thank you so much for all stopping by yesterday to give me congratulations. Those were far better than any pretty ribbon I won on the day!






I promised you kitten updates, so that's what you're gonna get today. I'm sorry to say that this means I'll have to hand over a lot of the post to my human, as she was there and I wasn't. All I know is that I spent a restful day on Sunday catching up on the napping I'd missed the day before, and then on Monday morning, she got up, packed my PTU full of good things like ping pong balls and food, and left! I'll hand the rest of today over to her to tell you what happened, while I do exactly what I did all day Sunday! Happy napping, friends.

The Human's Story

I've been friends with a lady who lives close-ish to my mum's for quite a few months now, and I thought that as I was in London anyway, it would be a good chance for us to meet up. i wasn't motivated at all by the fact that she had six very cute five-week old kittens in her bedroom, I promise! We're both breeders, me of Persians and she of Burmese, but she's been doing this for many years, whereas I'm still waiting for my first litter, so she's sort of a mentor to me as well as a friend. I had some things to bring for her too, so the trip was convenient enough that it was perfect! I'd bought kitten food last year when I suspected tia was pregnant, but hadn't used it and it was about to go off. I'd also bought a big bag of a premium quality dried food that I wanted to shift Tia onto. She loved it, but it was making her vomit. This lady's cats all eat that particular food, so she got that as well. Then there were books to swap, and things like coloidal silver for bathing eyes and wounds that no breeder can be without... In short, I brought quite the bag of goodies, and left with the same when the visit was over!





It took quite a long time to get there on the trains, but boy was it worth it. when I finally got to her house, I didn't really know what to expect. She has Bengals and Burmese, not the calmest of cats in the universe, so I suspected I'd be attacked, used as a climbing post, stalked etc. nothing could be further from the truth. The cats were so well socialised that they simply came and climbed all over me for a fuss. I was surprised to say the least!





But on to more important stuff. you're really only reading to find out about the kittens, aren't you? Well, as I've said, there were6 in total, all of them boys, and most of them very squeaky and noisy. the mum was incredibly good with me handling them, and didn't seem upset in the slightest. They're just at the weaning and litter training stage, and while I was there, they took their first ever poo! Strange as it seems, I was as proud as if they were my own! Many people say that kittens scream when they poo for the first time, but this simply wasn't the case with this lot. They certainly announced to the world that they'd done one, but that was about all. This was something I'd worried about. I don't like hearing animals in distress, even less so little baby ones, and I wondered how I'd know the difference in real distress and first time poop distress. Seems this won't be a problem though.





Do you remember when they were first born that we thought the smallest wouldn't survive? Well, he has, thanks to diligent feeding by the owner. At five weeks old, they are mostly still suckling from mum, but the smallest still needs topping up. The owner has been so good at feeding that the baby is now heavier than his naturally fed smallest brother, so she's taken on the task of bumping him up too. That was my job on Monday. I'd never syringe fed before, and the lady is determined to teach me all she can before I get my own litter of kittens.





So off we went, squealing kitten in hand, to draw up some KMR (kitten milk replacer) and feed. It's easier to wrap a baby in a towel to do this so that waving paws are contained and can't grab hold of the syringe or the teat. These little ones were still small enough that a facecloth was big enough to swallow them whole.





Feeding, while being simple, is still a little tricky. For one, you need to get the syringe and the teat parallel to their mouths. Ideally, the teat should sit between the two front teeth. I say ideal because you never achieve this, not when the baby is moving his head from side to side trying to get more milk at once. you need to trickle feed them to prevent choking, but they're so greedy and desperate for the food that they feel this isn't enough. The second little lad was even chewing his teat to try and get more. I can only shudder to think what those teeth do to poor mum's nipples, and think it's no wonder she won't let him feed as readily as the others. he was really desperate for his feed though, so it's a good thing that he's being topped up. he almost swallowed his teat through managing to chew it off the syringe!





Feeding doesn't really take all that long. About five minutes was all that was needed for each kitten. They do suckle on mum for much longer, but seeing how quickly they drink, i suspect this is for comfort rather than anything else. I had a cuddle of two of the boys for a time after that while we talked about things in general. It's amazing how those little creatures seek out a warm spot and then curl up so trustingly. both preferred to sleep on the bare skin right on the top of my elbow, sort of in the crook of my arm, but lying on my forearm. There's nothing quite like the feeling something so tiny can give just by the slight pressure of its 300 or so grams of weight, and the warmth that little body gives off as it snuggles against you. I've never experienced this before, but hope to many, many times in the future.





That's all I have on kittens, I'm afraid. Sharing their first poo, feeding, snuggling; i think I learned a lot in one day, and that not all practical. Here's to Tia coming into call soon, and here's to healthy, happy kittens for all of us.

Saturday Stuff

Yet again, it's been a while since we blogged. The human says she's feeling less driven to write lately, because we're not sure how many peoples are reading us any more. I've explained to her the fact that it's a vicious circle. If she doesn't write down my dictations every day when I give her them, peoples are going to read us less. She displays her stupidity with worrying regularity, does she not?

Well, it seems as though the competition has been a resounding flop. One cat is interested in the give away so far. To be honest, this one even took me aback. I was expecting that, like every other competition on the CB, we'd have lots of entrants.

The human and I have been thinking about this a lot over the last week, and have come to a reluctant conclusion, which we'd love to have proved wrong. It seems as though others visit blogs to look at pictures rather than to read what's written there. Wordless Wednesday is a classic example of this. Puss-Puss
also seems to be coming up against the same problems. She is one of the most wise cats I have ever come across. She studies peoples behaviour and offers insights that I, even after living with peoples for all of my life, haven't considered. Yet, since Whicky's post on the CB about her drew readers, I've been the only one to go visit her and leave comments on a regular basis. Is it coincidence that she often posts no pictures either?

My human says I'm starting to sound whiney. I resent that comment, because everybody knows that it's Dogfaces that whine, not us more sensible cats. For her sake more than yours, I'll clarify (we cats understand how it is, so I'm sorry I have to take a moment to spell it out for her slower brain). I am not saying that other peoples and cats leaving comments defines whether I will continue blogging or not. It's just that it's nice to know that writing is appreciated, that's all. I was considering having a CB event encouraging all of you to post one post which tells a story without pictures, but I tried that with my Tortureshell, and it had one participant for one week. I guess pictures are just the way to go.

Anyway, enough of my self pity. I have some exciting news. This is all very hush hush at the moment, but we could be having a celebrity guest star on here very soon, who has tentatively agreed to having a regular slot. When I say celebrity, she's a celebrity only to certain peoples, namely one Bug. You'll have to keep your eyes peeled for more information though. I'm bound to say no more until contracts have been finalised, and treat fees discussed and agreed. Oh, I hope she's not too expensive! I love my Dreamies too much to part with lots of them.

My human has the day off the work hunt today, which I'm loving. It meant we got to stay in bed much longer this morning. She's put a new blanket on there too, so it's really cosy and warm now.

We had another trip to the vet peoples yesterday. Dogface had to go for her hydro, and I needed to have a scan to see about those kittens. I decided that I would cooperate this time. It was the vet man people who saw me when I stayed in hospital. He was the one who got me better enough to go home though, so I guess he's not quite as bad as the others. I stayed nice and still for him, and even tenderised his arm a bit with my claws, to show my affection, you know? Well, I can't have him thinking I'm a totally easy patient. It gives them a false sense of their own importance, makes them think they can get away with more than they have a right to.

The worst bit about those scans is the horrible gel stuff they put on my yummy tummy. Even though this vet man people was good enough to clean most of it off, he's nowhere near as thorough as we are. They never quite manage to get it all, and I'm forced to do it myself. It tastes yucky, and feels nasty when it's on my fur. There's always something unpleasant about going to the vet, isn't there?

As it turns out, I do not have kittens in my tummy, but am continuing to produce milk. Oh, I do so love playing games with my human. It keeps my days interesting. The vet peoples say it's because my hormones are probably all over the place from when I was with my man friend. Honestly though, if you other ladycats had seen him, your hormones would be in a whirl as well. He's quite the handsome picture. Why do peoples feel the need to state the obvious? It's hardly rocket science that I'd still be thinking about him.

The Admiral
would be quite proud of me, I'm sure, for I sang my heart out both on the way there and on the way back. I did Christmas songs. I did old old favourites like Three Blind Mice, I did classical opera, and when I got really frustrated, I sang "Tia Claws are Coming to Town" right into my human's face through the bars of the PTU. In her usual thick-headed way though, she took no notice, and just asked me to be quiet. I also took no notice. The human is not to be listened to when she is in one of those "what I say goes" moods. It's not good for her to have these delusions of grandure attended to as though they were true.

So, we're back at home. Dogface is sleeping as usual, I am thinking about sleeping and the human is tippy-tapping away, for once, being a good secretary. Happy Saturday to you all, and happy winning on the competition... Hopefully.

Female Friday

Well, there's big news today... Or maybe big news. It has to do with my vet visit.

So, the human went to the work hunt as usual this morning, and she says she had a very, very busy day. She had some products arrive to show her patients, and there were lots of them which meant a lot of unpacking for her. When she got home, she was, as usual, tired. She knew she had to take me and Dogface to the vet though, so she didn't even try to go to sleep like she usually does.

She was proud of herself cuz she managed to get a sample of the fluid that was coming from my infection on a piece of gauze so that they could have a look at it and see what colour it was. When it was my turn to be looked at, the human showed them the stuff, but it had no colour! They couldn't find any lumps or bumps or anything, and everybody was very, very confused. My human had to show them the place that she could feel under the skin. Her fingers are really good at finding small places. Eventually, they managed to find a little hole in my skin, and when they touched it, the fluid came out! It was white. The vet was a bit perplexed, cuz there was nothing to indicate that I was holding fluid. She asked if I had had my ladygardenectomy, and when the human told her no, she got very excited.

She flipped me over and had a look at my, oh, the word is not one for a ladycat to say! I'll call them what my human's cousin called them when she was just a very small peoplekitten. They looked at my nimples! I say they cuz there was a nurse there too who was good at tickling me. Even though she was good at it, I didn't like them touching my nimples. My human can do that, but only cuz I trust her.

Anyway, all the other nimples were producing the same white stuff, although in lesser quantity. The vet lady people flipped me up the right way again and had a feel of my tummy. She says she could feel something hard in there that definitely wasn't a full bladder or poopoo. She said she thought I might be pregnant.

My human got all excited then too and made her voice go all high and squeaky and surprised. The vet lady people and the nurse took me off for a scan after that, but I'd had enough. I know that when they take me away from the human they're going to do horrid things to me like collect my poo and steal my furrs and my blood, so I just wriggled and wriggled and wriggled. The end result was that they couldn't tell if I had a kitten in my tummy or not. If you ask me, that's the way it should be. Don't these vet peoples thhink that a cat deserves privacy? I know the answer. When they stoop to collecting poo, they don't know the meaning of the word, let alone the concept!

They wanted to put me to sleep and do a propper scan, but the human didn't want me to go through that, not when I'm just getting over mr Bug. She says she wants me away from the vet peoples and the chance of infection because my immune system is still recovering.

So we know at least that I don't have an infection. The hole is an inverted nimple apparently, so the human can stop worrying. Now all that remains to be seen is whether or not I have a kitten in my tummy. The human is going to take me back again when Dogface goes next Friday, just to let someone else have a feel of my yummy tummy cuz by that point I will be five weeks pregnant and they will be able to tell better by feeling if I have any babies in there. She doesn't think she's gonna let them do the sleepy scan on me as long as I'm still acting as though I'm well.

She phoned the lady people who is owned by my man friend to tell her. The lady people was very surprised and says that she really doesn't think me and the man friend got, ah, friendly. I'm not saying whether we did or not. A gentle ladycat never kisses and tells! You're just going to all have to wait and see.

Quick Update

Human: I'm tired again, so this isn't going to be a long one. Off and on all day, Tia's been going to her box and calling and calling until I come in there with her. She's either crouched or stretched right on her side and fidgets a lot as though she can't get comfortable. I really, really wasn't happy, so I took her back to the vets and asked them to do an ultrasound on her. unfortunately, it wasn't my usual vet, and this surgery offers a less than great service, but my normal one wouldn't do the test till Monday, and I didn't want to wait that long.

I won't tell you about our interminable wait there. Maybe Tia will when she's feeling up to blogging again. In the end though, we were seen and she was scanned. The vet said she was 99% sure that there were no kittens in there. So it's a phantom after all. I feel as drained as though it were real, and my pregnancy instead of hers!

I'm not long back from there, but the first thing I did was take up her nesting box. That won't go back down unless she gets really, really desperate again. Her milk is still in, but it hasn't increased any since yesterday. She's still crouching, but it's for short periods at a time. I guess I just need to keep watching. They gave her an exam and said they could find nothing else wrong, so apparently she's having phantom labour as well as pregnancy. I can't wait to see the ghost kitten. Please let it come soon!