So about a month and a half ago Jenny and I were thinking, man Virginia (our kitten) is really growing strangely. She is really skinny in the shoulders but very pear shaped, fat at the bottom. A couple weeks later as she got fatter we decided to take her to the vet again to see what’s up. We couldn’t imagine she was pregnant because she was only 6 months old. The vet said she surely is pregnant and here we are now, on May 13th we helped deliver three healthy kittens, two boys and a girl. Its kind of shocking for both us and our cat. Our little kitten, still with her tennis ball sized head, only 8 months old, is now mother to three really tiny, squeaky, wiggly-tailed kittens.
So we figured out how it all happened. Jenny and I went to Costa Rica for a week to renew our Visas in mid March. We left our little brother Marcel to feed and watch over Virginia while we were gone. He did a good job, but when we returned they told us about how one night Virginia had a big fight with some other cat and they got inside the locked house and it was an all out brawl for about 10 minutes. How traumatic for our six month old kitten! So this sneaky tom cat got our innocent kitty pregnant in the first heat cycle of her life. I saw him sneaking around our house a few times at night and at least he was a good looking cat, had nice stripes like Virginia but more of a copper color rather than gray and black. The kittens are beautiful, two of them look just like Virginia with black and gray stripes all over and the other is bright orange and white striped. Since one orange one was a boy and one of the black ones was a boy Jenny had the idea to give them temporary names for the next two months until they are weaned from their mom and we give them away to our friends. So Sean, we named the orange one after you since he has your hair and naturally since he has a black brother we named him Sean Black, after our other buddy from college. The girl we named Amelia after our new volunteer friend Emily, who goes by Amelia in Spanish.
The whole birthing process was an adventure. Virginia had been especially more affectionate over the last few weeks and yesterday she was even more so. When I woke up she was stuck to me like glue. Where ever I walked she would follow and when I sat down she would be in my lap immediately. I was sitting having our morning quiet time when I noticed she was having contractions. This was a little alarming for me because I was afraid she might just start popping kittens out in my lap. Jenny had read up on kitty births on the internet and assured me that Virginia would climb down before they came. Jenny prepared a little nest of towels underneath one of our shelves and coaxed Virginia on in so that she could be calm and comfortable. She was in labor for over an hour when she couldn’t stand the pain any more and started running around the house with half a kitten hanging out. She had it standing up in the middle of the floor and scampered under the bed totally freaked and bewildered by what happened. Meanwhile Jenny was upset because the stupid articles she read said that the cat would know what to do and take care of her kittens with little intervention. I was watching this slimy sack on the floor with something inside it that looked like it came from the movie alien and I yelled to Jenny, who had retreated to the other side of the room to get the scissors and cut that kitten out. Jenny suddenly got her senses back and valiantly rushed back with the scissors and cut the kitten free, then began stroking it until it breathed for the first time. What a hero! By this time Virginia returned out of curiosity and her mother instincts took over. She quickly started licking her first born and he came alive with squeaks and wiggles. She laid down right there in the middle of the floor and began cleaning and nursing her baby. The other two were much less stressful since by then we were all experts. It was pretty gross at times but still amazing to see kittens born in front of my own eyes.
The plan is still that we will take Virginia home with us when we come back on July 21st. Now the whole name Virginia doesn’t sound so clever since we will have a cat named Virginia living in Virginia, o well. The same day I announced that we were expecting kittens I had found three takers so we will give away all three kittens just before we leave so they will have at least nine weeks to nurse. Until then it will be fun to see the furry rat-like kittens grow up.
