Took a break?!

Oh man, I just looked at the last post and realized it was last November?! Oops. I have been re-miss with blogging. Let's just blame Facebook, shall we. It's a spare time suckage.

Instead of trying to "catch up" and backtrack, I am going to do my best to just post recent stuff and stay consistent.

This week I had the opportunity to see some Bengal kittens being born. The breeder where I got my kitty called me to let me know her cat was going into labor. Since my Bengal is supposed to be pregnant, I wanted to watch this process. Her male stud cat (Epitimee) is pictured to the left. Epitimee and Lilith are my Keeta's parents.

I got the call at 5AM! So I threw on some clothes and raced over to Teresa's house. Within minutes her cat, Lilith, delivered one healthy 3 ounce baby boy! Seemed pretty easy. Lilith immediately began cleaning her new baby and being a good mama. Within minutes the baby boy was rooting around for a nipple. Success! Next came the placenta. Now this is kind of gross, but the mama cat actually eats the placenta for it's nutrients plus it helps her bring her milk in.

About half an hour later, a 2nd placenta came out. Uh... this was worrisome! The placenta was not attached to an umbilical cord which indicated that the kitty was possibly stuck in the birth canal and was now being deprived of it's oxygen and nutrients. Teresa made a few calls to her other cat breeder friends and searched the Internet frantically while I kept a watchful eye on Lilith. She had more contractions but nothing was coming out. Research showed that a kitty stuck in the birth canal could only survive for 20 minutes or so. When 30 minutes went by we were really worried. Teresa had the emergency vet on the line when we started to see something coming. What we saw was a foot! Which means the kitty was coming out breach. Luckily Teresa knew what to do in this situation and she tried her hardest to help the kitty out without causing any damage. At this point we were still thinking it was the kitty without a placenta attached so we were very worried that the kitty would not be breathing? Teresa was able to pull the kitty out - and she was breathing! Whew! And she had an umbilical cord which was attached! Her placenta came out shortly after that. Hmmm, interesting.

At this point it was close to 8AM and I had to race back home to get ready for work. So I missed the rest of the births. But wow - what a stressful morning! Teresa called me later and updated me that Lilith had 3 healthy kittens and 4 placentas. So it seems that she must have miscarried one of her kitties. Poor thing! But mama and babies were all doing well. Enjoy the photos!