The miracle of birth

 Unfortunately, this little story here doesn't have a machine that goes Bing! But it does have a very cute little feline protagonist called Poppy.

So here you go - this is Poppy:

Poppy came to us to recuperate after a surgery on her salivary glands. That also meant that she was on some hardcore pain meds (her vets had given me very strict instructions on how and in what exact quantities to administer them), as well as antibiotics for about a week. She was 9 months old, almost alarmingly skinny (the only other cat we'd had whose vertebrae were palpable and visible was Mystery the renal cat, and she was gravely ill). Nonetheless, Poppy's surgery had gone well, she was doing well and after two weeks with us a vet said her wound had healed nicely and she seemed in good health in general.

I noticed she was eating like a picky horse - she would consume tons of only one particular wet cat food, everything else made her stools soft or she just turned her nose up at it. But she wasn't putting on much weight and her tummy seemed a bit round. So I called the vets, of course. I had earlier confirmed that she had fleas; now they suggested she could also have worms, and should be given a spot-on treatment for the parasites. So we did.

When she had been with us for three weeks and we'd been feeding her like there's no tomorrow, I noticed that she was only getting bigger around the tummy, with the rest of her body still as skeleton-like as before. At the beginning of our acquaintance, I thought that her nipples seemed strangely hard, but I had dismissed it as just one of her physical idiosyncrasies. However, now, taking everything else into account, I started thinking she might be pregnant on top of all of her other woes. So I read up on the signs of feline pregnancy and we also sent her to a vet, just to be sure. Well, the vet didn't need too much time with Poppy to give his learned opinion that she is indeed pregnant. He thought she could be around her 40th day, so we would still have about three weeks to get ready for the event. It was all a guessing game, of course, as it had come as a surprise to everyone.

Nonetheless, going by the vet’s estimated timeline, we didn’t exactly rush into getting her birth box and newspapers ready. We were hoping to give her at least a week to make it her own, so the plan was to get that stuff ready in about a week or so from getting the confirmation. But in the end Poppy only had about 3 days to get to know her birth box, as it turned out.

Well, as you may have guessed, it transpired that the vet had been a little off in his estimation, but could you blame him – owing to her malnutrition she probably did look like a normal cat would at 40 days of pregnancy. So, 10 days later, when we thought she still had about a week or so left, her body said, Hold my beer😉

A top tip here – I think the main thing I learnt about feline labour was the importance of noticing any changes in the cat’s behaviour leading up to the day. Any changes! Yes, from what I had read and heard about cats going into labour, the only thing that matched my experience here were the behavioural changes. But the nature of the changes was a tad off the norm.

Most sources say that the cat will refuse food on the day of labour, Poppy had 4 pouches that morning instead of her usual 2. So naturally I didn’t immediately think that she’d be giving birth that evening. In fact, I thought she was now eating more so in a few days she could forego her meals to give birth.
Also, they’re supposed to start ‘nesting’ about 2 weeks prior to labour, Poppy exhibited nesting behaviour for about 2 days before her delivery. And even then it was a half-arsed effort at best. I’m putting that down to her age – she’s a teenager, so clearly not really all that bothered with all that grown-up stuff😉.

But, one thing in her behaviour did match all the descriptions, because about 2-3 days before the event she became more affectionate, and on the actual day she pretty much demanded I stay with her so she could nod off on my lap, or else we just lay down on the floor facing each other.

And I thought the day must be getting closer, as this was exactly what the books and other sources had told us would happen - this increased need for intimacy.

On 5 April, at around 8.45 pm I heard her scream. For food, I thought, as usual. But when I opened her door, every movable object in the room had been moved, turned upside down, scratched, etc.

Another thing I learnt, in hindsight, was how important it is to trust our instincts when it comes to these raw matters of the body. You see, I usually took pictures of Poppy every weekend, to share her progress with others, but that very morning something told me that she looked a little different, and I took a few pictures to show our friendly neighbourhood vet nurse and ask whether Poppy now looked more like a pear than an apple (that’s supposedly another sign of impending labour). She thought perhaps Poppy’s belly was indeed hanging a bit lower now.

And when I had stepped into the upturned kitten room, I knew it was going to happen there and then.

I was so lucky to have our friendly neighbourhood vet nurse on the other end of the phone, as she was able to instruct me to get a couple of clean towels and a sterilized pair of scissors ready (in case I had to help Poppy with cutting an umbilical cord).

After Poppy had restlessly roamed the room and circled me about a thousand times, I finally coaxed her into the birth box. And then after about a half an hour of contractions, her water broke, well, it shot out of her into a corner of the box. Oh, here's another top tip - make sure you're not facing the business end of labour before the water breaks, as you'll probably end up wearing that moist part of the miracle of birth!

And then the kittens started arriving.

As soon as the first black kitten began pressing his/her head outwards, Poppy panicked, jumped out of the very special birth box, and gave birth on the cold, slippery floor next to it, with nothing to hold on to (I tried to push the rug closer to her for a grip). Once the baby was out, Poppy started to clean it, chomped on the cord a little bit and then gave me a screechy miaow complete with a look of desperation, and walked away from the baby, showing no more interest in the matter. I noticed that she hadn't severed the cord, so I had to cut it with my freshly sterilised scissors. I picked the kitten up and placed it in the box, after which I managed to lure Poppy back in there, too. She got in and continued cleaning the baby and then started nursing him/her.

It was almost the same story with the second black kitten - only Poppy had this one in the box. But she did walk away again after some cleaning and chewing. However, this time she returned on her own volition. But she did not consume the amniotic sac on either occasion. I wasn't sure whether I should be worried - I had heard that they do usually eat it and that it contains necessary nutrients.

By the third kitten Poppy was a pro. Yes, this happened very smoothly and within moments, everything was quick and efficient. It seemed almost blasé - when Poppy felt the new one knocking on the door to this world, she just casually turned away from the two nursing black kittens to get on with the new arrival. It was all very quiet, very dignified; you know, like watching a specialist simply go about their business. All very matter-of-fact. And this time, Poppy actually ate the sac - an activity that's accompanied by a clacking, crunching sound, I don't think I'd ever heard anything like it.
Oh, the third baby was a ginger nut!

With the fourth baby, everything went just like it had the third time around. The only difference was that this last baby was a little runt of a Tortie girl, which means that Poppy's last baby was her mini-me!

It was about 1 am when she had her last baby, I stayed with them until 2, just in case. Before I left them I made sure they all seemed clean and relatively comfortable in the box, and eating, which I thought was the most important thing. Somewhere in the back of my mind was also the nagging worry about the kittens' mental and physical health, considering all the drugs Poppy had had to pop prior to the event. But that worry was to be left for another day.

The next morning I went into the kitten room just hoping they're still alive and warm in the box. As I opened the door, Poppy walked up to greet me as she'd become used to, and there was no sign of the babies! I had heard that sometimes mother cats eat their babies, but come on, Poppy!

Well, she hadn't eaten her babies, she had just placed them on the coldest, hardest surface in the room, in the cubbyhole. So I panicked a little (as I had read that the most important thing for the kittens is to be warm and cosy as they can't regulate their body temperature yet). And then I very delicately, as delicately as I could, carried the kittens back into the box. To this Poppy responded by taking them resolutely back to the cubbyhole. OK, so this was her 'nest'. All I could do now was to bolster it, and cover any openings at the back, so that the kittens couldn't get stuck anywhere by accident. I also erected a makeshift 'fence' out of some cardboard at the front opening of the cubbyhole. But hey, this is getting into Poppy's motherhood and the kittens' babyhood, which will be the topic of a future post. Stay tuned, as they say😉.

To conclude, the whole process was very quiet and calm (after the panic-ridden first one). It was actually a peaceful, beautiful night. This seems like the most obvious admission, but the whole event felt purely natural, and not just for Poppy - even I didn’t feel out of place at all. It’s like we were in it together. I know it sounds corny, but just because something sounds corny, doesn’t mean it is. Indeed, words often fail to reflect reality accurately. Take the most overused 3-word combo in English - ‘I love you’, as an example. Possibly because of its ubiquity, it's become the most vapid everyday phrase, but the actual phenomenon behind that sentence is quite probably the most beautiful thing we're capable of.

As for the miracle in this story of births – it actually doesn’t have anything to do with the birth. It's about Poppy’s wound – a couple of days before going into labour she had started scratching ferociously at her wound again, making a real mess of the site. But during birthing, it changed from the scratched, bloody, bulging, red thumb-sized scab to a small, white, smooth little circle. I mean, that literally, actually happened during that night! It’s almost like her body took a look at the babies and said, well, you're going to have your hands full with this lot, so I’d better fix that other thing asap. And after about a week even the little white circle was gone completely! So yes, while everything about the birth felt completely natural, even ordinary, this truly seemed like a miracle.

PS. Talking about top tips, actually, come to think of it, the most important top tip here in this story goes to the vets. So I guess it’s not really a ‘top tip’, as who am I to lecture the pros, but I would like to implore a tad: whenever an unneutered female cat who’s over 4 months old is brought to you for whatever reason, please also check her for pregnancy. Because as those that know say – an intact female cat only has 3 modes of being – they are either in heat, pregnant or nursing.

So many accidental babies could be potentially avoided by just a simple examination. Thank you!

PPS. You didn’t think I was going to start with a Monty Python reference and not come back to it, did you? So here goes, my absolute favourite birthday song ever: